Who is Carol Hawkins?

Blonde, beautiful and extremely likable are some of the many ways to describe Carol Hawkins.
She first appeared on the screen in The Body Stealers (1969) and in a few other films following her debut. However, it is for her 'Carry On...' film work which she is best remembered throughout the 1970s, together with her role as sexy Sharon Eversleigh in the TV series, Please Sir! (1968).

Appearing in the very successful Carry on Abroad (1972) as Marge, her character was paired with 'Lily' played by Sally Geeson, both of whom go off to the Spanish Island, with the rest of the 'Carry On...' gang, looking for love. Her contribution to the film was an important one and her character is enjoyable to watch on-screen.
Her performance was so successful that she was asked back to be Sandra in Carry on Behind (1975). Although, not the best of the Carry On films she was certainly memorable.
In addition to appearing in two Carry On films, she had also appeared in Carry on Again Christmas (1970).

Carol also appeared as a supporting player in the Carry on Laughing! (1975) television series. Her place in 'Carry On...' history as a supporting 'Carry Oner' is certainly sealed.
In recent years, and with the decline of the British film industry, Carol found work in television in comedy series like My Husband and I (1987). It is a shame that she has not done more work on television, however she did appear in Doctors (2000) in 2004 playing "Pam Jordan" in an episode called "Getting On".

In recent times, Carol has appeared at some of the memorabilia events at the NEC in Birmingham.
Hawkins trained early on as a shorthand typist at Pitman´s College, London, but following some modelling and promotion work attended the Corona Stage Academy in Hammersmith, London. While still training as an actress, she won the part of Sharon Eversleigh in the film of the popular television series Please Sir!, replacing the departed Penny Spencer. Hawkins went on to play the part of Sharon in The Fenn Street Gang.

Hawkins is perhaps best known for her sexy "crumpet" roles in Please Sir! and in two Carry On films: Carry On Abroad (1972), alongside Sally Geeson, and Carry On Behind (1975), alongside Sherrie Hewson. She appeared in the television series, but she declined to appear in the 1976 Carry On England, finding the proposed nudity excessive (the part written for Hawkins was played instead by Tricia Newby). Other film appearances at this time include principal roles in British comedy films Not Now, Comrade, and the sex comedy Confessions of a Pop Performer. At the end of 1976, she appeared in the Porridge episode The Desperate Hours as a fake doctor assigned to secretly give Fletcher a false passport.
Hawkins "more or less retired" in 2005, with the aim of devoting more time to spiritual matters and animal care.

Who is Louise English .. Benny Hills Angels

Louise English is an English actress with many roles in West End plays and nationally touring musical theatre productions who was a regular performer on the The Benny Hill Show from 1978 to 1986, as one of Benny's Angels. (the show ran from 1955 to 1991).
Louise began dancing at the age of two and a half years. As a child, she won a scholarship to and for ten years attended the Stella Mann School of Dancing in London, where she passed examinations in classical ballet and modern dance and completed her academic schooling. She also attended the Anna Scher Theatre School and turned down the opportunity to attend the Royal Ballet School, preferring to concentrate on the acting side of her career.
While at ballet school, English was chosen to appear in the classic children’s film Bugsy Malone (1976) in the role of the ballerina. Soon after, she was selected as the 1977 Butlin's Holiday Princess.
While still in school, she auditioned for a place with Pan's People, a nationally touring dance troupe, and was offered a contract. After completing her schooling she began a year filled with television appearances, cabaret, theatre, trade shows, modelling at fashion shows, and appearing in television commercials. After appearing at an Isle of Wight showcase, singing became an important part of English's career and she formed her own group, Patches, which played at London clubs.
English was chosen by Benny Hill to be one of the original members of Hill's Angels on The Benny Hill Show and earned a role as a featured performer. She spent eight years on The Benny Hill Show, dancing with the Hill's Angels and occasionally performing supporting roles in sketches with the show's writer and host. She also was the featured performer in song-and-dance numbers, performing renditions of classic songs including "La Vie en Rose", "Pour Un Flirt Avec Toi", "Paradise", and "Milord".
Louise English in House of the Long Shadows (1983)
English appeared on other television shows, including playing the role of Lucia Morella in five episodes of the popular BBC series Brush Strokes and filming the pilot for the BBC game show Full Swing. English was also a featured guest on the Central TV entertainment specials Elkie and Our Gang with Elkie Brooks and Gemma Craven, Saturday Royal, and Entertainment Express (all choreographed by Nigel Lythgoe), Dream Alley, and Starburst. Additional TV credits include Fresh Fields, Lytton’s Diary, Full House, Chance in a Million, Give Us a Clue, and Don’t Rock the Boat (all for Thames TV), and guest appearances on the Mike Yarwood Show. She has also appeared in EastEnders.

