Russ Abbot and Bella Emberg in The Russ Abbot Show (1986)

Bobby Ball and Tommy Cannon in Cannon and Ball (1979)

Bill Owen, Peter Sallis, and Brian Wilde in Last of the Summer Wine (1973)

Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, and Christopher Ryan in The Young Ones (1982)

Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie in Marple (2004)

Peter Adamson, Jean Alexander, Johnny Briggs, Margot Bryant, and Doris Speed in Coronation Street (1960)

Madhouse

Was it really twenty-six years ago?

As a kid (I was born in &apos;74), I would never miss Russ Abbot&apos;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 &quot;I&apos;ve got a seen-us!&quot; &quot;Do you mean a sinus?&quot; &quot;No, I was out with a girl and her husband seen-us!&quot;), and Cooperman, an incompetent would-be superhero that was just an excuse for Abbot&apos;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&apos;d certainly go right out and buy it.

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.

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Madhouse

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