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.
