--- title: "Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!" year: 2006 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/kenneth-williams-fantabulosa" fi1m_id: "kenneth-williams-fantabulosa" imdb_id: "tt0490126" tmdb_id: 39307 wikidata_id: "Q6390834" fi1m_score: 65 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-07T14:30:38.643261+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T14:31:04.556581+00:00" region: "SG" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! (2006) Directed by Andy De Emmony · 1h 19m · Comedy, Drama ## Identity Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/kenneth-williams-fantabulosa - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** kenneth-williams-fantabulosa - **IMDb ID:** tt0490126 - **TMDB ID:** 39307 - **Wikidata ID:** Q6390834 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490126/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/39307, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6390834 **Fi1m score: 65** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Michael Sheen does the voice, the nostrils and the loneliness; the film around him only does the voice > Michael Sheen’s Kenneth Williams is the reason to watch, and nearly enough: the voice, the nostrils, and the silence when the front door shuts. Martyn Hesford’s script is a run of famous moments with the years between them left out. ## Synopsis London, the 1960s and after. Kenneth Williams (Michael Sheen) is the most recognisable voice in British comedy, flaring his nostrils on the Carry On set beside Joan Sims (Beatie Edney) and camping through Round the Horne recordings with Hugh Paddick (Guy Henry) and Kenneth Horne (Stephen Critchlow). Then he goes home to a small, spotless flat and writes it all down in his diary. His mother Lou (Cheryl Campbell) is never far away with a cup of tea; his father Charlie (Peter Wight) has no time for any of it. His agent Peter Eade (Ron Cook) keeps the work coming. The playwright Joe Orton (Kenny Doughty) offers him a different sort of life. Williams wants to be adored and left alone, and the film watches him try to have both. ## Review *Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa* runs 79 minutes and tries to fit a life into them. Martyn Hesford’s script credits Williams himself as co-writer, which is fair, since a good deal of it is lifted from the diaries he kept for decades and which were published after his death. Andy De Emmony directs it as a chamber piece: a man, a flat, a desk, and short trips out to the studio where he is paid to be funny. It is a sensible design for a television film with little money. It produces one remarkable performance inside a thin picture. The voice is the easy part. Every man in Britain over fifty can do the voice, and most of them do it at weddings. What Sheen gets that nobody else has is the distance between the act and the person doing it. On the Carry On set he is all elbows and vowels, the nostrils going like bellows, the eyes checking that everyone is watching. Back in the flat the elbows come in, the chin drops, and he writes a sentence in the diary about how much he loathed every one of them. We laughed, properly, at a scene in which he performs the whole repertoire for a room that has not asked for it; then Stephen O’Connell cuts to him alone at the desk, and the laugh went cold in our throat. That cut is the only trick the film has. Sheen makes it work every time it is used. The people around him are sketched quickly and well. Cheryl Campbell plays Lou Williams as a woman who has decided to notice nothing, and the scenes of the two of them bickering over a teapot are the warmest in the film. Peter Wight’s Charlie is sour and brief, which is the point. Beatie Edney’s Joan Sims is the one colleague allowed to see through him, and Edney gives her a tired kindness that suggests a whole friendship the script has no room to show. Kenny Doughty’s Joe Orton arrives like a draught through an open window. Ron Cook, as the agent Peter Eade, mostly waits on the telephone. Nicholas Parsons turns up as himself, which is either a nice joke or a budget decision, and works as both. David Odd shoots the flat in browns and creams under a single lamp, and the studio in a flatter, brighter light that makes the Carry On scenes look like the films themselves: cheap, cheerful and slightly too lit. Tristin Norwell and Nick Green keep the music sparse and out of the way. When the film wants to hurt you it lets Sheen do it rather than the score, which is the right instinct and not a common one in dramas of this kind. The trouble is the shape. Hesford has written a list of the things everyone knows about Kenneth Williams and De Emmony has filmed them in order. Years pass between scenes with nothing to mark them. Orton’s strand is picked up and then left where it falls. We are shown Williams performing and Williams despairing and almost nothing in between: not the work of building the voice, not a rehearsal, not an afternoon he enjoyed. A man who is only ever on or off is a diagram, and 79 minutes is not long enough for a diagram to become a person, however good the actor inside it. The one review we have read found the film cold and kept its praise for Sheen. We came out a little warmer than that, because the mother-and-son scenes have real feeling in them and because the film never once sneers at its subject, which a lesser version would have. But it is thin, and it knows it is thin, and it hopes the performance will cover the gaps. It nearly does. Watch it for Sheen, in one sitting; it asks little of your evening. If you grew up with the Carry Ons it will hurt rather more than you expect. If you did not, it is a decent short account of why the man was loved and why he seems to have found that so hard to bear. *Fi1m score 65, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **How long is Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!, and what is it rated?** *Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!* runs 1h 19m. It is a comedy and drama film. **Where can I watch Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! in Singapore?** *Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!* is not on any streaming or rental service in Singapore at the moment. It is available in 10 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. ### Reviews we read (1) - **The Guardian**, Kathryn Flett (50/100, inferred): Flett finds the drama flawed and emotionally distant, despite its impressive lead performance. She especially praises Michael Sheen’s deeply affecting portrayal of Kenneth Williams. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2006/mar/19/features.review7) ## Details - **Director:** Andy De Emmony - **Director:** Andy De Emmony - **Writer:** Martyn Hesford, Kenneth Williams - **Cinematography:** David Odd - **Editor:** Stephen O'Connell - **Music:** Tristin Norwell, Nick Green - **Cast:** Michael Sheen as Kenneth Williams; Cheryl Campbell as Lou Williams; Peter Wight as Charlie Williams; Beatie Edney as Joan Sims; Kenny Doughty as Joe Orton; Ron Cook as Peter Eade; Guy Henry as Hugh Paddick; Joseph Morgan as Alfie - **Runtime:** 1h 19m - **First release (the UK):** 16 March 2006 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama ## Where to watch in Singapore Not streaming, renting or buying in Singapore at the last check. Also available in: BG, DE, GB, GR, HR, IS, LT, RS, UA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Prick Up Your Ears* (1987): Joe Orton’s side of the story, with Gary Oldman and a far longer fuse - *Carry On Up the Khyber* (1968): Williams at full stretch; see what the film is grieving for - *Hancock and Joan* (2008): Another British comic coming apart off camera, given more room to do it - *The Entertainer* (1960): Olivier as a music-hall act who cannot stop; the original lonely performer - *Lenny* (1974), Fi1m 67: Bob Fosse’s Lenny Bruce; the American version of talent eating its owner — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/lenny.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/kenneth-williams-fantabulosa