The Kenneth Williams Diaries

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Shani Louk's brother reveals 'our whole family crashed' when they saw her being paraded by Hamas 'spitting. A very complex character comes through, with a personality that really I would not wish upon anyone. Some were close friends - Maggie Smith, Gordon Jackson, Stanley Baxter, Barbara Windsor, Hattie Jacques, Sheila Hancock.

As erudite as he was rude, Kenneth Williams is now remembered as the author of a bleak and illuminating diary and not just for his saucy anecdotes and Carry On films.

You really have to read the book, I am certain that when reading his diary entries, many here will relate. When Kenneth died from an overdose of barbiturates (‘my hoard of poison’) washed down with alcohol, the coroner brought in an open verdict.

Obviously very intelligent, very thoughtful and very well read, his presence as a purveyor of smut seems a dramatic contrast to the person he would have liked to have been. Williams withdrew from several successful plays after they became established precisely because they became established. Fantastic for a Carry On fan like myself, to really gain an understanding of the person behind the characters - especially as he died before I was born.

I think we live in an increasingly uncertain world - more and more people want to understnad not only themselves but the world around them. In April 2008 Radio 4 broadcast the two-part The Pain of Laughter: The Last Days of Kenneth Williams. He appeared on Michael Parkinson's chat show on eight occasions, during which he told anecdotes from his career. The varied extremes of their shared social life, from glamorous parties with famous names such as Rudolf Nureyev and Williams's good friend, the playwright Joe Orton, to quiet evenings of Scrabble at their north London home, have answered many questions about the private life of this lonely star. Victoria Coren Mitchell, 51, reveals she's given birth to her second child with her comedian husband David,.

Williams was a working class homosexual at a time it was frowned upon, which made him withdrawn and depression was something he fought all his life, often shunning friends and the limelight and reading philosophy books and listening to classical music for solace. Anyway, my mother was a Morgan, and my father was a Williams, so I suppose the ancestry can be said to be Welsh. On the principle of ‘tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner’ he detailed his tiniest thoughts, his most shameful misdemeanours. Failure to become a serious dramatic actor disappointed him, but his potential as a comic performer gave him his break when he was spotted playing the Dauphin in George Bernard Shaw's St Joan in 1954 by radio producer Dennis Main Wilson.I don't even like the sound of the Welsh language, and I think their insistence on retaining it is barmy. Kenneth Williams Unseen by Wes Butters and Russell Davies, the first Williams biography in 15 years, was published in October 2008.