English starred in cabaret in England, the Channel Islands, and Bangkok, performed Shakespeare, and appeared in minor parts in feature films, including The Wicked Lady (1983) with Faye Dunaway, Denholm Elliott, and John Gielgud, and House of the Long Shadows (1983) with Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, John Carradine, and Peter Cushing.
She has starred as leading lady in many comedies and dramas, including Absent Friends, Suddenly at Home, Tommy Boy, Don't Dress For Dinner, Bedside Manners, and Shadow of Doubt.
English is a veteran of several national tours, including nine months as the lead in Mike Harding's comedy Fur Coat and No Knickers, Ted Willis' play Tommy Boy, Tom Lehrer's Tom Foolery, Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, and Russ Abbot's Madhouse. She travelled to Stockholm to perform a role in Neil Simon's I Ought To Be In Pictures.
She played the lead role of Louise in Gypsy: A Musical Fable at the Crucible Theatre, played Bella Spellgrove in a national tour and on the cast-recorded CD of Sherlock Holmes - The Musical, and was the female vocal lead in Maxwell - The Musical and Italian Idol - The Musical.
She also appeared in the national tour of My Dearest Ivor, an original musical that honoured Ivor Novello. In this show, she played eight roles and sang ten songs. English performed dramatic roles as Bella Manningham in the Victorian thriller Gas Light, as Sybil Chase in Private Lives, and as Liz in Shadow of Doubt.
She has played the principal girl or boy in over ten pantomimes throughout the UK, including Babes in the Wood, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk, Dick Whittington, Mother Goose, The Bells of Notre Dame, and a record-breaking run of Snow White.

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On the Buses What is it?

On The Buses TV Series

Jack-the-lad bus driver and conductor Stan and Jack enjoy the female employees more than their work and Inspector Blake is relentless in his attempts to make their lives a misery.

On the Buses is a British sitcom created and written by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney (although stars Stephen Lewis and Bob Grant also wrote several episodes) broadcast from 1969 to 1973. It spawned three spin-off feature films and a stage version. Despite the writers' previous successes with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife with the BBC, the corporation rejected On the Buses, not seeing much comedy potential in a bus depot as a setting. The comedy partnership turned to a friend, Frank Muir, Head of Entertainment at London Weekend Television, who loved the idea; the show was accepted and despite a poor critical reception became a hit with viewers.

In my book On The Buses is the greatest sit-com of all time.It has all the ingredients to make superb viewing such as:- wonderful cast,great acting,superb scripts,memorable moments,one-liners and double entendres.If you are a member of the politically correct society then this classic is not for you.This series ran for 74 episodes and three spin-off films and quite superbly hits all the right notes.Written by the great comedy writing duo Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe it stars Reg Varney (bus driver Stan),the late Bob Grant (bus conductor Jack Harper),Stephen Lewis (Inspector Blake),the late Doris Hare (Stan's mum),Anna Karen (Stan's sister) and Michael Robbins (Stan's brother-in-law) all of whom excel.

Reg Varney as Stanley "Stan" Butler – a bus driver who works for the Luxton and District Traction Company along with Jack and Blake. He lives with his mother Mabel, sister Olive and brother-in-law Arthur. Stan often chats up the sexy clippies at the bus depot.

Cicely Courtneidge (series 1) and Doris Hare (series 2-7) as Mabel Butler, Stan's mother. She is a maiden in distress when it comes to money. The Butler household is forever losing money and regularly getting the electricity cut off. Mabel is frequently caught up in arguments between Arthur, Olive and Stan.

Anna Karen as Olive Rudge, Stan's sister. Olive is always being criticised by her husband Arthur, even though she helps her mum with household jobs and frequently helps Stan with the decorating. Olive has twice been a clippie at the bus depot, both times being unsuccessful. She is always wanting "an early night" with Arthur, much to his displeasure.

Michael Robbins as Arthur Rudge, Stan's brother in law. He is somewhat snooty and stuck up, and frequently resists Olive's intimate advances. His hospital operation is a frequent source of ridicule from Stan. Arthur is always tampering with his motorbike, which usually falls apart.

