Book description
For the first time, in NO LAUGHING MATTER, Norman Hudis, who wrote the
first six Carry On movies, reveals his hitherto secret, decades-long and
quixotic writing-activity since he left the series. It's this: He
Carried On Writing Carry On stories in the hope that, one day, he'd be
asked to return and come up with one! Two typical intriguing examples,
elaborated in these memoirs: "Carry On Under The Pier If Wet",
skewering two doughty British institutions, the seaside concert-party
and boarding-house - and, most audacious of all, "Carry On Shylock
Holmes.". More firsts revealed within these pages: Norman's frank
and terse opinions about, among others, Ted Ray, Hattie Jacques, Joan
SIms ("Did I sleep with her?"), Charles Hawtrey ("Do you
believe in fairies?"), Kenneth Connor and Kenneth Williams and, in
Hollywood, Elvis Presley, Robert Young, Anne Baxter, Erik Estrada, Joan
Crawford and Harold Shmidlap ("Who's he?" Hint: legendary
creator of the TV series "Frontier Accountant."). Emerging,
somewhat bewildered, but with a firm sense of comedy implanted in him by
undergoing upbringing by a rather odd family, Norman felt compelled to
seek substitute families to redress the balance: respectively as a young
newspaperman, then serving airman in the WWII RAF, plus post-war film
publicist and, finally, fully home, as a writer. This autobiography,
therefore, with a fitting foreword by Carry On producer Peter Rogers, is
Norman Hudis in a succinct and delightful nutshell. In his words:
"I call the book NO LAUGHING MATTER as an understatement, because
my life, beginning with the upbringing by my unconventional family, has
actually been such a hysterical hoot, it's no great wonder that I write
comedy. After all, let's face it, I've lived it." For the first
time, in NO LAUGHING MATTER, Norman Hudis, who wrote the first six Carry
On movies, reveals his hitherto secret, decades-long and quixotic
writing-activity since he left the series. It's this: He Carried On
Writing Carry On stories in the hope that, one day, he'd be asked to
return and come up with one! Two typical intriguing examples, elaborated
in these memoirs: "Carry On Under The Pier If Wet", skewering
two doughty British institutions, the seaside concert-party and
boarding-house - and, most audacious of all, "Carry On Shylock
Holmes.". More firsts revealed within these pages: Norman's frank
and terse opinions about, among others, Ted Ray, Hattie Jacques, Joan
SIms ("Did I sleep with her?"), Charles Hawtrey ("Do you
believe in fairies?"), Kenneth Connor and Kenneth Williams and, in
Hollywood, Elvis Presley, Robert Young, Anne Baxter, Erik Estrada, Joan
Crawford and Harold Shmidlap ("Who's he?" Hint: legendary
creator of the TV series "Frontier Accountant."). Emerging,
somewhat bewildered, but with a firm sense of comedy implanted in him by
undergoing upbringing by a rather odd family, Norman felt compelled to
seek substitute families to redress the balance: respectively as a young
newspaperman, then serving airman in the WWII RAF, plus post-war film
publicist and, finally, fully home, as a writer. This autobiography,
therefore, with a fitting foreword by Carry On producer Peter Rogers, is
Norman Hudis in a succinct and delightful nutshell. In his words:
"I call the book NO LAUGHING MATTER as an understatement, because
my life, beginning with the upbringing by my unconventional family, has
actually been such a hysterical hoot, it's no great wonder that I write
comedy. After all, let's face it, I've lived it."
