Celebrity Chat
Coffee with Penny Kendall by
David Hawkins

Left: Here is Penny Kendall with Associate Editor David Hawkins. David had the opportunity to meet with Penny over Coffee. Special Thanks to Penny Kendall for providing this image.

Something very interesting happened recently. David Hawkins had the opportunity to meet up with the lovely Penny Kendall. This is the first time someone who is a part of the Benny's Place crew has had the opportunity to meet up with a star from the Benny Hill Show. Penny was interviewed here quite some time ago in the Angels In The Spotlight section of the site. Perhaps this could be the first of several Celebrity Chats where the crew here at Benny's Place have the chance to meet with stars from the series in person. My personal hope is to eventually have audio chats recorded with Stars from the series as Podcasts. I'll let Associate Editor, David Hawkins give you all the behind-the-scenes details.

Coffee With Penny Kendall
30th December 2007
by David Hawkins

Here is Penny Kendall with Associate Editor David Hawkins. David had the opportunity to meet with Penny over Coffee. Click this image for a larger view. Special Thanks to Penny Kendall for providing this image.

When I joined the Benny Hill Hotel Splendide EZboard back in 10/08/06, my first post was to Penny Kendall. Never did I think that almost 15 months later that I would get to meet her. Penny's family lives near the Sutton and Croydon area. When She found out that I lived near that area and that I too have family there, she suggested that the next time she was over that we could both meet up for a coffee. I jumped at the chance. Penny, on the EZboard, told me that she was over in London during Christmas and asked for my Mobile number, which I sent to her via Shawn, the Webmaster of Benny's Place.

We first arranged to meet on Thursday the 27th, but on that day I got a call from Penny and as she was on a tight schedule, we met up on Sunday the 30th instead. She would be in Croydon that morning with her daughter at the hairdressers and we could meet up afterwards.

The place was Starbucks and it was just before midday. Penny was already there along with her daughter. Penny greeted me with a hug and a kiss and when we sat down I gave her a box of chocolate's as a thank you for taking the time out from her schedule to meet me, for which I got another hug.

Here is Penny Kendall with Associate Editor David Hawkins. David had the opportunity to meet with Penny over Coffee. Click this image for a larger view. Special Thanks to Penny Kendall for providing this image.

We first talked about Pan's People. Penny auditioned for them in 1976. Not for Top of the Pops, but for Dee Dee Wilde's Pan's People. Penny told me that Dee Dee was not there at the audition, but Babs was. Babs was one of the founding members of Pan's People back in 1967. Penny passed the audition, but later was told that at 16, she was to young to go on tour with the troupe. However, she went on to dance with Sam's Set. Penny is still in touch with one of Sam's Set, Mandy Goddbehear.

Penny also told me that she danced with Hot Gossip around 1977 or 1978 as a stand-in, but she also got to do a sketch with them on The Kenny Everett Video Show. It was a disco sketch with Kenny with those huge hands. It was a bit like the Joke Wall in the Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In Show. There would be dancing followed by jokes.

We went on to talk about how Penny got onto The Benny Hill Show. Benny spotted her on another show, found out her name and then he himself rang her at her family's home. Her dad answered and Penny automatically thought he was joking. Benny called her in for an audition. However, she heard from other girls that he was a dirty old man, but she soon found out how untrue that was. Benny liked Penny and offered her the role as one of Hill's Angels for the 1981 series.

The recording took place during the winter of 1981. During this time Penny told me that little Jack Wright had his 80th Birthday and although he liked a smoke, he was not really a drinker. The cast and crew were holding a party for him. He only had the one glass of wine. He ended up on the table playing the spoons.

She enjoyed working with Bob Todd as they had worked together before, but as Penny told me, they were both gigglers and had to do quite a few re-takes. They would sometimes get the crew laughing too.

Penny's family never had a VCR, so when the show went out, they had to watch TBHS there and then and she was surprised to find that her sketches were mixed out with other episodes.

Penny wanted to stay with the show, but she was already contracted to another show abroad and if she broke the contract, she would have been blacklisted by equity.

Penny told me about other stars she worked with, like Freddie Starr. Now, I can't remember whose show it was, but Freddie gatecrashed the show. He was hiding in the dancers' dressing room when he jumped out at them from a cupboard, but the best moment was when the girls were dancing and he, (and this was not part of the act), swung from one end of the stage to the other, a bit like Tarzan. Freddie Starr was always very unpredictable like that.

Before we left I asked Penny if she would sign my NTSC copy of Benny Hill's Video Sideshow, but I forgot to bring a pen with me so Penny went over to the Woolworth's store on the other side of the street to buy a pen to sign the Video. We both brought our cameras and her daughter took the photos.

We all left at the same time. Penny, her daughter and I walked towards a black cab where we said our goodbyes. More hugs.

Penny is a lovely, warm lady who was also interested in the things I was doing and gave me lots of helpful advice about things like my drama courses. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to thank Penny for taking time to answer our many questions over on the EZboard. I would also like to thank Penny for meeting up with me for a chat and a coffee.

This has to be my highlight of 2007. Thanks, Penny

David Hawkins,
December 2007

I think every Penny Kendall fan is probably pretty jealous of David right now! Congratulations David, and thanks to Penny Kendall for being gracious to David and to everyone on the Benny Hill Hotel Splendide EZBoard. David is going to start off the New Year with a big smile for 2008! Happy New Year everyone!