Tom Marshman as Kenneth Williams in A Shining Intimacy [Jack Offord] 

A NEW play dramatising the life of comic actor Kenneth Williams is set to open at a theatre close to his old home.

A Shining Intimacy will focus on his friendship between the Carry On star and the grande dame of period dramas, Maggie Smith.

Mr Williams was born in King’s Cross and went to school in Camden Town. In the last part of his life he lived in Marlborough House, a building in Osnaburgh Street near Euston Road.

Once marked with a blue plaque in his honour, the building was knocked down to make way for a skyscraper in 2007.

The new play will be staged at the Camden’s People Theatre a few blocks away.

Writer Tom Marshman said the play explored “the kind of relationship that queer men have with women”, adding: “I’ve been lucky enough to have lots of those friendships that are mutually supportive of each other, and inspiring.”

Mr Williams and Ms Smith first met while performing in the West End revue Share My Lettuce in the 1950s.

To write the play, Mr Marshman trawled through the actor’s diaries, which allowed him access to “his interior world – they are very intimate and personal and quite tragic. The final thing he writes in his diary is, ‘what’s the bloody point?’”

Mr Williams was found dead in his flat after taking an overdose of sleeping pills in 1988. It was never clear whether he had intended to take his own life.

“He was a solitary, lonely figure in lots of ways, but he also had that innate being-a-performer quality as well, wanting to be the centre of everything,” said Mr Marshman.

“He used to go around Camden and do sing-songs in the local pubs. He was one of those posh common people, and I think Maggie is a bit like that too. They put on an air but really they’re just an everyday person. And I’m a bit like that too.”

Interested in queer culture, this the second play Mr Marshman has written that takes Camden as its backdrop.

One of his previous plays, King’s Cross Remix, covered the gay nightlife scene of King’s Cross in the 1980s and 1990s.

“I was really interested in it because it felt like it was somewhere people had forgotten about,” he said.

“It was an area that in the 1980s and 90s was very dark, and there were still lots of empty areas that hadn’t been built over from the bombings in the war. It was a real mix of different things: there was an underground party scene, and there were charities like [LGBT+ support organisation] Switchboard.

“That area has completely changed now, you can’t really see that history if you walk around now, but it is there,” he said.

A Shining Intimacy is at Camden People’s Theatre, May 18-20

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