What's Wrong with Benny Hill?

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A bit like John Peel playing The Undertones’ ‘Teenage Kicks’ twice in succession on his radio show in 1978, I would gladly have watched a second consecutive performance of this Mark Carey play on Thursday night. And that really should be ‘nuff said. 

However, name a British comic genius. Cooper, Cleese, Morecambe, Milligan, Sellars? Gervais, Connolly, Atkinson, Coogan, Kay? Victoria Wood? But Benny Hill has now become so synonymous with outdated sexually inappropriate humour and his frequent racially stereotyped characters that it is easiest to gloss over this giant of the comedy world. With 21 million viewers of The Benny Hill Show in 1971, it’s hard not to agree with one member of the audience on Thursday evening who said, “we all laughed at him”.

But should we now look back and realise that this was inappropriate? And shameful? Ben Elton pointedly commented, “We know in Britain women can’t even walk in parks anymore”, when criticising the programme in 1987. Within Carey’s show, which rightly deserves to tour to full houses, we learn all there is to learn about Alfred Hawthorne Hill. From his comic turns in the playground, the huge success of his television show, his frequent travels to France, his relationship with his father ‘The Captain’, his ill health and inability to manage his huge fortune, through to his lonely death at home in 1992 aged 68. Carey provides a genuine performance of a man who only ever wanted to make people laugh. There isn’t a hint of caricature, even when exhibiting Hill’s trademark smirks and eye rolls. This is honest, truthful acting at its best.

But this play is a two hander or rather a ‘one and a dozen-hander’ for Dani Carbery matches Carey by supplying a stream of individuals crucial to the telling of this tale; she plays his father, a French waiter, a seedy paparazzi, a solicitor, an American tourist (Hill had huge fame in America too), a showgirl, a Mary Whitehouse sort, and an alternative comedian who condemns Hill for his brand of so-called humour. She manages to give everyone their own personality through voice, movement and great facial expression.

But hold on, there are original songs aplenty throughout too (although I fancy ‘Ernie’ lost out to save on performance rights, or would it have been just too cliche to include?). The set is simple, a living room, but adaptable for all variety of locations. 

At the end, my wife and I drove home continuing to discuss the merits of working class comedy performed by working class individuals. There is nothing inherently wrong with Benny Hill for wanting to make people laugh, and laugh they did. 

The show runs until Saturday 15th at the delightful Ilmington Village Hall then touring thereafter. Do not miss out!

Tony Homer

My memories of Benny Hill were the final chases from his TV series with buxom, scantily dressed females either being pursued by or in pursuit of Benny. And of course, Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West). Now we have You Tube to recap the sketches from his enormously successful shows, TV making him Britain’s top comedian at the time, though most of his humour – like that of so many others of those decades – would fail to pass current tests.

Mark Carey’s play with songs with Carey – who bears more than a passing resemblance to Hill – playing him, mixes sketches, biography and most successfully, dramatisation of the comedian’s final days. We witness his genuine dismay at how what had been found so funny by the nation was suddenly condemned for being sexist and even a danger to women.

We learn about Alfred Hawthorne Hill and his parents, brother and sister, and his father’s involvement in the first sales of condoms (‘johnnies’ as they were then known), his early non-descript jobs including a stint in Woolworths, and his recruitment into the army where he found a taste for performing.

Spectacularly unsuccessful, he was even booed off the stage in Sunderland. He enjoys France, develops an obsession with toilet humour and a penchant for peeing in the open air from his father, and struggles with mediocre gigs, a dislike of live audiences. And then came television. Television was the making of Hill, even doubters astonished at his meteoric rise to fame.

Carey impersonates Hill with uncanny precision, the hats with the brow flipped upwards, the gurning faces, the voice, the walk. The songs, by Kevin Oliver Jones, untitled, narrative rather than memorable, cover the decades, the early 1960s permissive society taking to his brand of comic lasciviousness, despite being condemned for bringing ‘filth’ into people’s homes by campaigners like Mary Whitehouse.

While the first half is essentially biography, the second half digs deep, and Carey goes beyond re-creating the acts and persona of Hill and explores his genuine confusion as to why he fell so quickly. The scenes with the young solicitor who comes to make his will, astonished at his frugal lifestyle, piles of uncashed cheques, and the unlikely heirs to his £6 million fortune, are gripping.

Hill has a reclusive existence, despite reporters spying on him, hoping to find a juicy bit of gossip about his private life. Unaware of his fame and performances, he gives the solicitor a video to watch, which on a second visit she informs him she didn’t find funny, though her boyfriend did.

Many of Hill’s skits would undoubtedly be considered racist, and Carey doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable truths, most chilling in his sketch as a stereotype of a Chinese man, who challenges us as to why we found such figures funny. It’s a moment of real frisson and drama.

Georgie Taylor plays multiple different characters and is a real find. Playing everything from characters referred to as ‘blonde bimbos’, to Hill’s elderly father, brash Americans (who loved Hill’s brand of humour), the editor of the The Sun newspaper, Mary Whitehouse, the will-making solicitor and a brash feminist comedian who regularly attacks Hill’s brand of humour. The scenes with Hill at the end of his life, eating out of tins in his rented flat, surrounded by squalor and debris, are extraordinarily poignant. Taylor is a versatile actress, switching accents and characters in seconds, a mimic, comedian and actress capable of real depth in this two-hander.

