This second Carry On film is set at Haven Hospital and features an eclectic bunch of characters- the boxer, the bookish nuclear physicist, the bothersome colonel…

The cast of favourites are all present and correct, with Hattie Jacques’ first turn as a matron. And how fantastic she is! Watch how she patrols the ward like a Great White Shark with the other nurses rushing out of her inimitable path as soon as she appears like a force of nature. I also love the fact that fat tuba music is played over the soundtrack whenever she makes her entrance.

I also loved Charles Hawtrey’s character who pretends to conduct the music he’s listening to on the hospital radio. There’s a great scene that intercuts his conducting with a shift in music with the matron doing her rounds.

There’s even a scene featuring Hawtrey dressed as a nurse. Very daring for the 50’s.

The gags come thick and fast and there’s too many to write about here. I watched with a smile permanently on my face.

As well as the regular cast members we are also treated to other luminaries such as Terry Thomas, June Whitfield and Joan Hickson to name but a few.

Carry On Nurse is a delight from start to finish and certainly turns a frown upside down. It also reminds us of a bygone era. If Carry On Nurse was made today I don’t know if there’d be much comedic value in patients being treated in corridors…

The characters are so well written and played that when some leave to go home at the end of the film, it’s strangely poignant.

The critics may not have unanimously enjoyed the film on it’s release but the general public did. The film was the highest earning film of the year in the UK for 1959. Take that stuffy critics.

4 out of 5 stars