Up Pompeii
Tags: historical fiction

Plot synopsis:
The series is set in ancient Pompeii (pre-eruption). Howerd played a slave, Lurcio (pronounced Lurk-io); the other main characters were Lurcio's bumbling old master, Senator Ludicrus Sextus (initially Max Adrian and then Wallas Eaton), the senator's promiscuous wife Ammonia (Elizabeth Larner), his daughter Erotica (Georgina Moon) and his eternally virginal son Nausius (Kerry Gardner), along with the Cassandra-esque Senna the Soothsayer (Jeanne Mockford) and, in series one, Plautus (Willie Rushton). Guest stars included several actresses from the Carry On film series, including Barbara Windsor, Wendy Richard and Valerie Leon.
The format was little more than a backdrop for an endless series of double entendres and risqué gags. Howerd was central to most of the gags and he started each episode with a prologue — a "to camera" piece that was seldom concluded and rarely had anything to do with the episode's plot.
Thirteen 30-minute episodes were made, in two series (March – May and September – October 1970). In addition there was a pilot episode (1969) and two special episodes entitled Further Up Pompeii, one in 1975 and the other, written by Brian Leveson and Paul Minett, in 1991. The latter sparked speculation that there could be a new series, but Howerd's death in 1992 put an end to any such prospect.
Apart from the change to the actor playing Ludicrus Sextus, there are some differences between the two series of Up Pompeii, the second series using noticeably fewer sets than the previous. This may have been due to the second series being commissioned, filmed and broadcast within four months from the end of the first.
The series was recorded in front of a live studio audience, with whom Howerd interacted, breaking the fourth wall. Also, Howerd made anachronistic comments like "I don't use that glycerine rubbish" or "The BBC told me..." when such things didn't exist in ancient times. Howerd addressed the audience using asides that the other characters couldn't hear (a device that harks back to classical theatre), often commenting on the script, sometimes complaining that everyone else got the good lines.

Review: The thing it is most like is a series from the same era - the name escapes me but it had a black and white couple living next to each other with the men making snide racist comments across the garden fence, but respecting each other underneath, while the wives sat in the kitchen bitching about men over a cup of tea.Frankie Howerd is, well, Frankie Howerd.
This was clearly a Frankie Production.So (in the words of jib-jab) if you are a left wing weenie, forget this film, but if you are a stupid dumb ass (like me), take a look..
A slave, Lurcio, accidentally picks up a scroll naming conspirators, and much British fun follows.
This film has little storyline, and is not particularly funny, but it is worth watching for the theme song and Lance Percival's Roman General..
Just reading the names of the characters makes me smile.The film has its origin in a British TV Series and was certainly much better in 30 minute chunks but, at least when they made the film, they took the effort to come up with a plot, puerile though it is.
The cast is pretty well unchanged from the TV Series too.Frankie Howerd (Lurcio) based his whole theatrical career on dodgy double intendres and this film is full of them.
Spin off from the 70's sitcom of the same name this film spins out the same gags over an hour and twenty minutes run time and gets away with it but only just.
Frankie Howerd is again Lurcio the roman slave in ancient Pompeii getting involved in the evil machinations of the emperor Nero (Patrick Cargill) and the evil Brutus and his henchmen (Lance Percival).If you liked the TV series you'll like this is the basic rule here, to a modern audience I doubt it would play well, Frankie Howerds routine is very much of it's time and place.
The movie feels too much like a stretched out episode to be a classic like many TV shows spun off into movies in the 70's (On the Buses, Rising Damp, Porridge etc.) but its certainly worth a look for Up Pompei or Frankie Howerd fans.Mostly funny, occasionally hilarious 7/10.
Whilst others (GEORGE AND MILDRED, ARE YOU BEING SERVED?) are looked upon as complete disasters, mainly because the writers took the characters outside of their familiar settings for most of the movies.The plots of "spin-off" movies from a British sitcom usually revolved around sending the familiar characters on holiday (these movies flopped or are widely considered disastrous) or keeping the characters in their main settings and using the medium of film to expand the scope of the humour.