Bob Grant as Jack Harper, Stan's conductor, best friend and next-door neighbour. He and Stan are always getting into trouble and getting reprimanded by Inspector Blake. Whether it is tampering with radio controls, changing[clarification needed] and putting "DIVERSION" road signs in the wrong places or going on dates with the buxom clippies, they are always getting into scrapes.

Stephen Lewis as Cyril "Blakey" Blake – the inspector at the bus depot. Whenever there is a "brilliant idea" at the bus depot, it is usually Blakey's. These are usually elaborate schemes to temper Stan and Jack's frequent insubordination, or to entrap them in their misadventures in a bid to get them fired. However Blakey's schemes typically backfire with hilarious consequences, and land him either in trouble with the General Manager or in hospital.

 

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Fawlty Towers What is it?

Hotel owner Basil Fawlty's incompetence, short fuse, and arrogance form a combination that ensures accidents and trouble are never far away.
Inept and manic English hotel owner and manager, Basil Fawlty, isn't cut out for his job. He's intolerant, rude and paranoid. All hell frequently breaks loose as Basil tries to run the hotel, constantly under verbal (and sometime physical) attack from his unhelpful wife Sybil, and hindered by the incompetent, but easy target, Manuel; their Spanish waiter.

John Cleese (Basil Fawlty) and Connie Booth (Polly Sherman) were really husband and wife when they created and wrote the scripts for the first series. By the beginning of filming for the second season their marriage had fallen apart and they had divorced.
If you were to look up some of the most hysterical moments on the BBC, you would no doubtably come across two names. Those names would be John Cleese and Ricky Gervais. While Gervais recently found comedy through his program called 'The Office', Cleese has been providing wit, wisdom, and down-right hysteria for the past several decades. While away from his namesake (Monty Python), you can find Cleese comfortable in several other roles that showcase his bubbling talent. One of those programs just happens to be the funniest bit of crumpet called 'Fawlty Towers'.

Remembering this show when I was a child and was on our local PBS station, I eagerly bought it when it was released on DVD about a year ago. Since then, I have watched random episodes here and there but never fully taking in the enjoyment from watching it all. So, today I decided to sit down and watch this series from beginning to end and I have yet to finish laughing. If this program doesn't define comic genius, I don't know what does. Never have I witnessed a show that has continually been fresh, hysterical (I cannot use that word enough), real, and outlandish all at the same time. Normally, with our current television programming, you need to pick or choose which it will be, but thankfully 'Fawlty Towers' is all of these and many more.

Cleese remains in top form as Basil Fawlty, the owner/manager of the B&B that just happens to have his hands and over-worked imagination in everything. With the aid of his helpers Manuel (he's from Barcelona) and Polly (co-writer Connie Booth and ex-wife of Cleese), Cleese always seems to find himself in a heap of trouble with his wife Sybil (the dragon of the hotel). Armed with physical humor and a snake-like banter, we witness everything from a dead body, hotel inspectors, a failed anniversary party, a moose head, and a Himalayan rodent of sorts happen to this simple, everyday, B&B. This is not only a few of the episodes you will find in the complete set, but also the daily stress that Basil finds himself falling into daily.

This series, again, is hysterical. Cleese is the master of his trade while proving that he can manage any task thrown in front of him. While some will argue that he overshadows the rest of the cast, I would say 'hogwash' to that. My two favorite characters in this series were Major and Manuel. The comedy that they provide cannot be found on television today.
All I need to say is thank God for the BBC.

Who is Jennifer Saunders?

Jennifer Saunders is an English comedian, screenwriter, and actress. 
She was born July 6th 1958 in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, UK. She attended Central School of Speech and Drama where she met her comedy partner Dawn French. Like many of the early 80s groundbreaking "alternative" comedians she began her career as comedienne/actress/writer with Dawn French at "The Comedy Store" in London, where she met fellow comedians Adrian Edmondson (later her husband), Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Alexei Sayle and Peter Richardson, who later opened his own club, "The Comic Strip", where these comedians quickly formed a regular format.

The Comic Strip team were transferred to television screens with great success as they all starred alongside each other in The Comic Strip Presents... (1982). After The Comic Strip she starred in a few episodes of The Young Ones (1982), Girls on Top (1985) and Happy Families (1985). Afterwards she and Dawn French wrote a TV show of their own, French and Saunders (1987), which was an immense success due to the double acts genius writing, brilliant acting performances and hilarious spoofs of world famous blockbusters and bands. It was in one of the episodes of "French and Saunders" that the audience had the pleasure of watching a sketch about an uptight daughter and a crazy, neurotic mother that became a comedy classic sitcom. When the BBC next asked Saunders to write something, she just couldn't come up with any ideas, so she decided to expand on that sketch, making it more outrageous and therefore funnier - Absolutely Fabulous (1992) was born.

