Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! | |
---|---|
Written by | Martyn Hesford |
Directed by | Andy De Emmony |
Starring | Michael Sheen Cheryl Campbell Beatie Edney Kenny Doughty |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
No. of episodes | 1 |
Production | |
Running time | 79 mins |
Original release | |
Network | BBC Four |
Release | 13 March 2006 |
Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! is a 2006 BBC Four television play starring Michael Sheen as the British comic actor Kenneth Williams, based on Williams' own diaries. Cheryl Campbell plays Williams's mother, Lou.
Michael Sheen performed extensive research for the role, watching archive footage and reading books. He also followed the cabbage soup diet to lose 2.5 stone (35 lb; 16 kg) to play Williams. [1]
Viewing figures were 860,000 for its original airing, including timeshift, making it by far the most popular BBC Four broadcast of March 2006. Its repeat showing on 17 March 2006 garnered another 252,000 viewers. [2]
Sheen's performance won a Royal Television Society Award for Best Male Actor, [3] and the play also won two BAFTA nominations (best single play and best actor, Michael Sheen). [4]
It was released on DVD as Fantabulosa! – The Kenneth Williams Story in October 2009, and has been rebroadcast several times in the UK since its original airing. [5]
The drama received good reviews, with Kathryn Flett of The Observer singling out Sheen's performance as "a characterisation for which the description tour-de-force is, frankly, pretty faint praise". [6] The Times compared Sheen's performance to "a diamond that is so dazzling as a result of the expertise deployed in its cutting that you can't fully focus on the underlying shape of the stone, which is what actually enables it to glitter so spectacularly." [7]
Kenneth Charles Williams was a British actor and comedian. He was best known for his comedy roles and in later life as a raconteur and diarist. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Carry On films, and appeared in many British television programmes and radio comedies, including series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne, as well as being a frequent panellist on BBC Radio 4's comedy panel show Just a Minute from its second series in 1968 until his death 20 years later.
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Stephen Anthony Critchlow was a British actor, known for his work in the theatre and appearances on radio series such as Truly, Madly, Bletchley, The Way We Live Right Now, and Spats, along with radio episodes of Torchwood, and Doctor Who. He has also appeared in Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! as Kenneth Horne, in Red Dwarf XI as computer-generated space ship captain Edwin Herring, Hattie as the Carry On film director Gerald Thomas and appeared in the West End version of The 39 Steps.
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