I think UP POMPEII actually falls outside these two categories.Indeed, I believe the UP POMPEII movie brings the Lurcio character and the Pompeii setting to life in a way the TV series never could.
Well, the sets on the TV series were far worse - they looked like cardboard (no exaggeration here!).
Not even Frankie Howerd could distract me from the terrible sets of the TV series.
At least the movie did attempt to build some convincing sets and I thought the producers did OK given the budget.The TV series itself was very bland and relied entirely on the late great Frankie Howerd to carry the proceedings.
I found the TV series unwatchable when Frankie was not on the screen.In contrast, the movie helps Frankie by giving him first-rate talent to support him in the form of Bill Fraser, Julie Ege, Patrick Cargill, Barbara Murray, Madeleine Smith and Bernard Bresslaw.
But the best supporting actor in this movie by far is Lance Percival, who really comes into his own with the Captain Bilius character.
The movie is a lot bawdier than the TV series but I actually think this is the way the franchise was meant to be anyway.
It wasn't meant to be just puns, double-entendres and sexual innuendos alone (we had the CARRY ON movies, the ON THE BUSES series and numerous other places to look for that), it was meant to be all of those things but also done cheekier and more direct.
With that in mind, I would say that the medium of film was the best way to present the aims of the UP POMPEII franchise.As has been mentioned before, many of the jokes are very corny but the superb delivery by Frankie and his supporting cast make them laugh-out-loud hilarious.
The slapstick elements were also telegraphed well in advance but again work due to the actors involved and some excellent one liners that followed each gag.As others have pointed out on the comments page, Frankie Howerd built a long-lasting career on a very limited repertoire.
Also unlike the work of other comedians, Frankie's comedy was not offensive in the least, instead being just harmless fun.This movie contains what is perhaps Frankie Howerd's best performance outside his starring roles in CARRY ON DOCTOR and CARRY ON UP THE JUNGLE.
I'd go as far as to say this was his singularly best performance, period!So if you like British comedy and want something that surpasses the blandness of the TV series, check out this movie.
Poor Frankie didn't have a lot of luck in the world of film - making a string of Norman Wisdom type of comedies in the 50's, two Carry Ons in the sixties, and then this, the first of a trilogy of "Up..." films.
Scripted by Dave Freeman, Sid Colin and Talbot Rothwell, this, at least fairs better than the average sitcom-to-film venture; for this doesn't rely on the string of half-hour stories lifted from the television show to support the 90 mins.
All that has been lifted from the show is the majority of double entendre groan-worthy gags which, thankfully, when performed by Howerd, still raise a titter.
"Just bear with me," he seems to be saying, "It'll all be over soon." Somehow it all worked, and Up Pompeii managed to rise above its seventies comedy contemporaries to become a classic.The film perhaps lacks the freshness of the TV series due to the loss of the studio audience.
The film followed on from a very successful BBC TV series of the same name - still showing today.It's full of "innuendo" (which American viewers may not follow) and cheeky - but like "Carry On" films that is where the charm lies.
The death knell of the later "Carry On" films was heard when they actually showed naked women on screen - it has all been good clean titillation up to then, missus!
Frankie Howerd, as a veteran of stage, radio, film and TV, allowed these romps to be used as a vehicle - full of his catch-phrases, knowing nods to the audience and hidden meanings.Guess if you don't like it - you may not be British!.
After watching this film, I've come to the realisation that Gregor Fisher must have taken a lot from Frankie Howard for the character of Rab C.
The constant looks to the camera as he chums us along are great, and will keep you company through this typically sexy 70's British comedy.The acting is good, the babes are just beautifully British (how I wish they still made 'em like that!) and the sexual innuendo will give you a good old giggle.It's pretty meh at times but the silliness of it all makes up for it.
Successful 70s BBC comedy series Up Pompeii gets the big screen treatment, its star, camp comedian Frankie Howerd, reprising his role as downtrodden Roman slave Lurcio, who on this occasion becomes unwittingly embroiled in a plot to assassinate Emperor Nero.Floundering amidst a flurry of sub-par innuendo and embarrassingly poor toilet humour, even a grand-master of the double entendre like Howerd struggles to get laughs from the barrage of third rate smut that comprises the bulk of the script.As if to compensate for the uninspired humour (which also involves the obligatory moments of lowbrow slapstick), the makers of this mess chuck in a fair amount of nudity, but although the sight of a naked Madeline Smith in the bath or a barely clothed Julie Ege is undeniably nice to look at, the film still proves a chore to sit through..
