Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2006


Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!

Buy Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!' is a 2006 BBC Four television play starring Michael Sheen as the English 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 to play Williams.

The drama received good reviews, with 'The Observer 'singling out Sheen's performance as "a characterisation for which the description tour-de-force is, frankly, pretty faint praise". '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 cant fully focus on the underlying shape of the stone, which is what actually enables it to glitter so spectacularly."

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.BARB official [http://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-10/ Weekly Top 10 Programmes] BBC4 w/e 5 March 2006, 12 March 2006, 19 March 2006, 26 March 2006, 2 April 2006. The closest rivals were 'The Chatterley Affair', 2100 on 20 March 2006, with 546,000 viewers, and 'A for Andromeda', with 580,000 on 26 March 2006 at 2101

Sheen's performance won a Royal Television Society award for Best Male Actor,[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/mar/14/broadcasting.television1 RTS programme awards winners], 14 March 2007, The Guardian and the play also won two BAFTA nominations (best single play and best actor, Michael Sheen).[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/apr/11/broadcasting BAFTA nominations announced], 11 April 2007, The Guardian

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.

Cast



* Michael Sheen Kenneth Williams

* Cheryl Campbell Lou Williams

* Peter Wight Charlie Williams

* Beatie Edney Joan Sims

* Kenny Doughty Joe Orton

* Ron Cook Peter Eade

* Martin Trenaman Tony Hancock

* David Charles Charles Hawtrey

* Ewan Bailey Kenneth Halliwell

* Rachel Clarke Barbara Windsor

* Connor Garnett Comerford Young Kenneth Williams

* Beatrice Comins St Joan/Actress

* Timothy Davies 1st Doctor

* Stephen Critchlow Kenneth Horne

* Guy Henry Hugh Paddick

* Ged McKenna Sid James

* Nicholas Parsons Himself

See also



* 'The Curse of Steptoe'

* 'Prick Up Your Ears'

References




Buy Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 2006



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1108579276.