Think No Evil of Us: My Life with Kenneth Williams, Theatr Clwyd

There’s no denying Kenneth Williams was a strange man. But that’s not intended as a slight, because in this case, strange means peculiar, odd, unusual. Unique. And that uniqueness means it’s very difficult for anybody to fully capture Williams’s indelible presence and character. Many have tried, including Olivier Award nominee Adam Godley and the crown prince of celebrity impersonators, Michael Sheen.

But before them came David Benson, and he always came the closest to bottling Williams’s extraordinary character. In 1996, Think No Evil of Us: My Life with Kenneth Williams was a sensation principally because of Benson’s uncanny impersonation, both physically and vocally. He became the ‘go-to’ guy for anybody needing a dash of Kenneth Williams.

So does the show have the same impact two decades later? Arguably not. When Think No Evil of Us premiered, Kenneth Williams had been dead just eight years. His memory was fresh, and despite his controversial diaries being published in 1993, the tragedy of his private life was still largely unexplored. The anniversary revivals of the show are welcome exercises in nostalgia, because sadly the magic has diminished through sheer over-familiarity with the Williams story.

Benson’s voice is gruffer, although Williams’s vocal dexterity is still spot on, and he looks much more like David Benson than Kenneth Williams nowadays; that uncanny resemblance has lessened with time.

But what’s remarkable about this show is the amount of Benson in it, as opposed to Williams. Twenty-eight years after Kenneth Williams committed suicide (the verdict was open, but the overdose of barbiturates speaks a louder truth), pretty much everything that needs to be said about the gifted comedian has been said. So what’s arguably more interesting is what David Benson brings to the table, which is himself, his childhood, his brief brush with Williams through a story he sent in to Jackanory. And then there’s his mentally ill mother, and his monstrous headmaster.

When Benson is Williams, the audience is happy. It’s almost like the man himself is back in the room. It’s a safe, familiar and highly amusing routine to watch. The sketch set in the Italian restaurant is a masterful interpretation of what dining with Williams must have been like. You’re there in the restaurant with him, you can see the food, and feel the awkwardness he provokes. This is Benson at his Williams-esque height.

But when Benson is Benson, that’s when things get more interesting. He comes over as a thoroughly nice, genial man who recounts anecdotes from his own childhood with warmth and sincerity. He tells us about being brought up by a mother who clearly had mental health issues, and Benson’s depiction of her is brutally honest. The audience knows there’s something amiss with his mother, but Benson does not address this until much later in the play. It’s good that he revisits it, and when he does, teary-eyed, it tempers the uneasiness of watching his earlier portrayal.

The highlight of the show is nothing to do with Kenneth Williams. Again, it’s Benson demonstrating his impressive character skills which raises the most laughs, notably when he becomes his childhood headmaster, the trademark Brummie Mr Brindley. Benson transforms before your eyes into the glowering Mr Brindley, as unsettling as he is hilarious. There’s some blissfully awkward audience participation during this section which transports everybody back to when they were kids, singing hymns in assembly before a tyrannical headteacher. Mr Brindley deserves another show.

Kenneth Williams was a supremely complex personality. He had no love for himself, and little for others, bar a select few. He was pompous and self-important just as much as he was loveable and generous. He was frighteningly quick-witted, eloquent and barbed. There were many facets to Kenneth Williams, and Benson depicts some of them here – the poetry-loving raconteur, the frustrated carer (for his mother Louie), the outrageous flirt, the unpleasant show-off who takes things too far.

But Benson doesn’t quite manage to stitch these depictions together into a cohesive whole, and the linking thread of the Jackanory story being read on TV by Williams is made much of, then gets somehow lost. Structurally, it’s a little untidy, but the journey through this landscape of unhinged, over-the-top and downright funny characters is a joy.

In a touching coda, after showing Williams overdosing and dying alone in his flat, Benson admits that he misses Kenneth Williams. He could still be alive today, an aged vestige of a bygone era, sitting on Graham Norton’s sofa alongside Hollywood’s glitterati and telling tales of Bertrand Russell, T S Eliot and cab drivers.

And when Benson asks the audience if they miss Kenneth Williams too, something magical happens. There’s a very definite, unanimous yes.

So maybe that’s why, 20 years after Think No Evil of Us premiered, there’s still an appetite for this delightful show, and a strange fascination with a man who can never be replaced.