ORBzine - Up Pompeii (1969) TV Review

Season 1

• Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up The Chastity Belt )
• Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner )
• Nausius (Kerry Gardner)
• Senna the Soothsayer (Jeanne Mockford)
• Roman Maiden ( Anita Richardson )
• Sen. Ludicrus Sextus (Max Adrian)
• Erotica ( Georgina Moon )
• Soppia ( Wendy Richard )
• Daili ( Valerie Leon )

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 0] Up Pompeii!
Shown Mon, Sep 1, 1969

A slave-trader has arrived in port, with a cargo of beautiful slave-girls from Britannia. He wants to sell them to the Ludi Puerum (Play Boy) club. Mistress Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ) wants to rekindle her former romance with the slaver. Her son Nauseus wants to buy one of the slave-girls, because he thinks he has fallen in love again. Senator Ludicrus wants to close the bawdy houses, including the afore-mentioned Ludi Puerum club.

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ), the house slave, tries to keep them all apart. However, in the usual tropes of the 1970s comedy of errors they all bump into each other at the Ludi Puerum club.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 1] Vestal Virgins
Shown Mon, Mar 30, 1970

It is VV Day in Pompeii - the festival of the Vestal Virgins. The townsfolk must select a pure maiden as their beauty queen, and if her virginity survives a night out with Mark Anthony she will be inducted as a Vestal Virgin. Senator Ludicrus has been put in charge of the committee. Unfortunately there are no virgins in the town.

The pimp who runs the Ludi Puerum club tries to sabotage the VV contest. Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) has to save the day. He is offered a budget of five hundred drachmas, which incidentally enough to buy his freedom.

Zeus (Willie Rushton) interjects with quotes from Plautus. He also interjects directly, in an example of the classical theatre's Deus Ex Machina trope.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 2] The Ides of March
Shown Mon, Apr 6, 1970

Senator Ludicrus Sextus meets with three other Senators. They plot to assassinate Caesar, who has just arrived in Pompeii.

Mistress Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ) goes to save the Emperor. It turns out that he is the exact double of Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ). This means that the show gets even more meta than usual. Frankie Howerd plays both characters, and the storyline follows the old comedy-of-errors format. His interactions with the audience get pushed up a notch, with pantomime-type shouts of he's behind you.

The Senator's household includes a handmaiden, Soppia ( Wendy Richard ). Presumably for budgetary reasons, she does not even get mentioned in the other episodes.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 3] The Senator and the Asp
Shown Mon, Apr 13, 1970

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) attempts to perform this week's prologue, Romulus and Remus. Specifically, their adventures in a town called Puberty. They met Pegasus, the winged horse that could also talk.

This episode is a tale of two senators. One is an ex-lover of Ammonia, who wants Lurcio to get rid of him. The other is a friend of Caesar, who Ludicrus must give all courtesy to.

Nauseus has a new love interest, Daili ( Valerie Leon ). She is looking for a source of income. Lurcio offers her a paid job, and she offers that she can scrub. No response to this is necessary.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 4] Britannicus
Shown Mon, Apr 20, 1970

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) attempts to perform this week's prologue, an excerpt from The Odyssey. He is on the subject of the Sirens, which will be mentioned again in the prologue of Season 2, Episode 2.

Lurcio gets distracted when the Pompeii Militia is called up to put down Boudicca's revolt in Britannicus. The Senator is a general, and he has to bring his personal slave along. This is bad news for Lurcio, because he does not want to go home to Britain.

Mistress Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ) becomes a camp follower, because she wants to pleasure the bravest soldier. Her husband, the general, wants the most beautiful groupie. Lurcio inadvertently arranges a meeting in a darkened tent.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 5] The Actors
Shown Mon, Apr 27, 1970

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) attempts to perform this week's prologue, Medusa and the Gorgons. He gets distracted by the arrival of a troupe of actors.

Nauseus has a new love interest, one of the actresses. By incredible coincidence, his parents have infactuations with two of the older performers. Ammonia once had a fling with the leading man, although he is now a middle-aged alcoholic. Ludicrus was head of the leading lady's fan-club, although she has now doubled in body-weight.

The strangest thing is that Hermione, the leading lady, has a name that is pronounced Her-me-own-knee. This may be an archaic pronounciation, because in recent years (eg in the Harry Potter series) it is Her-my-onie.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 6] Spartacus
Shown Mon, May 4, 1970

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) attempts to perform this week's prologue, Icarus and the invention of Flight. He gets it wrong as usual, claiming that Icarus was the first man to fly. This ignores his father, Daedalus.

Lurcio gets distracted by the news that Spartacus has led a slave revolt. The Masters will be slaves, and the slaves will be Masters - basically, Saturnalia. Nauseus has a new love interest, one of the runaway slave girls. He is turning them from Bondswomen into loose women.

Lurcio gets arrested in a scene that may have inspired one in Life of Brian . The jailer is very keen, and outsmarts everyone who wants to free Lurcio. This is the first appearance of Wallas Eaton, who played the Senator in Season Two.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1, Episode 7] The Love Potion
Shown Mon, May 11, 1970

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) attempts to perform this week's prologue, Lysistrata. This story is vital to the episode Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 2, Episode 4] Lysistrata the Peace Treaty.

Lurcio gets distracted by the soothsayer, Senna, who predicts the locals will suffer the same fate as Gomorrah. Aphrodite will send a flood of molten lava.

