“I’ll be tellin’ ’em – once upon a time there was an ugly ducklin’ – I’ll be singin’ ’em – the king was in the orltogevver the orltogevveeeeer! – and I’ll be dancin’ ’em at the New Theatre, Oxford!” Tommo’s early ’80s Hans Christian Andersen musical smash sadly won’t be catalogued in this biopic, which only goes up to 1957. It’s of historical interest to us, though, as this was the first main feature job Anglo Amalgamated’s Peter Rogers gave to trainee scriptwriter Norman Hudis, author of most of the early Carry Ons. Whether we’ll get any of the baroquely supercilious speeches he used to do for Kenneth Williams in the likes of Carry On Sergeant, however, remains in doubt. Steele, as luck would have it, plays Steele. Humphrey “Tim and Willy” Lyttleton plays Bad Penny Blues, or something very like it, along the way.
