It was interesting - or perhaps more than a coincidence - that this ITV profile of the late DJ should have been broadcast so soon after BBC Four's rerun of the bio-drama BEST POSSIBLE TASTE (2012) which at least tried to examine the complexities of this incredibly innovative yet shy personality.
Verity Maidlow's documentary took a far more straightforward approach by chronicling the major episodes in Everett's life interspersed with largely flattering memories from celebs such as Chris Tarrant, Billy Connolly, Roger Taylor (Queen) and Steve Norman (Spandau Ballet) as well as the DJs sister and ex-wife.
We only learned that Everett was a fundamentally retiring personality who invented his wacky radio - and later television - persona as a means of covering up his shortcomings, whether psychological or sexual. It was only towards the end of his life that he finally came out, ending years of speculation (as well as agony) about his sexuality. In many ways his media persona resembled that of another famous repressed homosexual, Kenneth Williams; both were unbelievably talented, yet chose to hide themselves behind a variety of vocal masks, especially while being interviewed as themselves.
Everett's chief contribution to media history was not only achieved through radio; his series THE KENNY EVERETT VIDEO SHOW (for ITV) and the KENNY EVERETT TELEVISION PROGRAMME (for the BBC) attracted high audiences and critical plaudits. But neither of them were stylistically quite as innovative as the celebs liked to claim; the combination of zany humor and video trickery had been part of Spike Milligan's Q series for the BBC since the mid-Sixties. Everett took that tradition and rebooted it for a younger audience in the late Seventies and Eighties.
Short on insight, but long on video clips from his work in all media, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO KENNY EVERETT proved mildly diverting.
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