Rosenthal reprises the type of character he did in Friday Night Dinner, but it grates here.
Am I the only one who sees Grumio (the slave) as a rip-off of Bubbles, the secretary in Ab Fab?
This is just the same trendy "comedy" as usual, and setting it in Ancient Rome, with the anachronisms and burlesque that follow, just does not make it any funnier. If you want comedy in antiquity, try to find "Up Pompeii" with Frankie Howerd.
Thumbs down.
"Up Pompeii!" was written for Howerd, who was larger than his character. It was Howerd and a cast and an audience, who were all in on Frankie's joke. Good smutty fun that would never be made today without attracting accusations of sexism and racism (which it did then, but so did most of TV's comedy and entertainment output). Apart from the setting Frankie's show has almost nothing in common with "Plebs".
Even so, "Up Pompeii!" was made at a time when popular British comedy increasingly came to rely on sexual innuendo and the double entendre for laughs, and the more it went that way the fewer laughs it got. Look at the sad demise of the "Carry On" franchise as the sixties wore on, each more shoddy and embarrassing than the last, but done to death and eventually playing to empty cinemas.
Even "Up Pompeii" outstayed its welcome. We were still in on Frankie's joke, but it was getting to be a little stale.
"Plebs" has more possibilities at its disposal than the Frankie-centred "Up Pompeii!", but it needs to do more than transpose contemporary characters and situations to ancient Rome. That idea is not new. The characters have to be believable, they have to spark your interest in them. That doesn't happen for me. Other actors might do it - many a good script has gone west for the want of decent actors. I think, though, that the horribly fidgety style of camera work and direction, together with that annoying music ("... aren't we clever, reggae in ancient Rome...") utterly kills any sense of timing these actors may have.
Does nothing for me, but if you enjoy it then you're welcome.
Plebs is fantastic it gets better and better as it goes on!
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