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Fantabulosa! Kenneth Williams - Starring Michael Sheen [DVD] [2006]
 
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Fantabulosa! Kenneth Williams - Starring Michael Sheen [DVD] [2006]

DVD ~ Michael Sheen
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: Ł14.99
Price: Ł8.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Fantabulosa! Kenneth Williams - Starring Michael Sheen [DVD] [2006] + The Legends Of Comedy: Frankie Howerd, Rather You Than Me / The Curse of Steptoe / Hughie Green, Most Sincerely [DVD]
Price For Both: Ł24.96

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Fantabulosa! Kenneth Williams - Starring Michael Sheen [DVD] [2006]
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Fantabulosa! Kenneth Williams - Starring Michael Sheen [DVD] [2006] 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
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Product details

  • Actors: Michael Sheen
  • Format: PAL
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: IMC Vision
  • DVD Release Date: 26 Oct 2009
  • Run Time: 80 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B002BTON24
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,516 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Product Description

"The winning actor brilliantly portrayed a complex man with complex emotions. His exciting performance was all at once compelling, stunning and magical." Michael Sheen (OBE) won the 2006 Royal Television Society best actor award for his heart-breaking portrayal of Kenneth Williams, a consummate entertainer who was loved by everyone but himself. From the intimacy of his diaries and other sources, Martyn Hesford's Fantabulosa! creates a portrait of a fastidious performer who hankered after recognition, adulation and companionship throughout his career. Yet although he could create a thousand voices and characters, he was unable to live comfortably within his own skin.


Synopsis

Michael Sheen (THE QUEEN, FROST/NIXON) puts in a mesmerising, award-winning performance as tortured comedy legend Kenneth Williams in this televised drama. Martyn Hesford's (MISS MARIE LLOYD) screenplay was garnered from William's own intimate diaries and other close sources, creating a sometimes hilarious, sometimes heart-breaking portrait of a complicated yet much-loved performer. In fact therein lies much of the film's tragedy, Sheen's Williams can charm and entertain with a host of comic characters, yet he is never comfortable with himself, his sexuality and his desperate need for companionship.
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sheen Shines.., 9 Sep 2009
By Paul Ess. (Holywell, N.Wales,UK.) - See all my reviews
The trials and tribulations of Kenneth Williams: has there ever been an existence so finely suited to a dramatization? Has there ever been a span of life screaming so loudly to be explored and dissected?
Confused, unfulfilled, excessively complicated and psychotically frustrated - both physically and artistically.
An actors dream I would imagine; along the lines of King Lear or Joan of Arc...

Obviously, there's more to playing Williams than pulling faces and saying "stop messin' about" in a silly voice and Sheen is well alive to this. His representation in 'Fantabulosa' is intimate, amusing and warm. There's not many actors physically suited to playing Williams, never mind getting inside his ever expanding psyche, but Sheen manages both. Impressively and colourfully.
Whether he's displaying cheerful disdain to an adoring public or subtly exploring the dark corners of a desperately awkward and eventually solitary sexuality, Sheen is superb at every asking. There is no hint of accidental rightness anywhere; either in Sheen's performance or in the body of 'Fantabulosa' itself.
The awards speak for themselves.

The script is a tantalizing mix of license, anecdote and extract from Williams own word - primarily his famous diaries. Sheen's voice-over is tremendous, possibly the highlight of the film: delicate, accomplished inflection replacing the bawdiness and ribaldry of elsewhere.

The only minor criticism is, of course, 'Fantabulosa's length. Major characters are whipped past (his association with Joe Orton, for example, is worthy of a film in itself), in order to keep the whole shebang moving, but as it's as much the Sheen Show as it is the Williams Story, even this is not damagingly detrimental. It is slightly vulgar that so much of such an entertainingly full life should be omitted to the appeasement of time (Williams is furious, wherever he is), but maybe that's just reviewer greed.
Leave 'em wanting more....as they say.

'Fantabulosa' is something we often do brilliantly in this country - being done brilliantly again. Moving drama with humour and guile; gripping from the off, and not letting go 'til the final haunting sequence.
Superbly mounted, staged, filmed, scored, cast and directed.
You don't really need to be told to buy this, do you?
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantabulous, 10 Sep 2009
I'm over the moon that this is finally coming out on DVD - it's about time, too! I must have seen this 4 or 5 times on the television, and it is excellent. This turned me to Michael Sheen, whose performance in this film was sublime - and that is not a term one bandies about easily. He deflowered Kenneth to reveal his vulnerability, which is a different perspective to the self-imposed acid-tongued queen with whom we are usually presented.

The atmosphere in this `dramamentary' always has me compelled to watch it, and it embodies his burgeoning sexuality quite well. I think the hoover scene is a great allegory of Kenneth trying to become comfortable in his surroundings, and when his father turns up at the other side of the door it's almost a metaphor for all of his doubts and inhibitions niggling away at his conscience. I certainly don't want to talk as if I knew him personally and that I am using this piece as a basis for psychoanalysing him - I'm not - but what I am saying is that this gives a good general idea as to how he would have been feeling and reacting at the time.

What this film has also done, which is quite quirky and different, is to portray the taboo-ness of homosexuality in that era not via any external homophobia, but from within the reluctance and grimacing of Kenneth Williams himself.

Some of these scenes you will find yourself considering in more than one way. For example: when he's sat down in the café and speaking extra loudly and playing his character to make everybody laugh, what was really going on? Desperation and loneliness now that he's lost in a public persona? Self-loathing because he wanted to be a classical actor? Maybe he was just getting carried away with making people laugh... Or maybe his recent fame had inflated his ego a little too much...

I may have presented this as a gay-interest film but there are so many more sides to this piece: it's both grim and entertaining, and light-hearted and dark (a real credit to Michael Sheen and interesting for any Carry On fan). This is a stunning composition and a fantastic insight into a comedy icon. Now stop messin' about, and buy it!
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars what a great man,, 26 Oct 2009
By Mr. G. E. Gregory - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is Micheal Sheen playing the loveable Kenneth Williams in a take off of he's life and career, its great acting and micheal takes Kenny off very well, showing you the day to day life of how Kenneth carried on and how he spent he's day's , what he did and where, all the up's and down's of he's life, very good in deed right to the end where poor old Kenny passed away,it show's you he's mixed up life towards the end and how he treated he's homosexualaty,
I enjoyed it thoughly and recommend it to all fan's of Kenneth William's, Carry On Fan's, People who just loved the loveable and likeable Kenny'
well worth it!!
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