Sid Colin occasionally collaborated with regular Carry On series writer Talbot Rothwell.
14 Facts About Sid Colin
1.
2.
Sid Colin wrote material for the show, and was described in the Radio Times as "Muddler of Ceremonies".
3.
In 1944, the Squadronaires were commissioned to provide music for the film Starlight Serenade, and Sid Colin became one of the film script's co-writers.
4.
In 1946, Sid Colin was about to get married, did not want to continue touring, and was unwilling to make the fashionable change from acoustic to electric guitar.
5.
Sid Colin became head writer on an established show, Navy Mixture, where he introduced new characters voiced by Jon Pertwee and Jimmy Edwards, among others.
6.
Sid Colin wrote for the panel show Ignorance Is Bliss, for which Sid Millward's Nitwits supplied the music, and then joined the writing team led by Frank Muir and Denis Norden for the show Starlight Hour.
7.
Sid Colin was then given free rein on a series starring Avril Angers, Friends and Neighbours, followed by the sitcom Dear Dotty in 1954, but neither was successful and Colin returned to radio work.
8.
Sid Colin returned to television to work on Arthur Askey's Living It Up, and The Ted Ray Show, and then wrote links and monologues for The Jimmy Wheeler Show.
9.
In 1957, Sid Colin created the sitcom The Army Game for Granada Television.
10.
The series, featuring William Hartnell, Alfie Bass, Bill Fraser and many others, was highly successful, running to 154 episodes in four series; Sid Colin wrote 38 of the episodes.
11.
Sid Colin started a four-year break from scriptwriting work in 1960, which it has been suggested may have been because of exhaustion combined with resentment at apparent plagiarism of some of his work.
12.
Sid Colin returned in 1964, co-writing the script for Carry On Spying, and creating two television shows, How To Be An Alien starring Frank Muir and Denis Norden, and HMS Paradise starring Frank Thornton.
13.
Sid Colin continued to work with the show's star, Frankie Howerd, on the spin-off films Up Pompeii, Up the Chastity Belt, and Up the Front, and finally the poorly-received sitcom Whoops Baghdad.
14.
Sid Colin continued as a staff writer for both the BBC and ITV, contributing on such shows as Love Thy Neighbour.