This Comedy Playhouse pilot played up to Frankie Howerd's strength. His experience at Peter Cook's satirical Establishment Club in Soho in London as well as That Was the Week That Was in the early 1960s honed his interactive skills with the audience.
Even though the audience did not realise that it was all scripted, very little of Howerd's asides was off the cuff.
Then there was his stage work with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in the West End. He played Pseudolus a Roman slave who wanted his freedom.
Howerd is the slave Lurcio to his master Ludicrus Sextus, a senator who proposes to pass a law where slaves could buy out their freedom.
His promiscuous wife is Ammonia who has met an old love, a man who has brought over some female slaves to from Briton to sell. Their son Nausius has fallen in love with one of the slaves. He conspires with Lurcio for him to buy the slave.
Only Lurcio spots an opportunity to set himself free.
This is an amusing episode. Lurcio talks directly to the camera and also seems to be bantering with the audience. It is bawdy with double entendres but still family friendly. It was written by Carry On stalwart Talbot Rothwell. You sense Howerd is having fun.
The soothsayer played by a younger actress did not make it to the regular series. She was replaced by an older actress.
