Man About the House (1974)
Directed by John Robins

Film Review

Of the many popular British sitcoms of the 1970s, one that is still held in particular affection is Man About the House, a show that ran for six series and regularly drew audiences of sixteen million viewers.  Arguably, it is the sitcom which captures the spirit of the early 1970s most vividly, with its outrageous fashions and even more outrageous social attitudes (the jokes about race, homosexuality and women's rights that pepper this and similar comedies would be unthinkable today).  Unlike many subsequent film re-workings of TV sitcoms of the 1970s - On the Buses (1971), Steptoe and Son (1972), Are You Being Served? (1977) - the film version of Man About the House is a fair reflection of the series that inspired it, a feel-good romp that makes effective use of its stars and leaves a warm glow of nostalgia for an era that is well and truly past.

Whether it's hirsute Robin being humiliated in a game of strip poker by his flatmates Chrissy and Jo, or hopeless George constantly under siege from his sexually frustrated wife Mildred, the film never lets us forget how funny the original series was, although it seldom attains its level of laugh-out-loud brilliance.  The plot, a rambling affair involving a property development scheme, feels like an unnecessary distraction from the humorous comic interaction between the five main protagonists, played to perfection (as always) by a quintet of comic delights: Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox, Sally Thomsett, Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce.  By the time the characters start running around the corridors at Thames Television the comedy express has come well and truly off the rails, but the sudden appearance of Spike Milligan, springing up like a troll Jack-in-the-Box and leering manically into the camera, makes it all worth while. When the original television series ended, Joyce and Murphy were given their own spin-off series, which also made it to the big screen - as George and Mildred (1980).

Film Synopsis

London, in the mid-1970s.  Robin, a student chef, shares an apartment with two trendy, independently minded young women, Chrissy and Jo.   Their landlord, George Roper, is tempted to sell his Edwardian terraced house to an ambitious property developer, Morris Pluthero, but his wife Mildred soon scorches this idea.  To prevent the property developer from buying up all the houses in their street and demolishing them to make way for a new office block, Mildred and her three young tenants start a campaign, hoping to gain the support of the prominent politician Sir Edmund Weir.  When Pluthero discovers that Weir is keeping his mistress in one of the houses, the politician has no choice but to sell his house.  In no time at all, Pluthero has acquired all but one of the houses in the street.  The only house remaining is that belonging to Mr Roper.  When Mildred's away, George will have his day...