As one of the characters says, “what people find funny is a reflection of the society of the time”. Yes, Hill’s humour may not have aged well when viewed through a contemporary lens, but he is still watched in many countries around the world. One may cringe at moments watching the unsubtle humour, of an ilk with that of Stanley Baxter, Frankie Howerd and others, but Carey’s play reminds us that to lump Hill in together with the likes of Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter does him a disservice.

One measure of the success of Carey’s drama is that I and my partner continued to debate it on the way home. How seaside postcard and Carry On humour is now condemned, how comedians that came later like Joan Rivers were developing the innuendoes of Hill’s humour into something more observational. How ‘nudge nudge wink wink’ is now seen as something sinister.

In 2026, debates about permissible humour continue, with social media channels allowing comedians with far greater sexual explicitness a platform. This play is a timely reminder of how easily tastes can change, and how Hill’s cartoonish humour, which was merely intended to make people laugh, came so easily to be considered dangerous and inappropriate and led to his fall from grace. Something we see all too often in literature, cinema, theatre, art, musical theatre and even opera. And must guard against. What was not permissible is now permissible and vice versa. This play is a reminder that there are no absolutes.

 Leon Ferguson 

What’s Wrong With Benny Hill? is currently running at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington until the 24th February. The show takes a look at Hill’s life and career and asks whether his comedy was a product of its time, or an inexcusably offensive problem. The inherent misogyny and racism portrayed casually for laughs in Hill’s work was abundant in the 60s to 80s, but is it fair to look at it from a more enlightened modern lens?

The show presents a biography of the legendary comedian from childhood all the way to his death in 1992. Presenting the narrative through cheeky Hill-style songs, the musical is also interspersed with online commentary condemning his work and discussing the misogyny present in throughout his show. There are a few time jumps, though it is mostly a linear narrative that digs into Benny Hill’s history, private life, and massive success around the world, while still living a modest life. From early work in the 60s to first public criticisms in the 80s, it’s a journey of cheeky and often inappropriately sexualised humour.

Mark Carey plays Hill very compellingly, perfectly mimicking mannerisms and facial expressions to bring the comedian to life. Singing and dancing in Hill’s famous style and generally behaving so much like him, Carey really brings the main character to life beautifully. The cast is completed with Georgie Taylor, who takes on a host of other characters, from Hill’s father over prominent critics and dancers on Hill’s show to a young solicitor hired to draft his will. There is a lot of work for Taylor, and she effortlessly slips into all these different roles, presenting a well rounded show that is stuffed with stories and comedic sidelines.

This is not a moral excavation of the comedian’s life and work, rather it is a balanced presentation of his biography complete with arguments from both sides of the isle, the critics as well as the fans and supporters. A nuanced look at Hill’s work is difficult without the context of the time it was created in, and this musical definitely brings the context without making excuses or glossing over some of the harsher assessments, presenting commentary from detractors as well as supporters, leaving the audience to come to their own conclusions.

From uproariously funny highs to devastating emotional lows, it’s a wonderfully rounded show that appeals both to fans as well as haters of Benny Hill. There is no big moral conclusion forced upon the audience, instead this musical presents the life story of one of the most successful comedians of all time, complete with silly costumes and cheeky humour. More an examination of the man himself than his fragile legacy. 

What’s Wrong With Benny Hill is a great example of modern theatre exploring controversial topics without getting too heavy handed or one sided in the process. A great little show that perhaps could do without the interval in a 95 minute production.

Stratford Herald pre performance article 7 July 2023

https://www.stratford-herald.com/whats-on/resending-in-the-clown-9320697/

Audience feedback

"Last evening we came to the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham to see Mark Carey in this production.  As a second cousin of Alfred (Benny) Hill, I was very much impressed by the way he was shown on stage. Although I never met the real Benny, only having seen him on television and in films, last night I went home feeling that at last I had.  I commend the research into Benny's past, digging into my own family history, and referring  to many of my relations, particularly my Auntie Lucy (Lulu) who I did know. I am glad that I was able to meet Mark afterwards and talk about my cousin, who was a very private person."

Philip Wenham

"Brilliant! Provokes discussion and debate.....whatever your views on comedy. Star quality performances." Tony Homer, Stagewrite

"Ruddy marvellous! Brilliant performances! Thought provoking and challenging!"

Gill Sutherland, Stratford Herald

"Excellent show.....do go see!" Sunny Ormonde, (Lillian, The Archers)

"Better than a wet Wednesday at the Blackpool Grand!" Facebook feedback 

"Wonderful evening!" Facebook feedback

"What a great show! Superb acting!" Paul Greenwood (actor)

"A great show. Funny, poignant. Reveals Benny to be a much more complex and interesting character than his TV persona suggests. Well worth seeing." 

Nick le Mesurier, theatre critic, Leamington Courier

"Brilliant show" Facebook feedback

"Really enjoyed it - a real conversation inducer!" Facebook feedback

"A seriously impressive show." Chris Saul (RSC actor and producer)

"Excellent and thought provoking entertainment. Well worth seeing." Facebook feedback

"Cracking night. A magnificent and thought provoking show." Facebook feedback