Carry On Camping (1968)

Carry On Camping has no plot to speak of – it is simply a collection of familiar eccentrics going on a camping holiday.

But when Sid Boggle (Sidney James) and Bernie Lugg (Bernard Bresslaw) take their girlfriends to the Paradise Camp, the lecherous pair think they’re off to a nudist colony. They couldn’t be more wrong.

At the same time, snooty headmaster of a girls’ school, Dr Soaper (Kenneth Williams), and school matron Miss Haggard (Hattie Jacques) are organising a trip back to nature for the over-sized and over-sexed girls of Chayste Place Finishing School.

The middle-class businessman brigade is represented by a pin-striped Peter Potter (Terry Scott), who is quickly out of his suit and into country gear for yet another horrendous camping holiday with nagging wife, Harriet (Betty Marsden).

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Charlie Muggins (Charles Hawtrey) is having a bit of difficulty with Miss Dobbin (Valerie Leon) in a tent.

For the first half-hour or so, we follow these various misfits through their struggling and hilarious attempts to find the glorious ‘Paradise Holiday Camp’.

Once the team are settled safely in the field, Sid and Bernie approach the sexy nymphets of Babs (Barbara Windsor) and Fanny (Sandra Caron), Miss Haggard tries to lure Dr Soaper into her tent, Charlie Muggins reunites with a less-than-keen Peter Potter and an all-night rave-up in the adjoining field threatens to disrupt several plans for sexual coupling.

This outing is one of the liveliest Carry Ons, with the cast making light of the fact that they were shooting in freezing temperatures in fields that were so muddy they were sprayed green to give the impression of high summer.

In the end, everybody’s happy, it’s been a whiz-bang cascade through a clutch of loosely linked sketches and comic devices, but the Carry Ons came out on top with a timelessly funny example of the team’s work and the biggest money-making film of the year.

“No Barbara . . . tent up first, bunk up later”.

Sid Boggle
Sidney James
Charlie Muggins
Charles Hawtrey
Joan Fussey
Joan Sims
Dr Kenneth Soaper
Kenneth Williams
Peter Potter
Terry Scott
Babs
Barbara Windsor
Matron/Miss Haggard
Hattie Jacques
Bernie Lugg
Bernard Bresslaw
Anthea Meeks
Dilys Laye
Jim Tanner
Julian Holloway
Joshua Fiddler
Peter Butterworth
Harriet Potter
Betty Marsden
Sally
Trisha Noble
Mr Short
Brian Oulton
Jane
Elizabeth Knight
Fanny
Sandra Caron
Joy
Georgina Moon
Hilda
Jennifer Pyle
Betty
Jackie Poole
Mrs Fussey
Amelia Bayntun
Farmer’s Daughter
Patricia Franklin
Pat
Valerie Shute
Verna
Vivien Lloyd
Norma
Lesley Duff
Hefty Girl
Anna Karen
Miss Dobbin
Valerie Leon

Director
Gerald Thomas