Carry On Abroad – 1972 | 88 mins | Comedy | Colour

Plot Synopsis

They don’t come much better than this celebration of the cheap package holiday, all the 1970s’ Carry On regulars line up for disastrous foreign meals at a crumbling hotel, as Sid James goes through the motions as his usual loveable, sex-obsessed cockney hero, Kenneth Williams is fully over-the-top as the ferociously proud Englishman given the unenviable task of ensuring a fun-packed holiday and Charles Hawtrey giggles and drinks away from the main group while desperately trying to play leap-frog with the young ladies. Barbara Windsor is the ultimate sex-bomb, struggling to force her various underwear into her case, Bernard Bresslaw is meek and mild as the devout monk who sees the light when modernised and humanised by a loving Carol Hawkins, Joan Sims, as Sid’s long-suffering and mildly nagging wife, finds a sort of romantic understanding with typical military Officer-type and all-round coward Kenneth Connor. Peter Butterworth charges round the half-finished hotel like a mad whirlwind, the model of the flamboyant, excitable foreigner, with his deliciously over-bearing, explosive and fiery wife, Hattie Jacques. Arguably the series’ most concentrated cascade of funny moments, there is no real hold-up for semi-serious romantics or pathos.

It is simply corny joke following one-liner, following outrageous comment, following sight gag: laughs all the way and a timely jibe at the ever-increasing popularity for economic holidays abroad. A collection of comic situations, sexual revelations and collapsing holiday plans leads to the boring end of holiday party that is quickly livened up by Sid’s injection of a potent sex drug. The party goes with a swing, Hattie Jacques does her Spanish bull impersonation, Charlie Hawtrey talks with glee about his hamsters and everybody couples off. The final joyous scene, with all the holiday-makers surging into Sid’s pub, filling the drinks with elixir and locking the doors for an all-night party, leaves the audience in the company of comic friends having a great time, and forms the most satisfying close to any Carry On.

Review© Robert Ross: Carry On Companion.