The Best Possible Taste – The Kenny Everett Story, 2012
Kenny Everett remains one of radio’s most beloved DJ’s. His inventive genius and collection of zany characters made him a household name both on radio and TV. however behind the laughter laid a story of a different kind.
The Best Possible Taste was a one off TV Movie screened in 2012 that told of Kenny Everett’s struggle to achieve both personal and professional fulfilment, as seen through the 15-year prism of his marriage to Lee Middleton.
Summary
Maurice Cole is a schoolboy, growing up in 1960s Liverpool. He find himself picked on by others for being effeminate. However Maurice is already making his own comedy tapes.
These tapes are about to change his life when one of them impresses agent Wilfred De’ath through whom he gets a job on a pirate radio station. Changing his name to Kenny Everett he is soon king of the airwaves. Still making his own comedy tapes for use on his shows he is a huge hit with audiences.
Always controversial, he finds himself sacked for annoying the sponsor. However his popularity sees him working on the BBC’s newly-formed Radio One.
Around this time he meets and marries Lee Middleton, who not only sticks by him through his career lows but is sympathetic when, following a drugs over-dose, he admits to being gay. She even helps him find a boyfriend though, unlike his friend Freddie Mercury, he is reluctant to come out.
Following their divorce Kenny is best man when Lee marries actor John Alkin and, in 1985, in typically flamboyant style comes out, owing to having not one but two ‘husbands’. However, in 1989 he is diagnosed as HIV+ and, in 1995, a year after winning the prestigious Sony award, dies of AIDS aged fifty.
Throughout the film commentary on events is provided by Everett’s comic creations.
Clips
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Cast
Oliver Lansley – Kenny Everett
Katherine Kelly – Lee Everett-Alkin
Perry Millward – Maurice Cole (young Kenny)
Jonathan Kerrigan – John Alkin
Details
Channel: BBC4
Written By: Tim Whitnall
Original Transmission Date: 3rd October 2012