At the peak of his fame within the Nineteen Seventies, Kenneth Williams was asked to record excerpts from the Bible. Those recordings hadn’t been broadcast until the BBC did so on the weekend on Radio 4. So, was Kenneth Williams a closet Christian?
By all accounts, Kenneth Williams – beloved Carry On star, master of double entendre, and fixture of BBC Radio 4’s Just a Minute – was not a person readily related to religion. With his flamboyant persona and razor-sharp wit, most would expect him to satisfy any mention of the Bible with a raised eyebrow and one in all his famous quips. But recent evidence reveals a deeply personal, previously concealed Christian faith – and with it, a series of forgotten Bible recordings now shared with the general public for the primary time.
The BBC programme Archive on 4: Said the Actor to the Bishop, aired 12 April on Radio 4, uncovers a remarkable chapter in Williams’s life – audio cassettes of him reading Bible stories with emotional depth and vocal mastery, recorded nearly 50 years ago.
Long thought lost, the recordings have been revived due to the person who commissioned them: James Jones, former Bishop of Liverpool and past chair of the Hillsborough Independent Panel.
Back within the Nineteen Seventies, Jones worked as a producer on the evangelical organisation Scripture Union, then producing a series of tapes featuring actors narrating Bible stories. He secured major names comparable to Derek Nimmo, Thora Hird, and Dora Bryan – and turned to Williams, whose storytelling brilliance had captivated a generation of kids on Jackanory.
“I used to be carpeted for using Kenneth,” Jones recalls. “My bosses feared the response to his association with the Carry On movies and their bawdy humour.” But Jones trusted his instincts: “To use a comic book actor captured the humour and the humanity of the stories that Jesus told.”
The sessions left a profound impression. “The first recording I did with him was of the Parable of the Prodigal Son,” says Jones. “After the primary take, I asked if we would do a second. Indignantly, Kenneth protested, ‘Why? What was flawed with that one?’ ‘Nothing,’ I spluttered. ‘It was perfect.’ ‘Then let’s do the subsequent one!’ And it was perfect.”
Williams brought his full theatrical arsenal to the duty – booming basses, shrill falsettos, reedy whines and booming proclamations – animating New Testament characters in a way that captured the moral force of the stories while preserving their humanity. “He knew something Jesus clearly knew,” says Jones. “The power of excellent storytelling.”
What emerged in those sessions astonished Jones. Williams deployed his unparalleled vocal range to bring New Testament characters vividly to life. “It was his own faith that he dropped at these stories,” says Jones. “You can hear he believes in the best way he reads.”
One moment particularly struck Jones: Williams’s telling of Jesus being tempted within the wilderness. “Temptations were something like all of us that he lived through,” Jones reflects. “But he was quite self-controlled. He didn’t often give in to them.” Speaking within the programme, he cites Williams’s close friendship with the playwright Joe Orton: “He wouldn’t do what Joe was doing but he would quite prefer to know what was happening.”
The emotional climax of the recordings is available in Williams’s rendition of the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. His narration, stuffed with compassion, reveals not only technical brilliance but personal resonance. “He dropped at it his relationship together with his own father. There was an ache there for that love,” Jones says.
Jones recalls his conversations with Williams over lunch on the time of the recordings, when the actor opened up a couple of personal faith that had remained hidden from the general public eye. “Faith really mattered to him,” Jones explains. “He would end daily praying and asking for forgiveness.”
Williams’s diaries, published posthumously in 1993, offer glimpses of that inner life. “I’m stuffed with the sensation of nearness to God,” he wrote. “For me God means Truth and Goodness and Beauty … one real act of affection … please let me be able to it.” Jones describes his spirituality as “almost mystical”.
Yet Williams remained ambivalent about religious institutions. “He was very critical of the Church and bishops, didn’t just like the structure,” says Jones. “He didn’t go to church. He felt his urge to entertain people would get in the best way of being a part of a church community. He needed to get away to wish. Performance was a barrier to God.”
While the actor never made his faith a public a part of his persona, a few of his closest friends suspected there was more beneath the surface. The Very Rev Mark Oakley, now Dean of Southwark, recalls: “We would meet up every two or three weeks. I desired to hear all in regards to the Carry On movies … He would often talk in regards to the quiet inner life and his striving for God.”
Others, like Gyles Brandreth, were at nighttime about his private quest for faith – but not entirely surprised. “He was the funniest man I ever met,” says Brandreth, who appears within the Radio 4 programme. “It could be sad if all people remembered Kenneth for was ‘infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me’. Now, due to these Bible readings, we get one other side – Kenneth telling what for many individuals is the best story ever told.”
Born in 1926 to Charles, a Methodist, and his devoted mother Louie, Williams first discovered Bible stories at Sunday school.
Though he later gained fame through stage, radio and screen – most notably within the Carry On franchise – his faith quietly accompanied him throughout his life. His diaries show him wrestling with guilt, loneliness and longing, often turning to God in times of need. In 1964, while preparing for Carry On Spying, he noted that he was giving up “fags, then drink” for Lent “to begin making some kind of gesture to God”.
The rediscovered recordings had been feared lost when Scripture Union destroyed the master tapes. But Jones had kept personal copies and, mentioning them to a BBC producer, set in motion the creation of Said the Actor to the Bishop.
Archive on 4: Kenneth Williams: Said the Actor to the Bishop aired on BBC Radio 4, Saturday 12 April and is on the market on BBC Sounds.
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