Carry on at Your Convenience

This Carry On, which features all the main team plus some newer faces, is situated in WC Boggs' factory (toilet = bog in the UK) and goes downhill from there! Sid Plummer (Sid James) has a wife he ignores (Hattie Jacques) and a fellow workmate he is after (Joan Sims); while his daughter is after the managing director's son. There's an annoying shop steward, Spanner (Kenneth Cope in a second role in the series, after playing Cyril in Carry on Matron), who always wants to all everyone on strike.

Funny situations are never far away but the icing on the cake in this one is in two scenes - the first, where Boggs' secretary (Patsy Rowlands as the amusingly named Miss Withering) unleashes her sexual frustrations of many years on a shocked Kenneth Williams; and the second, where the works outing leads to a pub crawl where Williams passes the time getting increasingly drunk and singing bawdy songs.

There's much amusement over the manufacture of bidets but despite the gags here and there this Carry On is overall a bit of a washout. The team had done better, but this one fits in the middle ground quite well.

I like this entry in the series, I really do. Many others however find it a dud and feel that it should be flushed down one of the toilets that feature at W.C. Boggs' factory in the film. Blending the obvious toilet gags with a tale about unionised shop floors, the Carry On team have actually crafted one of the franchise's less mucky pictures. Sid James, so long the bastion of sexually driven lechery in Carry On folklore, has a very restrained role in this one, and this to me somewhat explains to an extent why "Convenience" is often shunned by the series fans.

Elsewhere it's the subplots away from the factory that put the smile on my face. Charles Hawtrey is indulging in strip poker with shop steward, Vic Spanner's mother!. While James' Sid Plummer is getting horse racing winners from his budgie!, all under the watchful eye of his apparently scatty wife Beattie (a terrific Hattie Jacques). Sexy eye candy for us blokes comes in the form of Jacki Piper, and the film finale on the Brighton seaside is drunken buffoonery to at least raise a giggle or two. Not the best Carry On by a long shot - that could have been predicted by Sid and Hattie's budgie, but certainly not one of the worst either. 6.5/10

I have seen this film so many times now, usually just because it is on British television so much, but even so, it is SO funny. (Enough "so"s for you??)

As well as providing a dense and long strand (oo-er!!) of toilet jokes, it also has a certain sociological insight into the strike riddled decadence of 1970s Britain with a classic portrayal of bolshy union official by an actor who did not appear in many (or any?) other Carry On roles.

The annual works trip to the sea-side is excellent too, just to see those places before they went into terminal decline.

You need a certain sense of humour and you need to be in the mood, but if you are... great fun!

I find this one of the most unusual carry ons,as it seems to take life a bit more serious,its more kitchen sink drama, which for this carry on is appropriate for the title.For me it has the funniest plot of all,which is the budgie who can pick horse winners,and the excellent teaming of Sid James and Hattie Jacques as the married couple.Vic the union leader and his nagging Irish mum are also very funny.Although the usually very funny Bill Maynard seems a bit wasted in this film,i don't think he gets many funny lines,if any.On the whole this is a very enjoyable carry on,and the only time you see a man get spanked in a film, which was quite original.It was a carry on, which tried to be different from the others and does succeed.Although it does still have the same naughty gags,but then thats what carry on films are for.We don't make films like these anymore so enjoy them while you can.

This is the Carry On film which took longest to make back its money. It's not difficult to see why as it is so disparaging towards the unions and the typical Carry On fan in the early 70s was working class. If you are going to insult your target audience then don't be surprised to find they don't go to see your film. Having said that the basic storyline has plenty of opportunities for Talbot Rothwell's seaside postcard humour especially as they go on a works outing to Brighton. One of the Carry On films' best points is the way they added those little details so you get a toilet manufacturer called WC Boggs, the foreman's name sounds like plumber, his daughter's name is Myrtle which is a plant that grows in bogs. If I could only buy a budgie like Sid Plummer's I'd be laughing even more.