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.
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.