It is a widely considered rule of thumb that the Carry Ons are so much better when inhabiting a period scenario, as if somehow the old crew could convince themselves they were doing something a touch more dignified. However, a play on the habits of debauched King Henry VIII presented problems. How could a king’s avaricious designs, particularly on the buxom Bettina, daughter of the Earl of Bristol (snark!) ever be denied him (the central tenet of the whole series — Sid James trying, and failing, to get his end away) if he is the king? The answer director Gerald Thomas and screenwriter Talbot Rothwell muster is a limp series of slapstick routines in which the gnarly king occupies himself in Benny Hill-style chases.
Again confusingly, Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey, play heterosexuals, the later even making the garlic scented queen pregnant. There is much too-ing and fro-ing around the king’s devious plotting, but aside from tight fitting bodices and some well-worked art direction, and Sid James really working his end of things (!) it suffers the lack of working class charm that lies at the heart of the series.