Carry On at Your Convenience (1971)

Carry On team go political and ostracise their fans?

I like this entry in the series, I really do. Many others however find it a dud and feel that it should be flushed down one of the toilets that feature at W.C. Boggs' factory in the film. Blending the obvious toilet gags with a tale about unionised shop floors, the Carry On team have actually crafted one of the franchise's less mucky pictures. Sid James, so long the bastion of sexually driven lechery in Carry On folklore, has a very restrained role in this one, and this to me somewhat explains to an extent why "Convenience" is often shunned by the series fans.

Elsewhere it's the subplots away from the factory that put the smile on my face. Charles Hawtrey is indulging in strip poker with shop steward, Vic Spanner's mother!. While James' Sid Plummer is getting horse racing winners from his budgie!, all under the watchful eye of his apparently scatty wife Beattie (a terrific Hattie Jacques). Sexy eye candy for us blokes comes in the form of Jacki Piper, and the film finale on the Brighton seaside is drunken buffoonery to at least raise a giggle or two. Not the best Carry On by a long shot - that could have been predicted by Sid and Hattie's budgie, but certainly not one of the worst either. 6.5/10

Kenneth Williams is the grandson of the legendary toilet manufacturer "W.C. Boggs" and he is struggling to keep his staff and his business from, quite literally, going down the pan. Aided by his foreman "Plummer" (Sid James) and his son "Lewis" (Richard O'Callaghan) they alight on one last lifeline for the firm. They must manufacture and deliver 1,000 bidets to the Emir of a Middle Eastern nation in just two months! Fortunately, they have the design expertise of "Coote" (Charles Hawtrey) but their pesky shop steward "Spanner" (Kenneth Cope) spots flaws in the allocation of the labour and a strike is called. No bidets, no business - or can a way be found to turn the taps back on at the works? Yes, there is loads of toilet humour that is just a bit predictably silly but the characters are quite well constructed with plenty of room for some politically incorrect behaviour, some smut and a wee bit of how's your father. It's quite interesting also in that it takes more of a swipe at the working class and at some of the ridiculousness of trade unionism and the culture of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Indeed, by the conclusion you have a bit of sympathy for poor old "Boggs". It's simple humour, and though perhaps not one of the more memorable of the series, is still a jolly enough watch.