Do you remember Frankie Howerd’s Up Pompeii?If you’re under 40 years old – probably not. I’m even too young to remember the series being televised on the BBC, but I did discover the 1971 film when I was a teenager – and loved it. It has the same camp comedy feel as the Carry On movies. (Oh come on, everyone knows those!) Amazon have a DVD of the TV series and you can buy the film from the BBC shop. There are also excerpts and scenes from both the series and film on YouTube. If you’ve never seen it, these will give you an idea what the show was like.
Frankie Howerd was a comedy legend and Up Pompeii was filled with camp nods and titillation. Comedy has moved on a lot in the past 40 years, but there is still a huge fan base for this tongue-in-cheek humour.
As a birthday surprise last month, my boyfriend took me to Naples. Pompeii is somewhere I have always wanted to see and when I arrived at the airport and found out where we were going, I was over the moon. I posted a picture of us stating where Ken was taking me. A friend suggested I make an Up Pompeii parody while in the ruined city… so I did!
It was totally on the fly and was rushed for the second scene as too many tourists were walking into shot trying to discover what we were filming. I’m no Frankie Howerd, but I hope he would appreciate someone reviving his old series in 2015.
And so here it is; my take on Up Pompeii:
And so here it is; my take on Up Pompeii:
Terry Gee