Four years before Robin Asquith got up to saucy antics in Confessions from a Holiday Camp, Reg Varney and his On the Buses pals caused chaos at Pontins, Prestatyn. Having been given the sack from the bus depot, Stan and Jack (Varney and Bob Grant) find work as tour bus operators at the Welsh holiday camp only to find that their nemesis and ex-boss Blakey (Stephen Lewis) is now working there as head of camp security. Also arriving at the holiday destination are Stan's family - his mum (Doris Hare), sister Olive (Anna Karen) and brother-in-law Arthur (Michael Robbins), and their troublesome son little Arthur (Adam Rhodes).
Opening with a busty brunette babe baring her breasts as she runs for a bus, Holiday On The Buses looks set to be racier than its predecessors, but turns out to be much the same as before, with no more nudity, but plenty of titillation and innuendo. Despite clearly in his late '50s, Stan still manages to pull tasty birds half his age, as does Jack (they both have what I call 'the Sid James effect'). The lads' conquests include sexy holiday-maker Mavis (Maureen Sweeney), Italian waitress Maria (Gigi Gatti), the camp nurse Joan (Kate Williams), and a pair of pretty new arrivals. None seem to mind Stan's greased back old man's hair or Jack's tombstone teeth.
This time around, the silliness involves Stan taking a short-cut in his open-top bus (passengers narrowly being killed by a low bridge), Stan's mum being romanced by a dirty old man (Wilfrid Brambell, THE dirty old man), Little Arthur creating havoc with an ink-filled water pistol, and Olive getting into the wrong bed. If you enjoyed the previous films in the series, then this one should prove entertaining enough as well, although it must be said that the formula has worn almost as thin as Robbins' hair and Varney is far too old to be playing a womaniser - probably for the best that they ended it here.
