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The Man Who Was Private Widdle

Charles Hawtrey 1914–1988
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The Man Who Was Private Widdle

By: Roger Lewis, Stephen Fry - introduction
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About this listen

 Charles Hawtrey, the skinny one with the granny glasses, was everybody's favourite in the Carry Ons - but who exactly was he? Up to now the man has remained a mystery. Examining Hawtrey's origins as a child star and as a performer in revue and the Will Hay films, this wonderful little book also looks at his career in radio and television, and then to the sad and slow decline of a belligerent recluse in Deal, on the Kent coast. The high camp exuberance of his acting gave way to bitterness and alcoholism - if you asked Hawtrey for an autograph he'd be more likely to call the police instead.

In The Man Who Was Private Widdle, Roger Lewis conjures this sense of doom and acute melancholy which is at the same time hysterically funny. The book opens out like a Chinese box to address such issues as the nature of fame, neglect, loss, sexual confusion, Drambuie, betrayal, Royal Marines bandsmen, and fine cambric knickers trimmed with lace and blue ribbon. Its moral would seem to be that you don't necessarily turn out as the person you thought you'd become. Hawtrey, born to play Shakespearean clowns or Restoration fops, ended up sacked from the Carry On films, wandering about the stage drunk on a provincial tour of Stop It Nurse!

Incorporating extensive new research and exclusive interviews with the major players, The Man Who Was Private Widdle is a masterpiece of biographical investigation and a fitting testament to a quirky comic genius whose place in British cultural history is now assured. ©2026 Roger Lewis (P)2026 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

(A) brilliant little biography
(A) pungent, opinionated and brilliantly intuitive biography of the saddest act in the history of British cinema
Lewis evokes Hawtrey's weird by wholly joyful persona in a monograph worthy of Ken Tynan
Roger Lewis s small but perfectly formed biography . . . like its subject, Lewis s book may be slim but it packs a surprising amount between its covers
This brief book rewards reading
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