The Kenneth Williams Diaries

The coroner who recorded an open verdict on the death of Kenneth Williams, on the basis of it being unclear whether the overdose of barbiturates he took was accidental or deliberate, clearly had not read Williams's diary.The theme of suicide runs through the diaries like a continual refrain, and towards the end, when for the final months of his life he is suffering excruciating pain from a spastic colon and a recurring ulcer, Williams is talking about ending it all, and making references to his stockpile of painkillers.Life seems to have been continually painful for him. He recoils from theatre life, and the claustrophobia of rep, and he disdains much of his broadcast work. He develops a strong dislike for many of those he works with, such as Tony Hancock and Sid James, and must have been a continual source of anguish to his agent, petulantly turning down lucrative offers because he "can't be bothered".Even going out in public becomes intolerable to his tetchy personality, although justifiably perhaps as he is ridiculed openly in the streets for his work, his appearance, and his homosexuality.Unable to find love with a suitable partner, or even to consummate a relationship, he begins to realise that the only friend he has, the only one who understands him, is his mother. And as she becomes older and more frail, he realises that he is trapped.The diaries are a fascinating insight into the life and mind of one of our best-loved characters, for even if he did recoil from affection, affection is what we felt for him.

I purchased this because, as a big fan of Williams' radio output, I was mystified by his off-stage depression and general unhappiness in his private life. A warning, then, that this collection of his diaries does not make easy reading, often clearly relating how depressing he finds the human condition to be.The entries are sporadic, often skipping weeks, if not months, at a time, but clearly show how his career evolved and what he thought of the plays, films and radio and TV shows that he took part in. He holds nothing back in his view of other actors, directors and producers, veering from overbearing praise to shocking condemnation with little in between.I've deducted a star only because I found the footnotes, which clarify some of the personalities to whom Williams denotes initials only, to be sometimes incomplete. A little bit of deduction is sometimes necessary to unravel exactly who he was talking about.With that said anyone, like me, who would like to know more about Williams' background and how he became a star of comedy films and radio shows will be fascinated by this intrusion into his private life, clearly displayed by diary entries that read as though they were written partly for his own amusement and often to assuage the anguish that he felt inside. Not an easy read, nor an entertaining one, but a fascinating dive into one person's highly opinionated psyche.

Most entertaining. Almost every entry is entertaining. It is the diary of a very complex entertainer, contradictory, erratic, opinionated, puritanical, obsessive, depressive, blatantly homosexual in his own way etc etc. . It is as if writing such a detailed diary was as a safely valve, although he seems to have shamelessly used other people for that purpose as well. Yet he managed to retain friends. Amazing.

Having been a fan of the Carry On films and KW's appearances on 80s chat shows, I had been meaning to buy a copy of this book for some time. With a few weeks off I took the plunge and purchased. At first I thought a few weeks would be necessary is this is a massive book! 40+ years of diary entries in there. In the end I ploughed through in just a few nights as the pace is furious. I found myself reading late into the night as I just couldn't find a suitable place to take a break. As per other reviewers I was actually expecting to find more bitchiness than there actually was. A common theme is that he will say how someone slighted him on one day and how much he wanted revenge, only then to praise the same person a couple of days later and chastise himself for not seeing things from their point of view. The really interesting points for me were the entries regarding the more mundane aspects of his life, and especially how his views changed over the years. I enjoyed reading about his relationship with Work. How he started projects with such vigour but then quickly dropped the energy only to hate the job before long. How true. It is the honesty in this diary that makes it so interesting. This book could also be a course text for those studying depression, mother/ son relationships, repressed sexuality and I would also say alcoholism (I reckon at least a quarter of this book was written when KW was drunk). There is also a love of London running a thread through this book. There are nuggets of classic cattiness in there but they lie like diamonds amongst 50 pages of coal (for "coal" think complaints about either the weather, strikers, tax, noisy neighbours, poor service, autograph hunters, bad scriptwriters, poor directors or musclebound workers not reciprocating KW's advances).

I enjoyed reading Kenneth William’s diaries. It was historically interesting as well as being entertaining and funny, often laugh aloud. The diaries starts during the war in his boyhood years and ends at his death in 1988 at the age of 62. I now greatly admire the late Kenneth Williams. He was a very clever and deeply intelligent man who although felt out of place within his class ‘of idiots ‘ never left those London roots he was born into.I decided to read these diaries after seeing a comment on tweeter from someone who saw KW in London and decided he didn’t like him because of the way he behaved but after reading his diaries he was able to understand why he behaved the way he did and it changed his opinion of him. I hope people will read these diaries even if they are too young to remember him as it is testimony of life.