Perhaps by coincidence Saunders had created one of the most loved, funny, and creative TV Shows in BBC history. Three series were made, in 1995 the show was put on hold until Saunders began writing again and came back with a fourth series in 2001. She is always ready for charity as well, she has been doing "Comic Relief" with a lot of her comedy companions ever since 1986. Jennifer Saunders, one of the most loved TV faces in Britain, will hit the screens with her fifth series of Absolutely Fabulous in 2003. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is an upcoming 2016 British comedy film directed by Mandie Fletcher and written by Jennifer Saunders, based on the television show Absolutely Fabulous. The film stars Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield, and Jane Horrocks.

Edina and Patsy are still oozing glitz and glamor, living the high life they are accustomed to; shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London's trendiest hot-spots. Blamed for a major incident at an uber fashionable launch party, they become entangled in a media storm and are relentlessly pursued by the paparazzi. Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich, the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent and live the high life forever more!

Who is Ronnie Corbett?

Ronnie Corbett was a Scottish stand-up comedian, actor, writer and broadcaster, best known for his long association with Ronnie Barker in the BBC television comedy sketch show The Two Ronnies.

Ronnie Corbett began his successful show business career in the early 1950s. Amongst many other things he performed on stage with Danny La Rue in a cacophony of well received variety and cabaret shows. It was whilst performing in these shows that Corbett attracted the attention of several top TV producers and executives who were impressed with his abilities as a stand up comedian, compare and all round entertainer.

Before too long Corbett found himself being offered roles in various sitcoms, films and family shows.
His varied film roles include "Polo" in the spoof Bond film Casino Royale (1967), "Drooby" in Rockets Galore (1958) and finally the hapless "Chumleigh" in Fun at St Fanny's (1955).
On television he provided light hearted comedy in Crackerjack! (1955) for many years.
His big break came during the 1960s when he was asked to join the cast of the hugely popular The Frost Report (1966) which included the likes of John Cleese and of course David Frost.
The show also saw him performing alongside Ronnie Barker for the very first time. All aspects of "The Frost Report" were very funny but some of the most enjoyable involved Barker and Corbett who shared a rare comic chemistry between each other. TV producers recognized this chemistry and there were talks of giving the pair their own comedy series.

Corbett had numerous projects in the late sixties including the enjoyable The Corbett Follies (1969) and No, That's Me Over Here! (1967). Then in 1971 Barker asked him to star in the comedy sketch series The Ronnie Barker Yearbook (1971).
The rest is history - the Two Ronnies had arrived together - it was simply comic genius, Barker and Corbett were made for each other, a pairing that was just destined to be. Later on that year The Two Ronnies (1971) show was born on BBC 1 and remained incredibly popular well into the late eighties when Barker sadly announced his retirement from television.

There is no doubt that Ronnie Barker is the best comedy actor of his generation, but over the years many critics have unfairly overlooked the brilliant talents of Corbett - he is a fantastically versatile comedy actor in his own right. He was an equal part in the relationship - put simply he complemented Barker and Barker complemented him.

As well as being a wonderful comedy actor Corbett is also an accomplished after dinner speaker and of course a very very funny stand up comedian. During the filming of the "Two Ronnies" Corbett found time to branch off into a whole host of other projects as did Ronnie Barker.
First there were his own shows such as All This and Corbett Too (1975), The Prince of Denmark (1974) and The Ronnie Corbett Special (1979). Then came his excellent sitcom Sorry! (1981) which ran for over seven years. There were also films such as No Sex Please: We're British (1973).
Ronnie Corbett has enjoyed continued success in both film and television. He starred alongside old friend John Cleese, and Jamie Lee Curtis in the film Timbuctoo (1998), has done numerous pantomimes with Frank Skinner and Paul Merton and is one of the stars in Monkey Trousers (2004) with Steve Coogan, Vic Reeves, Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

In 2005 Corbett reunited with Barker to present a special six part series looking back at their favorite moments from the "Two Ronnies".
Corbett is a charismatic and extremely likable man - there is absolutely no doubt that he will be fondly remembered by millions of people as being not only half of one of the most successful comedy duos of all time, but also as a truly brilliant entertainer.

RIP Ronnie Corbett