Two Great British Institutions. One Shared Spirit. Britain has always done cheek better than anyone else. It’s practically a national sport. Long before hashtags, ring lights and “content”, we all understood that suggestion beats explanation every time. A raised eyebrow says more than a full paragraph. Timing is everything. Confidence, when it’s delivered properly, is lethal. Two very British institutions have lived by that rule for decades: the Carry On films and Babestation.
The Carry On lot gave us a masterclass in innuendo-led glamour. Barbara Windsor didn’t need to do anything outrageous. A giggle, a look, maybe a well-timed wobble of the handbag and the job was done. Hattie Jacques could dominate a room without raising her voice, all authority and perfect comic timing. Joan Sims perfected that flustered, faux-innocent act where the audience always knew she knew exactly what was going on.
Spin the dial a bit further and the picture only gets richer. Fenella Fielding’s voice alone could make the curtains twitch. Every syllable was a slow burn. Dilys Laye had that breezy, accidental-seeming allure that made you feel like you were in on a private joke. Liz Fraser was confidence in heels. Valerie Leon could stop a scene stone dead just by walking into it. Patsy Rowlands proved, over and over again, that sometimes the biggest laugh comes from the reaction, not the line.
Fast-forward to the studio lights of Babestation and honestly, the DNA is obvious. This is modern British cheekiness, built on personality, timing, and performers who understand that the tease is the whole point.
The Carry On films ran on a very specific kind of glamour. Cheek before flesh. Timing before excess. Women who knew exactly how funny they were being. Look at Babestation through that lens and it’s impossible not to spot a few modern performers who would have wandered straight onto a Pinewood set without missing a beat.
First up, Dani O’Neal. Dani has that priceless Carry On quality of being completely in control of the room without ever needing to shout about it. She can flirt, tease, roll her eyes and land a line with just enough knowing irony to make the audience feel like co-conspirators. She’d be the one leaning into shot with a half-smile, letting the silence do the heavy lifting before delivering the punchline perfectly.
Then there’s Amanda Rendell. Her appeal comes from smut rather than swagger. In a Carry On world, milf model Amanda is the naughty and exaggerated front with the naughty streak. Lori Buckby is pure Carry On energy. Sharp, confident and totally unfazed by chaos, she’d have been a dream sparring partner for the old-school comic leads. Lori doesn’t just keep up with the joke, she pushes it forward. A raised eyebrow here, a quick flip of the script there, always one step ahead. That self-awareness is straight out of the classic playbook.
And then there’s Beth Bennett. Effortlessly glamorous on cams, calm under pressure and completely unflustered. Beth has that Valerie Leon effect where the comedy often comes from everyone else reacting to her presence. She wouldn’t need to overplay anything.
What links these Babestation babes to the Carry On greats isn’t nostalgia. It’s craft. They understand suggestion and the magic of letting the audience join the dots themselves. That’s why the comparison works. The format’s changed, the cameras are sharper, but the heart of it is exactly the same. British cheekiness, delivered with confidence and a wink.
In another timeline, they’d be strutting down a hospital corridor, a campsite or a dodgy foreign hotel set, music sting queued up, door about to slam. And honestly, they’d fit right in.
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Written by Reede Fox
