Kenneth Williams

'Oh - what's the bloody point?' Daily tweets from the Williams diaries on the anniversary they were made - often waspish, often thoughtful. Stop messin' about!

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

3/12/80 Today I went to BBC TV Centre for Tomorrow's World, & it was a hell of a day: beginning with exercises in track suits on apparatus ... the eating of synthetic foods and then me demonstrating the watch which gets its energy from body heat on the wrist. [B'cast 2/1/81]

[BBC Archive @BBCArchive]

#OnThisDay 1981: Carry On Thermocoupling: Kenneth Williams was a guest presenter on Tomorrow's World. BBC Archive adores this clip.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

3/10/86 We saw the removal men taking all the stuff for the tart in that flat who was moving out! ... She took a lot of stuff with her, including mirrors.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

1/10/85 We were sitting in deckchairs when a voice said 'Hallo Kenneth' and it was Lionel Bart. It seemed incredible that this sad, disillusioned pale invalid was the dynamic host of those Moroccan days. He admitted 'I got through millions of pounds in a few short years.'

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

29/9/68 To the Playhouse to do 2 'Just A Minute' shows. I chaired the first one and was on the panel in the next. These two were both v. good, and we were all on form & the audience was absolutely splendid.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

27/9/78 Walked home in a bemused state, smiling at strangers.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

26/9/79 he told us 'that pub called The Angel is the haunt of all the local homosexuals' saying the word with two O's like the sound in Bow. When I expressed surprise he told me 'oh yes, there are loads round here!' like a Leigh fisherman talking about cockles

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

25/9/73 I shouted at some man 'You keep away from us! I can tell by the redness of your nose you've got cold germs!' and he scuttled off revealing white clogs on his feet! I shouted 'And get rid of those ridiculous shoes too!'

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

15/6/61 I saw Fenella Fielding today in Connaught Sq. It was a hot day and she was in furs! She looked quite fantastic & oddly fragmented. #RIP

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

11/9/64 It's rather marvellous (when I think of the influence Coward has had on my acting) that I should be now recording two of his most famous songs for HMV.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

10/9/63 Pinewood, arrive 7.45. Tank sequence. All day in the bloody rowing boat, till I was aching all over. Charles Hawtrey was pissed. Breath smelled appallingly. It's a disgrace. Still, one must be charitable.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

9/9/65 Found some marvellous lines of Cicero - "To be wholly idle is not idle, and wholly alone, is not alone ..."

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

7/9/65 It is ironic that in so many ways I resemble my father so much. We are alike in so many things, both of us shared a sense of inferiority, both of us disliked the governing class and its accent

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

6/9/65 Went to see a revival of the Leslie Howard picture Pimpernel Smith. The charm and radiance of L.H. still triumphs over technical & artistic badness. His was the most mysterious quality.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

19/8/50 Richard Burton is really charming

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

18/8/69 In the post office at 10.45 a woman said 'I have seen you on television & I didn't think you were so good'

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

17/8/70 Sitting at the desk. The eyes full of tears. I am so lonely. I am so unhappy. I always have been.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

13/7/67 The Lords have passed Leo Abse's bill, legalising homosexuality in England: it's all right between consenting adults in private except the services! and in Scotland. So it won't do any good for the queens of Dundee & the like.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

10/7/74 To see Carry on Dick (trade show) . . . It was diabolical. The pace is deadly ... at one point I thought it looked as if everyone was ill or something.

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

5/7/67 He [Joe Orton] also said he'd started a diary which would contain details of all the sexual encounters in his life. Stan W. said after, of Joe and Ken, 'Aren't they both boring? They're always talking about themselves.'

[Kenneth Williams @WilliamsDiaries]

3/7/62 Went to the butcher for steak for my lunch. He said to me 'I think you're a bit of prime meat myself . . . four and sixpence my angel