1. Kenneth Williams: Born Brilliant
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Christopher Stevens's diligent biography offers illuminating insights into Kenneth Williams's work and inner life. Underpinned by a warm sympathy, Born Brilliant is often revealing and ... well-written -- Sunday Telegraph The book does something interesting and necessary. There is a danger with any book on Williams of just further nailing down the received wisdom: that he was entirely morbid, socially inadequate and consumed by guilt. What Stevens manages to do, even as he throws out all the examples of The Fear, is retune the accepted facts a little and tell the story not just of the melancholia but also of the happiness -- Herald Christopher Stevens has written a solid, workmanlike, authorised biography of this least solid or workmanlike or authorised of figures -- Mail on Sunday Stevens adeptly captures the mercurial temperament and frequent malice. For all his flaws, however, Williams remains lovable, to his devoted friends and fans, as well as to Stevens' readers - Metro
Author: Christopher Stevens
Format: Paper & Kindle 448 pages
Publisher: Amazon Media
Guide price:* Book: £7.50, Kindle: £4.40
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2. The Kenneth Williams Diaries
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'I'll put you in my diary!’ comedian Kenneth Williams was known to threaten on occasion, although tantalisingly he kept the journal to himself during his lifetime. Here at last, in one spellbinding volume, are four million words of it.
For more than forty years, from his sixteenth birthday until the eve of his unexpected death in 1988, the beloved actor and outrageous ‘Carry On’ star Kenneth Williams kept a candid diary. Devastatingly honest about himself, he is equally unsparing in his verdicts on his fellow man. In his descriptions of Tony Hancock, Maggie Smith, Joe Orton and countless others, his waspish sense of humour, love of anecdote and ear for dialogue are given full rein.
Malicious, hilarious and harrowing, ‘The Kenneth Williams Diaries’ are a unique portrait of one of Britain’s most popular and most misunderstood - performers.
A fascinating read of a brilliant mind and tortured soul
Author: Kenneth Williams
Format: Paperback 864 pages
Publisher: Harper Collins
Guide price:* Book: £10.50, Kindle: £
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| 3. The Kenneth Williams Letters
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Following the bestselling publication of THE KENNETH WILLIAMS DIARIES, the devastating self-portrait of one of our most loved and complex performers is completed with this marvellous selection of his letters. This is a wonderful treasure trove of correspondence with all manner of people, including Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Joe Orton, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and the Stokers’ Mess of HMS Leverton. Kenneth Williams took letters very seriously, and he was always disgusted by a morning that failed to provide him with some material to pore over.
Letters called forth the performer in Williams in a way that his diaries never did: many of them are virtual comic monologues, and in general they suggest more strongly than the diaries the likeable and constructive side of a man who remains, nevertheless, as outrageous and ‘difficult’ as ever. Edited by Russell Davies
Author: Kenneth Williams
Format: Paperback 336 pages
Publisher: Harper Collins
Guide price:* Book: £9.70, Kindle: £
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