Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Angela Douglas is one of Britain’s much loved actors. Married to one of British cinema’s legendary performers, she made a mark in both theatre and films, notably perhaps the four Carry On Films she appeared in as the romantic female lead, Carry On Sreaming, Cowboy, Follow That Camel, On Up The Khyber and in films such as The Comedy Man and The Gentle Terror. Her life is one that unfortunately seen under the gaze of a British public that was under such moral sexual introspection, a hangover from the so called Victorian values that dominated society until the 1970s and the perhaps phony tides in which people judged other lives.
In her frank, sometimes gentle and loving, at points undeniably shattering autobiography, Swings and Roundabouts, Ms Douglas talks of her life with Kenneth More and the disease that took one of Britain’s finest theatre actors far too early.
Born at a time when the world was throwing itself into the bleak and despair of World War Two, Angela Douglas emerged to be a popular performer appearing in many of the iconic programmes of the 1960s including the hugely admired Z Cars but it was appearing with Kenneth More at a film for the Duke of Edinburgh that changed her life.
Kenneth More was unquestionably one of the finest British actors of the 20th Century, esteemed for performances in films such The Admirable Crichton, Reach For The Sky (In which he played War hero Sir Douglas Bader), and the innumerate feel good British comedies of the era including Genevieve, Doctor In The House and The Comedy Man in which he starred alongside his future wide Angela Douglas. He was perhaps in later life though more fondly remembered and revered for his performance in The Fortsyte Saga. Throughout the later period of his life Angela Douglas was there alongside him, first as his lover and mistress and then as his wife.
What comes through the first part of the book is the absolute love she has in abundance, not just for her Kenny, as she calls him, but also for her mum and dad and her brother and sister. The connection she felt to the theatre at such a young age and despite crushing agonies, moments of huge despair, her belief and that of her father was unwavering. Upon meeting Kenneth More, she knew that she wanted to care for him and in the quite frank admissions she places within the book, she places her heart firmly upon the table. The need, the desire, the upset at having them shunned by an awful amount of Kenneth More’s former friends as the news of their affair became public. The fear of being so much younger than the revered actor and the final anguish in which her life begins to crumble as her father passes on, her much loved sister dies suddenly and the final couple of years of her life with Kenneth More as he succumbed to Parkinson’s Disease.
The book is one of two halves, a great look at a life of much loved actress, of hope and joy of a life in the cinema and on stage but also the anger, the burning resentment of being pushed away by Kenneth More as he realised that illness was taking him but the dedication and love she felt at nursing him in his final days. It is an autobiography of two people, the fun and the wrath, the passion and anger but throughout it all the voice of the feminine story-teller is uppermost in the reader’s eyes.
Swings and Roundabouts is a forthright divulgence of a story between two people and the fight one of them faced to be seen as her own woman whilst being with one of the most celebrated actors of the period. A cracking read.
Ian D. Hall