Madhouse

As a kid (I was born in '74), I would never miss Russ Abbot's Madhouse on a Saturday teatime. His shows were so bizarre, surreal, ludicrous and full of broadly-drawn characters, they were irresistible. My favourites were Vince Prince, the swaggering but gormless Teddy boy (typical exchange - Vince rubs his nose and moans "I've got a seen-us!" "Do you mean a sinus?" "No, I was out with a girl and her husband seen-us!"), and Cooperman, an incompetent would-be superhero that was just an excuse for Abbot's dead-on Tommy Cooper routine - and for the studio audience to indulge in some good-natured heckling! These days, Abbot is something of a forgotten man as far as British comedy goes - he disappeared from the TV schedules sometime in the nineties and reinvented himself as a pretty good serious actor and sometime song and dance man - which is a shame, because he was a hard-working and likable performer who all the family could enjoy, without a trace of filth or bad taste in sight. (Unless you find outrageously corny jokes distasteful, that is!) If there was a DVD release of this series, I'd certainly go right out and buy it.

Running parallel with the 'alternative comedy' boom of the '80's was the emergence of more traditional comedy performers, such as Cannon & Ball, Jimmy Cricket, Bobby Davro and, of course, Russ. 'Madhouse' began life as a vehicle for Freddie Starr, and was quite dreadful, but when Russ replaced him it developed into something really special. Abbot's recurring characters included 'See You Jimmy', 'Cooperman', 'Basildon Bond', 'Wilf Bumworthy', 'Boggles' and 'Geronimo'. He was ably supported by a wonderful cast which included the then-unknown Michael Barrymore, Bella Emberg, Les Dennis and the late, much-missed Dustin Gee. It was typical I.T.V. Saturday night fare, combining slapstick with innuendo, but everyone looked as though they were having fun, and this was communicated to the audience. Sadly, Russ became the victim of a purge of the old guard of comedians in the early '90's, a criminal waste of a great talent. We badly need a show like this on Saturday nights now.