It was a mark of my mother's liberal parenting that. aged 9 and 10, I was allowed to stay up late on a school night to watch Up Pompeii! I later found from a Twitter conversation with the novelist Jonathan Coe that he was granted the same dispensation.
In my case, at least, it worked. I passed O level Latin, despite receiving free school meals and having Allison Pearson in the same class.
Watching Up Pompeii! today, it stands up pretty well, notably the clever formal device whereby Howerd is constantly breaking the fourth wall to criticise the script or the audience, but none of the other characters ever does.
And the show was comforting in that it was the same every week. Poor Lurcio never got far with the prologue before Senna the Soothsayer came along, and then there was Nausius with his ode and inability to find a rhyme.
Throw in an element of plot involving high Roman politics or Lurcio's master Ludicrous Sextus's love live and you had your show.
There were a lot of nubile young women on show – a reminder that the permissive society came before feminism – but I think they were safe with Frankie.
Note the contemporary jokes about Waggoners' Walk and decimalisation. And note Pat Coombs enjoying herself immensely as the sorceress – you never knew who would turn up in the cast.
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