Show Information
tickets Standard £25
running time 1 hour 50 minutes with interval
suitable for 12+
warnings themes of mental health
on-the-door tickets will be available from the box office (open one hour before the performance) at £28 book early for the best prices!
David Benson burst onto the theatre scene in 1996, taking the Edinburgh Fringe, the touring circuit and ultimately the West End by storm with Think No Evil Of Us: My Life With Kenneth Williams. Critics, audiences and close friends of Williams were unanimous in their praise.
Thirty years on, and in celebration of Kenneth Williams’ 100th Birthday, David Benson revisits his now legendary portrait of the much-missed Carry On star in this new version of the show, exploring the astonishing connection that intertwined his life with that of Williams when Benson was still a schoolboy.
In a dazzling display of impeccably honed stage craft, David Benson brings Kenneth Williams roaring back to life in a portrayal of which the late Dame Maggie Smith wrote in a letter to Benson: “’You put the heart across me’, as the Irish say, for I thought it WAS Kenneth!”
David Benson has most recently been seen touring nationwide with Jack Lane in their acclaimed Dad’s Army Radio Show.
‘Pitch perfect! My Life with Kenneth Williams is not so much a show but a séance, a bringing back of the dead, with David Benson as the medium.’
★★★★★ Queer Guru
‘Benson’s Williams is extraordinary. An arresting snapshot of an extraordinary man.’
★★★★ The Guardian
‘A tour de force if ever there was.’
★★★★★ Reviewsgate
‘There was nobody quite like him, but nobody will get closer than Benson – and that is a delight.’
★★★★ Broadway World
‘When Benson slips effortlessly into replicating all of Williams grandiose gestures and facial contortions the stage comes instantly alive.’
★★★★ Jack the Lad Magazine
Key Creative Credits
Producers – Little Jester and Suzanna Rosenthal Productions
Director – Jack Lane
Image © Steve Ullathorne
CAST
David Benson has most recently been seen touring nationwide with Jack Lane in their acclaimed Dad’s Army Radio Show. Best-known for his performance as Noel Coward in the BBC’s classic war-time comedy Goodnight Sweetheart, David exploded onto the theatre scene with his first solo show Think No Evil of Us: My Life
With Kenneth Williams. The show became an instant classic, and he followed this with a succession of solo shows on a wide variety of subjects, including Frankie Howerd, Dr. Johnson, the death of Diana Princess of Wales and an award-winning examination of the Lockerbie plane bombing. He was a member of the National Theatre’s smash hit comedy One Man, Two Guvnors alongside James Corden, appearing in 1,015 performances of the show. In the film Blade Runner 2049 he plays a hologram of Liberace. He was nominated for a BBC Audio Best Actor Award for his portrayal as Frankie Howerd in Frankie Takes a Trip.
History
My Life With Kenneth Williams opened at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 1996. Self-produced, penned and performed by Benson, the show went from a slow, cautious beginning to a roaring hit by the end of its three-week run. In the final week of the Fringe, the show received the prestigious Scotsman Fringe First Award: ‘This is not just a learned text, but a performance with a personal edge, which takes new, unpredictable shape with each performance’.
Think No Evil of Us took on a whole new life after the Fringe, travelling to London for a five week run at the King’s Head, followed by a Christmas season at the Birmingham Rep. Benson then toured the UK for the first time, for the whole of 1997, astonishing audiences from Shetland to Cornwall.
Finally, in 1998 Think No Evil of Us played a three-week season at The Vaudeville – the culmination of an epic journey from a home-made show tried out for friends in their living rooms all the way to the West End of London.
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