Never mind those dour" slices of working - class life" epics with ex -miners/dockers/railway workers coughing their lungs into their handkerchiefs before lighting another Woodbine/pipe/roll - up and taking their whippet/bull terrier/cringeing cur into the local rec/disused pit/ dark satanic mill while the "Hovis" voice - over goes on about the good old days when you could take the "Daily Herald" into the outdoor privvie for a bit of peace and fill the tin bath with coal for ninepence,any "Carry on" will give you a truer picture of the British as they really are rather than the guilt - ridden imaginings of the North London Taliban. We are,and I say this quite proudly,vulgar,sexist,defiantly non PC,fiercely patriotic (an attribute apparently fine for everybody else),good - humoured and tolerant.We treasure the eccentric (Charles Hawtrey,Esma Cannon),love the camp(Kenneth Williams,Dick Emery),deflate the pompous(Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams again).What we most certainly are not is dour,humourless narrow - minded and filled with class hatred.From "Carry on Sergeant" to the less than magnificent "Carry on Columbus",we have a social history of 30 - odd years in the life of this island race .Nowhere is this reflected more strongly than in "Carry on up the Khyber".From Sir Sidney Ruff - Diamond to Private Widdle we have a microcosm of British Society,ostensibly a Victorian one but in fact timeless.In one of the funniest and truest scenes in UK cinema,Sir Sidney and his dinner guests blithely ignore a native(can you still say that?) uprising as the house is destroyed about them,determinedly clinging on to the familiar rather than accepting the inevitable.It is,in a strange way,rather moving. For those who would see racism in a box of Dominoes the sight of Kenneth Williams blacked up might offend,but,hey,this is Kenneth Williams we're talking about,not Heinrich Himmler.And if there is a distinct lack of black Asian faces in the cast that might just be because there weren't that many black Asian actors about 40 years ago. The whole movie is a Bumper Fun Book of puns,double entendres,lavatory and willy jokes and silly names.It is,in short,excruciatingly funny,played by an expert cast at the absolute top of their game,and, dare I say it,more representative of the real Britain than any Ealing Comedy.