This silly period comedy lives or dies depending your taste for Frankie Howerd.
Others may find his humour stale and repetitive, and they'll be in trouble because this film is the Frankie Howerd Show in all but name.A movie version of a once popular TV series (which I never saw), UP POMPEII is a bawdy spoof of the Roman costume drama.
Howerd plays Lurcio, a slave who finds himself being chased by various ne'er do wells after a mix up involving a cucumber and a scroll (no, I'm not making this up).
The film is an excuse for a parade of actors to embarrass themselves or amuse the audience, depending on how much you like smutty, silly and slapstick humour, and rarely a scene goes by without a scantily clad woman in sight.As with most British comedies of the 1970s, a lot of the fun these days comes from spotting the star.
Lurcio (Frankie Howerd) inadvertently becomes the owner of a scroll that bears all the names of Emperor Nero's (Patrick Cargill) assassins.
Oh and Vesuvius is rumbling threateningly in the background.Up Pompeii was born out of the British television series of the same name than ran from 1969 to 1975.
Anyone who is familiar with the Carry On series of films will know the name Talbot Rothwell.
A writer of many of the Carry On movies, he also penned the first series of Up Pompeii, and also co-wrote the second series with Sid Colin .
So the link to Carry On, as well as Howerd who starred in two of the better movies from that franchise, is evident as much as it is important for potential first time viewers.
The film literally is 90 minutes of Howerd manfully making double entendre in every sketch.
I'm a very proud Brit myself and consider myself something of a flag waver for the best of Carry On, but this film is desperately poor and only of interest to Howerd enthusiasts {me, kind of} or those that adore lovely ladies legs {me, definitely}.
Up Pompeii was mostly written by the man who put the sauce in to the "Carry On" films – Talbot Rothwell (Sid Colin co wrote series 2).
The star of the show was Frankie Howerd who was a master of the double entendre.
I am not too sure how seriously the acting profession took this medium.Bringing together these elements could only lead to the sort of series which was, in the parlance of the times "naughty but nice".Howerd plays a slave in ancient Pompeii.
I just watched the film version of "Up Pompeii" and, boy, was I disappointed.
Frankie Howerd as Lurcio, the narrator and slave of a Senator, was a riot.
The only British films which seemed to make any money were either Hammer horror films or smutty comedies along the lines of the "Carry On" series.Occasionally, however, the television companies joined forces with their rivals in the cinema to produce a film version of a popular television programme.
Sometimes, as with "Dad's Army" or "Porridge", the film was a fairly straight equivalent of the series it was based on, but sometimes the film-makers took advantage of the relative freedom offered by the new medium to turn the television programme into something bawdier."Up Pompeii", a sitcom set in the days of the Roman Empire, was a popular TV show in the early seventies.
The film version follows the adventures of the main character, the slave Lurcio, as he gets involved with a plot to assassinate the Emperor Nero shortly before the destruction of Pompeii in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Classical scholars would, of course, point out that Nero had been dead for over a decade at the time of the eruption, but this is not a film likely to appeal to classical scholars, except to adherents of that school of classical history which holds that the average Roman citizen spent most of his time attending orgies and the rest engaged in such pursuits as feeding Christians to the lions.The name Lurcio is pronounced "Lurkio", which gives a good idea of his character (as well as showing that the scriptwriter knew something about Latin pronunciation).
The humour, like that of the original television series, is almost entirely based upon sexual innuendo and doubles-entendres, although here the sexual references are more direct and less innocent than they were on TV.
The film also shows rather more female flesh than would have been permitted on television at the time.Contrary to what is sometimes stated, Frankie Howerd was not a "Carry On" regular, appearing in only two films in that series, but his style of humour was very much in the same tradition.
