The Beatles’ album Let it Be starts with John Lennon introducing I Dig a Pony with, “I dig a pygmy, by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids…”
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Sep/CharlesHawtrey.mp3|titles=Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids]I assume “deaf aids” is wordplay on “hearing aids,” but have you ever wondered about the Charles Hawtrey reference? Hawtrey was an English comic actor, and in this video clip, from the movie Carry on, Constable, he’s the cross-dressing cop wearing glasses. At the end of the clip you’ll see Robin Ray, who played the TV studio floor manager in A Hard Day’s Night.
Hawtrey makes the BBC’s Paul O’Grady seem butch! Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams were regulars in the “Carry On” series of low-brow British comedy films. I’d known about the series for a long time, but I had never seen any of the installments until last night, when Turner Classic Movies showed four of them (Carry on, Teacher is particularly good fun). Williams was also gay, as if you couldn’t tell, but he had a more studied style of acting that bore a striking similarity to Jeremy Brett.