Nauseus has been ordered into an arranged marriage with Grottia. However, he has fallen in love with Ambrosia.

The rest of the family are happy. They make excuses to be out of the house, leaving Lurcio alone there ... then each independently bribes him ten drachmas so they can have the place to themselves. Of course, he does not pick up on the implications.

Lurcio invests the thirty drachas in a love potion, and poses as the Senator to seduce the new neighbour. This complicates the usual comedy-of-errors, as love-crazed women start chasing confused men around. Of course, Lurcio's plan to get some illicit straight sex takes a twist when he is targeted by a love-crazed man.

The supporting cast includes Mollie Sugden as the real Senator's mistress.

Up Pompeii (1969)

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 1 , Episode 1 ]
Shown th October 2022 [Wednesday]

Reviewed in our special supplement

Season 2

• Sen. Ludicrus Sextus (Wallas Eaton)
• Nymphia ( Barbara Windsor )
• Jamus Bondus (George Baker - Doomwatch )

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 2, Episode 1] The Legacy
Shown Mon, Sep 14, 1970

The good news is that Ludicrus Sextus has had a face-lift, and is now played by a different actor - the jailer from Season One. The bad news is that the household is still heavily in debt. Mistress Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ) wants to sell Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ).

The bad news is that Ludicrus Sextus's Uncle Luca has died. The good news is that he left Ludicrus a fortune in the will. The bad news is that Ludicrus and Ammonia must have a son and name him after Luca.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 2, Episode 2] Roman Holiday
Shown Mon, Sep 21, 1970

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) attempts to perform this week's prologue, The Sirens. As usual, he gets it wrong. This time he says the sirens are half-bird, like Harpies, instead of half-fish. He gets distracted when he agrees to hide two escaped slave-girls.

In a typical sitcom case of mistaken identity, Mistress Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ) and her hot tweenage daughter get mistaken for the escaped slaves.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 2, Episode 3] Secret Agents Jamus Bondus
Shown Mon, Sep 28, 1970

Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) attempts to perform this week's prologue, Aphrodite. Not the Goddess of Love, but the next-door neighbour.

Lurcio gets distracted when a messenger arrives at the house, and demands to speak to Senator Ludicrus Sextus. The message is in the form of a secret scroll, with the plans to a new secret weapon that can hurl a coconut a distance of twenty-five feet. Lurcio has to hide it the one place that villains will never look.

Jamus Bondus (George Baker - Doomwatch ) visits the house. He fails the tests Lurcio sets for him, but is easily distracted by the mistress of the home, Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ).

There is another visitor - Galoria ( Patricia Haines ), a femme fatale. In a twist she turns out to be the girlfriend of Nauseous, who thinks she is called Pussia. As in ... Pussy Galore. Yes, that is the level of pun this descends to.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 2, Episode 4] Lysistrata the Peace Treaty
Shown Mon, Oct 12, 1970

The city's Militia is called up to go off and fight the Gauls. Senator Ludicrus Sextus is a general, as befits his status. The younger officer, who will lead the actual fighting, is after the Senator's wife Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ). He takes a dislike to Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ), simply because Lurcio interrupted the adultery to allow them to save face before the Senator walked in on them. Lurcio does not care, because he thinks himself exempt from the draft.

When Lurcio is drafted, he decides to copy the Greek theatre play Lysistrata. He dresses as a woman, calls himself Titicaca, and convinces the women of the city to go on a sex strike. The Senator assigns his younger colleague to seduce this feminist icon. The result seems to have inspired The Crying Game.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 2, Episode 5] Guess Who's Coming to Sin'Er Nymphia
Shown Mon, Oct 19, 1970

Young Master Nauseus falls in love again, and this time he gets engaged. Unfortunately the lucky girl is Nymphia ( Barbara Windsor ). The Senator recognises her from a strip-tease joint that he and his friends went to, while the Senator's wife Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ) regrets her secret affair with Nymphia's father. Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ) just looks down on her because she is a common-as-muck Cockney.

To break up the happy couple, Lurcio must dress up as the Caliph of Khazi. He keeps quoting Omar Khayam, who would not be born for another 700 years. At the time this show was made, playing dress-up was regarded as part of theatrics. In the twenty-first century, it would be referred to as cultural appropriation.

Up Pompeii (1969) [Season 2, Episode 6] Exodus
Shown Mon, Oct 26, 1970

The Senator's family is leaving Pompeii, and are moving to the city of Rome. It seems the inheritance from the start of the Season might have been enough to bail them out, but moving house has left them financially broke. Now they need to sell Lurcio (Frankie Howerd - Up the Chastity Belt ), although none of them wants to tell him the bad news.

Lurkio shoves up the For Sale sign. He tells the audience it is written in Greek, although it is clearly in some kind of dog Latin. Presumably the explanation is like in Dr Who: Volcano Day when the Runaway Bride learns that speaking Latin to Romans will automatically de-translate it into your native tongue.

Lurkio attempts to deliver this week's prologue, which is about the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe. This was an ancient tale that became the basis for Romeo and Juliet . He is interrupted by arrival of Hermes, messenger of the gods. Unfortunately the message does not come from the gods, it is just a regular postal delivery.

Lurcio gets put on the auction block. A middle-aged blonde woman needs a male slave, and she is not the type to take no for an answer. In real life, the actor Frankie Howard was a closeted gay man ...