The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. Absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

Hello and welcome to the Spectator's Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor

of The Spectator, and my guest this week is Caroline Frost, whose new book is called Carry On Regardless,

which is an affectionate history come revisiting of the great pillar of British cinema,

the Carry On Movies. Caroline, welcome. Well, first off, I guess, why, you know, why this book,

why now? Carry on feels like it's somewhat in the past to most of us.

For sure. Thank you for having me. I guess the official hook is that it is the 30th anniversary of

Carry on Columbus, which was a rather sad whimper, not a bang exit from this extraordinary franchise. So that was the hook on

which I was commissioned. But then I kicked off, I thought, okay, here we go, going in, 30 films,

Sid James's chuckle, Barbara Wingsers Giggle, lots of doctors on trolleys, careering down

staircases. This isn't going to take me very long.

And it will be sweet and it will be affectionate.

But then lockdown happened.

The outside world was thrown into chaos and fear and all sorts of decisions and questions

being asked of Parliament and institutions.

And I bunkered down to watch the films

from their beginning, 1958, Carry On Sargent, all the way through, 30 films later. And on the one

hand, it was this wonderful, totally fortunate, just accidentally blissful escape into a bygone age

of capers. But something more interesting began to emerge,

watching them in linear fashion. I realised that they offered obviously almost a socio-cultural

document on the history of that time, but I do think it has something relevant to offer us now. So I got more and more embedded.

I was determined to keep an open mind about the things that people say. And it turned into

...