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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams

Book of the Week: Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams: Episode 1

Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams, Episode 1

The young Kenneth Williams shows academic promise and an instinct for comedy.

Nicholas Boulton reads Christopher Stevens' biography of Kenneth Williams. The young Kenneth Williams shows academic promise but his father says he must learn a trade.

Kenneth Williams was the stand-out comic actor of his generation. Beloved as the manic star of Carry On films and as a peerless raconteur on TV chat shows and radio comedies, he was also acclaimed for serious stage roles. 

But he was a complicated character which often showed in his erratic behaviour - he could be affectionate one minute then spiteful the next, ever the extrovert in public he would return to his tiny sparsely decorated flat alone and he turned down more than his fair share of professional opportunities.

Since the publication of edited extracts from his diaries, much controversy has surrounded Williams's personal and professional lives. But journalist and author Christopher Stevens has been granted access by the estate to Williams's complete archive - the forty-three volumes of diaries and hundreds of unseen letters to and from the star. He has also interviewed many of Williams's friends and colleagues (some who have never spoken publicly before about their time with Kenneth). 

Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams (the first full-length authorised biography) traces the complex contradictions that characterised an extraordinary life.

Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Read by Nicholas Boulton


Producer: Joanna Green
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Nicholas Boulton reads Christopher Stevens' biography of Kenneth Williams

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Episode 1

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