On a recent visit to London,
between doing a bit of Christmas shopping and meeting my brother for a
drinkette I decided to troll around the St Pancras area and retrace some
Kenneth Williams haunts.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. In
September 1993 I made a film with a group of friends called Extracts From The KW Diaries. It was
shot on super 8 which gave the KW film a convincing retro feel, bringing life
to the recreations of passages from Williams’ diary extracts from the 1960s,
‘70s and ‘80s.
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| Scene from Extracts from the KW Diaries (1993) |
For our film we visited a
number of KW residences for establishing shots including Farley Court in Allsop
Place and KW’s final apartment block, Marlborough House in Osnaburgh Street
that is now demolished. (A photo of the latter flat, mid-demolition appears in
Butters & Davies, 2008: 270). For my recent walk I didn’t have time to
visit the site of every KW residence, but the following is a list of the places
I did stop and photograph. I’m sharing them here in case anybody else wants to
look them up whenever they’re in London. I’ve also included some screen shots of locations from my KW film from 1993 at the end of this blog post.
Starting at Judd Street off
Euston Road I turned into Hastings Street. Williams lived in no. 80 Alexandra
Mansions in the early 1970s where the woman in the flat below playing the piano
drove him to distraction (Stevens, 2011: 253).
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| Queen Alexandra Mansions on Hastings Street |
Argyle Primary School (formerly
called Manchester Street School) on Tonbridge Street is literally a stones
throw away from Alexandra Mansions. Williams stands on the roof of his old
school in the Comic Roots programme
and recounts his rehearsal for the school play The Rose and the Ring.
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| Argyle Primary School |
I then walked further up Judd
Street and turned into Cromer Street. Here I found Cromer House where Williams
lived as a child and The Boot pub, which features heavily in Comic Roots as the location where KW
recreates the communal sing-a-longs that his family took part in.
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| Cromer House |
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| KW standing outside Cromer House on Comic Roots |
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| The Boot on Cromer Street |
Next I walked along Lisle
Street, past the Norfolk Arms, another pub where Louie Williams used to drink
with her friend Edie Smith (Stevens, 2011: 11).
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| Norfolk Arms on Lisle Street |
On to 57 Marchmont Street
where Charlie Williams had his hairdressing business and where Kenneth’s blue
plaque can be seen. This blue plaque replaces the one that was unveiled on
Marlborough House in 1994 by Barbara Windsor and Norman Wisdom.
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| Blue plaque at 57 Marchmont Street |
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KW's old plaque at Marlborough House (now demolished)
photo from the Guardian, 9/5/1994 |
I then made my way to Upper
Woburn Place to see Endsleigh Court, where Williams lived in flat 817, before
catching the Tube at Euston into the centre.
This was the end of my St
Pancras area walkabout. However, whilst in Covent Garden I walked past
Stanford’s in Long Acre – the map company where Williams had a job as a
draughtsman before taking up a career in acting.
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| Stanford's map shop in Long Acre, Covent Garden |
On Shaftsbury Avenue I also
saw the Apollo Theatre. The site of Williams’ greatest stage hit Pieces of Eight. In my vivid imagination
I saw that Kenneth and Fenella were once again on the bill!
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| The Apollo Theatre (December 2011?!) |
Other places where KW Lived:
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| Farley Court at Allsop Place (screen shots from The Extracts From the KW Diaries, 1993) |
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Marlborough House in Osnaburgh Street (screen shots from
Extracts From the KW Diaries, 1993) |
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| Marlborough House (screen shot from Extracts From the KW Diaries, 1993) |
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| Marlborough House (screen shots from Extracts From the KW Diaries, 1993) |
Bibliography/Further Reading:
- Butters, Wes and Davies,
Russell, 2008, Kenneth Williams Unseen,
London: Harper Collins
- Davies, Russell, 1993, The Kenneth Williams Diaries, London:
Harper Collins
- Stevens, Christopher, 2011, Born Brilliant, The Life of Kenneth Williams,
London: John Murray
- Williams, Kenneth, 1993, Just Williams: An Autobiography, London:
Harper Collins
