{"id":531462,"date":"2025-10-27T16:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T16:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/531462\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T16:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T16:40:12","slug":"we-were-fitted-with-remote-control-penises-harry-enfield-and-kathy-burke-on-kevin-and-perry-go-large-comedy-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/531462\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We were fitted with remote control penises\u2019: Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke on Kevin and Perry Go Large | Comedy films"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harry Enfield, co-writer, played Kevin<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019d done Kevin and Perry on Harry Enfield<\/a> and Chums and thought it would be fun to make a Wayne\u2019s World-y thing while we still had the impetus of the TV programme. I went on holiday and Dave Cummings, who\u2019d written for Harry Enfield and Chums, did the first draft. I came back and took over. A month later, it was all happening. It was really quick.<\/p>\n

We were given a few million<\/a> to shoot over 12 days in Ibiza. The nightclub scenes were all filmed in one day and night at Amnesia. The scene in which Kevin and Perry get puked on<\/a> by some clubbers was filmed in the afternoon. We invented the Inbetweeners basically! They couldn\u2019t shut the club in the evening, so the crowd weren\u2019t extras. They were actual clubbers, having a good night, and the DJs were actually DJing. I said to DJs Seb Fontaine and Roger Sanchez: \u201cDo you mind if I just come and interrupt your set?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d won best actress at Cannes \u2013 but most of the parts I was offered afterwards were extremely boring<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I was that age, it was punk. We\u2019d go and see the Clash and the Pistols. They\u2019d be horrible to us and we\u2019d go: \u201cBrilliant!\u201d I once asked Pistols drummer Paul Cook<\/a>: \u201cCan you write something funny on my trousers?\u201d So he wrote: \u201cSomething funny.\u201d Eyeball Paul, the character played by Rhys Ifans, is our equivalent: the nastier he is to to us, the more we like him.<\/p>\n

The notorious scene in which poo goes into my mouth wasn\u2019t in the script. Originally it was a scene where Kevin and Perry went on a boat trip with the girls, who all ignored them. But when we got to the jetty to film it, there was no sign of the boat. Ed Bye, the director, said: \u201cWhat the fuck are we going to do?\u201d We had to think of something else. I\u2019d been swimming at the same beach a few years before and there had been a great big human poo next to me. I said: \u201cGet a bit of polystyrene, paint it brown, put some sweetcorn on it like eyes and pull it with fishing line so it looks like it\u2019s going in my mouth. And Kathy, you go in the water and look like you\u2019ve just shat in the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film is fun and silly, but quite sweet because you feel sorry for Kevin and Perry. It\u2019s very English. When they screened it in America, people hated it so much they wanted to burn the cinema down. In France, the poster read: \u201cKevin et Perry, un film trash.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a bit too old for a sequel now. I did once write Kevin and Perry Go to Wizard School, but nobody ever replied. That\u2019s the English film industry, I\u2019m afraid.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kathy Burke, played Perry<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been one of Harry Enfield\u2019s \u201cChums\u201d, playing Waynetta Slob, Lulu the Toddler and Perry. I\u2019d just won the 1997 best actress award in Cannes for Nil By Mouth<\/a> when Harry said he might be able to get funds for a Kevin and Perry movie. Was I up for it? I thought: \u201cToo right, mate!\u201d<\/p>\n

I left the script to Harry and Dave Cummings. Louisa Rix continued in her role as Kevin\u2019s mum, Mrs Patterson. Perry and Mrs Patterson have this little twinkle between them: Perry is very much in lust with Mrs Patterson and she is very much in amusement with him. It was always great fun working with Louisa.<\/p>\n

Since we were playing a couple of hormonal, randy teenagers, Harry and I were fitted with electronic penises that worked by remote control. Sexy ladies walked past and \u2013 boing! \u2013 up went the appendages. The crew were a lively bunch too, and we\u2019d congregate in a bar at the end of a day\u2019s filming and drink Choccy-Woccy, a lethal brandy, vodka and milk chocolate concoction that Rhys Ifans invented. It went down far too easily yet for some reason caused minimal hangovers.<\/p>\n

When we did the press circuit, I was surprised by how many journalists asked if this kind of comedy movie was maybe a bit lowbrow. Most of the parts I\u2019d been offered since Cannes were extremely boring \u2013 just carbon copies of my previous roles. As a woman in my mid-30s, when else would I have the opportunity to play a 14-year-old boy? It\u2019s surprising but very lovely that, nearly 30 years on, people still talk to me about Kevin and Perry. They hold a special place in some old hearts. As Perry would say: \u201cFank yoo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Harry Enfield and No Chums begins touring<\/a> in March. A Mind of My Own by Kathy Burke is published by Gallery Books<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Enfield, co-writer, played Kevin We\u2019d done Kevin and Perry on Harry Enfield and Chums and thought it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-531462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115447124739030824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}