Up Pompeii!

[Bert Thung]

This is - I reckon - the best of the TV sitcom spin-off flms, most definitely (a very small accolade, to be sure, but it is).

I prefer the film versions of The Likely Lads and Porridge to Citizen Kane.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Good for you, sir! And hopefully the Up Pompeii! film as well...

[uncle_rico]

This is on ITV in any minute. I shudder to think of the state its goner be in,after Flash Gordon the other week.

[uncle_rico]

Titter thee not,I'm afraid.

[Catalogue Trousers]

I cast an eye over it for a little while. Most of the orgy seemed intact (what I saw of it, anyway - didn't see it from the beginning), and for a while it looked like the ITV censors might - amazingly - have left it alone.

Then, it became apparent that they'd neatly chopped out the Maddy Smith bathtime sequence and not so neatly chopped out the gag referring to it at the end of that scene. Ah well. What are teenage boys going to crack their first fats over these days? Bloody censors and inappropriate time-slots for films. Mind,they're premiering Ang Lee's "Hulk" later at 5.35 - two and a bit hours of boredom-filled oompah.

[uncle_rico]

Yeah,I'm amazed they are showing Hulk so early. I actually liked it to be honest(even though Ang Lee went a bit mental with the split-screens)but it isn't the right time slot. I remembering seeing it opening night three years ago,and let me tell you,there was a lot of restless kids in that cinema...

and again,its probably been cut.

[difbrook]

BBC4 are showing Up Pompeii immediately after each episode of "I Claudius". Skipping the original pilot, but they're uncut apparently, and they've been put through the beeb's saucy new Reverse Standards Conversion thing (most of them existed only as 525 line copies, I think). The upshot is that they should look beautiful.

I managed to forget about the first one last night, but I'm on standby with my dvd recorder for episode 2 - starting in about five minutes (although if that cocking "press red" dog on "I Claudius" doesn't go away I may do something unspeakable to BBC4).

"Up Pompeii" is trapped in rights hell, so unlikely to appear on dvd for some time. So speaketh Steve Roberts from ye olde BBC, although he doesn't specify what the rights problems are.

[Bert Thung]

I don't see much improvement in the picture quality. All it looks like is a 525 that's been converted to a 625 VHS pirate.

[difbrook]

I don't see much improvement in the picture quality. All it looks like is a 525 that's been converted to a 625 VHS pirate.

yeah, that's what it looks like to me as well. Perhaps it's something to do with BBC4's delivery method? Some sort of cockup in the encoding? Who knows?

What a cavalcade of appalling puns though!

[Bert Thung]

Na, that's the conversion. The DVD of the Doctor Who story Inferno has a similar process done to it with the same effect.

PS Without as many blatant dropouts in the picture.

[difbrook]

"oh, mighty Caesar. Do you think we should...?"
"Well, you might as well. It's bitter out..."

I almost lost it earlier on at Willie Rushton making his scribe giggle on camera, and this one tipped me over the edge...

[Morrisfan82]

:) That made me blast a hearty laugh at the ceiling too. Intoned to perfection, no wonder it got a round of applause.