With the Six Wives of Henry VIII a mega-hit on TV, it was only natural that the Carry On team would take on the Tudor monarch. And who better to play him than Sid!
8.45 am ITV3 Sat 27 July
Swift bit of exploitation to cash in on the popularity of Britain's favourite rocker. Steele plays himself in a rather sweet version of his rise to fame. Not much of a film, but a remarkable piece of nostalgia.
7.10 am BBC2 Sun 28 July
It's the one set in the toilet bowl factory so cue plenty of jokes about feeling flushed and going round the bend. It's also the one with Kenneth Cope as the stupid trades union official leading the workers out like sheep every time he's slighted or fancies a day off. Portraying your core audience as mindless followers isn't the best way to fill cinemas and this was the first big Carry On flop. However, it does have the Brighton sequence when the gang go off for a glorious works outing which sums up working class culture more effectively than Ken Loach's entire body of work.
11.00 am ITV3 Sun 28 July
An expedition goes in search of the elusive Yeti, but the Yeti doesn't want to be bothered.
Hammer had huge hits with their versions of Nigel Kneale's Quatermass TV series, but couldn't replicate the same success with his play The Creature.
9.50 am Talking Pictures TV Mon 29 July
Is this the greatest comedy of all time? Maybe. It's certainly the most thought-provoking, as Capital and Labour unite to stop Alec Guinness' invention of everlasting cloth. Packed with wonderful performances, it's difficult to single out any for special praise, but I'll just mention Joan Greenwood's innocent yet sexual rich girl, Vida Hope's butch factory worker with a crush on Guinness, Ernest Thesiger's desiccated tycoon and Edie Martin's frail landlady wondering who'll want her laundry services if clothes never get dirty.
5.20 pm Film4 Wed 31 July
Noel Coward's story of a family between the wars. It's sentimental and maybe faintly patronising, and the Technicolor makes the whole thing seem very artificial and theatrical; but once you get past that you have a fascinating saga that's well worth another look.
5.35 pm Talking Pictures TV Thur 1 Aug
The demands of being a stay-at-home wife prove too much for a woman, and her slatternly ways drive her husband into the arms of another woman.
Fabulous domestic melodrama with Yvonne Mitchell in top form as the woman who can't get a grip on her life.
3.55 pm Talking Pictures TV Fri 2 Aug