("Titter ye not!") Despite this, however, and despite the fact that Howerd was gay in real life (as were Williams and Haughtrey), his character Lurcio is supposed to be a red-blooded heterosexual, always chasing after any pretty girl who takes his fancy.I have often seen comments on this board about films from the seventies to the effect that they look "dated", largely because the clothes of that era can seem eccentric to modern eyes.
Although campness has not altogether died out in British comedy (think, for example, of Julian Clary), the humour of "Up Pompeii" seems very dated today.
This is far from being the worst British sex comedy of the seventies.
Up Pompeii relies on British prudishness for its humour to work.
At the time of its release it was during a time of social upheaval, and people being credited as being ready for more adult humour that didn't rely on the double - entendre, but on more extreme suggestiveness, to the point of directness.This revolutionary period of British culture, reflected by comedy reformation has culminated in a new era of comedy genius.
Anyway, if you like suggestive comedy, and Roman orgies then this film could be up your street..
In the early seventies, the British film industry was in the doldrums, with many of the major backers pulling out, studios closing down and directors being poached by Hollywood, and when you look at the typical domestic product of that time, it's not at all surprising.
The production values never rise far above average, and the dreadful music-hall style opening song just demonstrates how backwards-looking the worst of British comedy was during a time of supposedly all-embracing upheaval and change.
This is the film version of a well remembered British Sitcom .
Compare UP POMPEII with BLACKADDER ( Notably the second series ) to see where I'm coming from Basing a film on a popular TV show can also lead to another problem : Make it similar to the original and it looks like a half hour episode stretched beyond a natural length - Change the format and characters are you're watching something unrecognisable , something the film version of GEORGE AND MILDRED suffers from .
It's also British humour at its most unsophisticated with characters having names like Ammonia , Ludicrous Sextus, Scrubber and Erotica .
Frankie Howard plays the Pompeian slave Lurcio, who is also the films narrator; he frequently breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly.
I don't think anybody else could have played the Lurcio; he delivers double entendres perfectly then looks shocked that anybody would take it the naughty way!
This happened a lot with situation comedies, and Up Pompeii!
The other reason, with specific reference to this particular comedy vehicle, is that much of the reason why the TV series worked so well, was Howerd's direct interaction with the audience.Up Pompeii!
The events of the plot amble along and Lurcio dips in and out of them, keeping the audience in his confidence all the while - for the rest of the cast, the 4th wall is completely intact.This conceit works brilliantly in the TV studio with a live audience, but less well, when Howerd's intimate asides are made to a movie camera and picked up by a cinema audience or, these days, a home DVD audience.Having said that, this movie conversion, with a higher sauciness quotient than the TV series and a small amount of nudity, is a fairly happy remembrance of a unique contribution to UK screen comedy..
As a fan of Frankie Howerd and the Up Pompeii TV series in particular, I have to admit to being disappointed by this big screen outing for his character, the slave Lurcio.A brave attempt to transfer the TV series to the bigger screen it is hampered by a lacklustre plot, a lack of the glorious puns and filth, and an entire change of cast (apart from Howerd himself).Howerd's priceless reactions to his studio audience and comments to them had to be omitted, of course.Lance Percival crops up in an over-the-top and unfunny role as a Roman soldier.
etcThe theme song is a hoot, sung by Frankie himself.And Lurcio choosing the orgy girls is good for a laugh...Watch and enjoy, then pick up the DVD of the TV series and have a much bigger laugh..
I like Frankie Howerd and I like 'Up Pompeii', but I detest this horrid movie version from 1971.
Talbot Rothwell, writer of the television original, was presumably too busy working on the 'Carry On' films to pen this spin-off, so the job went to the normally reliant Sid Colin.
In case you do not know what it is about, the historical farce stars Frankie as 'Lurcio', slave to 'Ludricrus Sextus' and his family - the sex-mad 'Ammonia', the sexy 'Erotica', and naive 'Nausius'.
It was basically 'A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum' on a B.B.C. sitcom budget.Colin's script is packed with jokes that would have been corny even back in the days of the Roman Empire.
Apart from Frankie, no-one in the cast appeared in the series.