Carry on Christmas

Very amusing television show, with every slapstick innuendo, classic line possible from all previous and future films and TV specials.

This is 50 mins of little giggles to huge belly laughs. Barbra Windsor is wonderful with her wicked giggle. The rest of the cast (familiar from all our favourite Carry On films including Frankie Howard) all have at least two roles to play and it is obvious they were having fun filming the show. There are too many instances where you can see they are about to giggle while delivering lines to mention. If you get a chance to see it on a TV special, and you are a Carry On fan and missed it. DO IT! What a carry on Xmas giggle........

For those perfectionists it is a 1 star

For me it is the perfection of television humor in the 70's and is worthy of TEN stars (out of ten) for the classic 70's humor back then.

Feel free to Flame Me but this is classic Brit Humour from the 70's

This humour will never be seen in new shows, enjoy!!

Comedians just want to have a giggle. It would be great if they could be as open and honest as the Carry On team, and funny, without the HR Political Police ruining it for the rest of us.

My score is 5 out of 5 but NOT on a cultural scale, just a Carry On scale..... simply brilliant and funny.

I am always the first to watch a Christmas film or TV special and I do love a good 'Carry On', but this wasn't the brilliant hour of funny that it could have been.

If they had tackled Dickens' Carol more fully instead of just in bits thrown together with Shelley and Stoker, I think it would have been far more successful, similar perhaps to 'The Muppets' version. Unfortunately they tried a bit too hard to bring too much in to it and it all became OTT.

I did like a lot of the elements and they could have all worked together with a bit more thought.

Charles Hawtrey made me giggle as he always does, but it was Frankie Howerd that really made it his own. His quick wit, one liners and ad-libs gave us all a good titter, I kid ye not. It was a shame that Sid didn't get the lines he deserved and favourites like Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams and Jim Dale were missing.

It is quite daft, but it's just innocent fun that doesn't mean to offend. There are lots of references to cross dressing and men fancying men, but there's no malice. It doesn't offend me at least and is only of it's time.

205.15.

It wasn't till the end credits came up that I discovered that it was Talbot Rothwell,who wrote the original Carry Ones. Difficult to understand how they could make such an unfunny programme,but they did..Only Frankie Howerd was mildly funny.

They must have given the audience some Christmas cheer to make them laugh so hysterically. Maybe they were watching a different show.

A generally agreeable CARRY ON Christmas special, filled with the usual familiar faces although looking a lot more cheap than the film versions on account of it being shot on video as was so much TV fare back in the day. This one has an end-of-season pantomime feel to it, particularly in some scattershot sketches satirising the Hammer horrors (complete with Peter Butterworth playing Dracula, no less!). The story sees Sid James' Scrooge being visited by various ghosts over Christmas, and it's all very silly but lively with it. Charles Hawtrey is a highlight but the real scene-stealer is Frankie Howerd, whose asides to the audience are hilarious.

Ebenezer Scrooge is a misery on Christmas, not allowing people money or doing anything to share Christmas cheer around his employees or acquaintances. While Scrooge is visited by three ghosts we see how his penny pinching has affected those around him.

I tuned in to this little show expecting just a version of the Christmas Carol story except with a great deal more innuendo and smut. That is half what I got - innuendo! The actual story didn't really hold true to the Scrooge story, this is apparent from the get-go where we have 10 minutes in the offices of Dr Frank A. Stein who is building a monster with his friend Count Dracula, Cinderella and a later scene with a poet and his love. The connection of these side stories to Scrooge is very, very thin indeed and they serve more as separate sketches than anything else.

If they were hilariously funny then this wouldn't be a problem - thing is, they aren't. At best they are energetic and silly, with some of the crudity and wit of Carry On movies, but sadly it doesn't even get near to the consistently of the films!

The cast is good on paper and do try hard - playing well to the studio audience but most of the material is not great and they can't work with it. Howerd has the most fun as he seems to be ad libbing all over the place. Sid James is always fun as are Hawtrey, Jacques, Winsor has a good role as Cinderella and Butterworth and Bresslaw are OK.

Overall this is a pretty average show. It has low production values and only really gets laughs because the audience are clearly hyped up to laugh. The actors lack the subtlety that is often needed to make innuendo work and I simply didn't laugh at all.