Carry On Camping DVD

Carry On Camping DVD

Made in 1969, Carry On Camping belongs to the Golden Years before the loveable double-entendres had been replaced by an almost nasty sleaziness. Pretty much everybody is present and correct, if not politically. Sid James is a likely-ish, if slightly elderly lad, persuading Joan Sims to join him at what he secretly expects to be a nudist colony. Terry Scott is a put-upon suburban, coerced into outdoor vacations by his ghastly, horsey-laughed wife, while Charles Hawtrey is the campest of campers who befriends them. Kenneth Williams, who alone makes this worth watching, is gloriously ridiculous as head of a girl's school, Chayste Place, with Hattie Jacques as Matron and Barbara Windsor as one of the 30-year-old fifth formers in their charge. Technically it's terrible stuff, with Barbara Windsor's flying bra, laboured puns galore, peeping tomfoolery, punchlines visible two miles off, "comedy" incidental music and a reactionary denouement in which they chase off a bunch of hippies. Yet if you don't chuckle at least half a dozen times during this, however many times you've seen it, there's probably something wrong with you. –David Stubbs