Interview: Robin Askwith

 

As Timothy Lea in the ridiculously successful Confessions series (which took the knockabout seaside-postcard fruitiess of the Carry On series and jacked up the sex content as far as it could go), Robin was the very personification of the lovable, tousled-haired Cockney shag-rat on an endless quest to get his leg over (with his best mate, who became Tony Blair’s father-in-law. No, really). Put it this way – nobody’s arse was seen by more people in the 1970s. Nobody's.

 

I’ve been lured away from my Mediterranean retreat to do a version of Canterbury Tales, specifically set in 1976, the year of the drought, the year of Punk, the year I was making Confessions of a Driving Instructor in one studio and George Lucas was next door making Star Wars. Without giving too much away, it’s set in a garden fete which is holding a Canterbury Tales festival. Dennis Waterman has been invited to open it, but it all falls through, but I just happen to be round the corner shooting a film…

 

Oh, I was in great demand at garden fetes at the time! It was never the vicars that booked me, because in the 70s, the Confessions films were very controversial. Mind you, if Chaucer was around then, he’d have been using me in his films! Bear in mind I haven’t only done Confessions, I played Arturo Ui, and other serious roles.

 

Well, in between those two, I did loads of theatre, and some cultish films like Horror Hospital. I considered myself a serious actor at the time. I presume you’re being ironic with the question, because the Confessions films made millions. I was at a dinner with some actor friends of mine the other night, and there was an après-brandy dig at some of the films I’ve made in my career, and Michael Winner said to them, “Ah, yes…but when was the last time any of your films made any money?”

 

I was actually contracted to Columbia for a six-picture deal at the time, which was unheard of in those days. The only other British actor at the time with a similar deal was Sean Connery, and I just signed on the dotted line for Confessions of a Window Cleaner, and I never expected this load of old twaddle to be successful.

But I was given a lot of free rein to add my own mannerisms and inject more comedy into the part, because you couldn’t get away with shagging relentlessly in a film in 1974. I never expected there’d be a second film, but we were making too much money for there not to be a sequel, which made even more money... and that was it. I was trapped for another two pictures, and then the box office dipped slightly, so we knocked it on the head.

 

How many times I have been asked that? And I can never come up with an intelligent answer! It goes back to Chaucer and Shakespeare, obviously…it’s in our culture. You can even go back to the strolling players of the thirteenth century, who would roll into a village, blow a raspberry and run off. It’s part of our heritage! 

 

Funny you should say that, because I was approached two days ago by Quentin Tarantino…

 

Oh yes. As you know, he’s very good at pinpointing cults and he knows everything about me. I’ve been asked to go to LA after this to do an experimental project, with me in a time machine. The Americans have taken the lead with sex comedy because we’ve been so poisoned by Political Correctness over here. Comics have to sign pieces of paper to promise that they won’t make jokes about certain groups.

 

Because we had so many new toys to play with! We had the Pill, the music was changing, and for the first time ever, you didn’t have the fear of a World War hanging over you. We were so lucky then. I mean, you could still walk down the street in long hair and be afraid of being arrested.
Buying dope was an absolute adventure! You had to see someone who would take you see someone else, you’d change the bus about 50 times and then you’d find yourself in a room with blacked-out windows and be given a tiiiny bit of dope, and you’d go “Yessssss!”

 

It’s a celebration of something they feel they’ve missed, isn’t it? I think it’s fabulous that people remember it. We certainly weren’t looking back to the 40s then! I think people pick up on because there was a feeling that something new was happening. We had to improvise, you know! Everyone’s living on free money that doesn’t even exist these days,

you just get a loan in. We couldn’t do that in those days. We had to make do.

 

I’d already worked with Gerald Thomas (producer of the Carry On series) in the movie version of Bless This House with Sid James and they were quite impressed, so they put me in Carry On Girls. During filming, they extended my role. Barbara Windsor collared me one day and said “’Ere! Your part’s getting biggah and biggah!” They never forgave me for the success of the Confessions films. It was where they should have gone, but they couldn’t. They eventually tried it with Carry On Emanuelle, but it failed. There was nothing amusing about sexually promiscuous women in those days…

 

Oh, well it’s more acceptable nowadays. More realistic. I was caught in a lift with a hen party the other night, and I was terrified! I thought I was gonna die! These women scare me to death…

 

He was an advertising executive who wrote the first book on a bet. He made so much money off it that he pissed off to France as a tax exile. I didn’t make much off the films at first. I made my money by writing, directing, producing and starring in stage shows of Confessions which I toured round the world. One of the first places I put it on was Nottingham's Theatre Royal, in fact…

 

We had to do three versions for every sex scene, one completely naked for the UK, one with my pants on for abroad, and one completely clothed for South Africa and Rhodesia. I used to have visions of Nelson Mandela in his cell, watching people shag with clothes on, and thinking “Sod that, I’m quite happy in here, mate!” I actually worked out I had to simulate sex 850 times per film.

 

Erm, sometimes you couldn’t. But it was just a job, and there were always sixty people watching you. You have to do re-takes, and pick-ups from the previous day’s shoot and take your clothes off and put them on again and you got so used to walking around starkers. It’s was really nerve-wracking for the girls on their first day though, they’d be shitting themselves, which is fair enough, because I would have been.

 

Well, we were told that it was already dead while we were still doing it! The British film industry has a self-destruct button, and it never behaves like an industry. You go to Los Angeles and I’m not a fan of the place at all, but you’re aware that it’s an industry. They were totally negative about films like Confessions over here, totally ignoring the fact that people were going to see them in droves! The Ealing comedies and the Carry On films were never celebrated when they were out. It’s just the way it is.

 

Ooh, that’s a good question. I just love making films, and I’ve been lucky enough to work with people like Zeffirelli, but I made loads of films that I didn’t want anyone to see. I did one called Queen Kong where I fell in love with a giant gorilla with big tits. Mercifully, Dino Laurentiis was remaking King Kong and sued us, so it’s hardly been seen. Sadly, the scene where I tap-danced with the gorilla was cut. But bad films don’t ruin people’s careers, because they just come out and nobody sees them. Television’s different, because people will see it.

 

John Birt wanted me to do a sitcom when he was at LWT and I was foisted with a script that Jim Davidson knocked back. I tried to do my best with it, but Political Correctness had arrived, we had to tone everything down and everyone hated me for it. Still got ten million viewers a week, though.

 

Funny you should say that, because there’s been talk of it in the press, which is news to me. I could do it if I wanted to, but I don’t think I can be bothered with the grind. I much prefer doing things like Canterbury Tales.

 

I have a great quality of life at the moment. I’m recently single, I’ve paid everything off, I take yachts all over the Med, the phone rings offering work, and I do what I want to do. I love doing panto. I did it here with Danny La Rue and The Chuckle Brothers the other year. Danny once said to me; “Eeh, the thing about the Chuckle Brothers, Robin, what are they going to do when they lose their looks?”

 

Oh God no! I’m too old for that now. I’m having a prolonged bout of celibacy and it’s about time!