Rome Antics
7 April 1975
It’s such a shame that Goodies episodes weren’t broadcast with on-screen titles![1] Not only would this have prevented confusion for those of us referencing them, but also, in many cases, it would have provided the cherry on top of those countless layers of amusement…
In ‘Rome Antics’ the Super Chaps do indeed give a ‘Romanticised’ view of history, subverting known facts (or commonly held misconceptions) by way of modern cultural bleed-through and the quintessential Goodies mix of satire, slapstick and downright silliness.
We begin with an establishing sequence in outmoded documentary style, waxing lyrical about Rome circa 55AD only to segue, quite brilliantly, into an inverted depiction of the UK as a First World power. (‘The Roman Empire spreads itself halfway across the civilised world… and England.’) The lads are living in a stone hut (in Cricklewood!), wearing Ugg boots and scraps of animal skins, lamenting the decline of British culture since the Romans took over. They still have their trandem (wooden); Graeme still wears glasses (or at least the frames) and still claims knowledge he doesn’t have (Bill: ‘Does anybody speak Latin?’ Graeme: ‘Ah, I probably do, yeah.’); Tim still venerates the Queen (Boudicea), and they still do ‘anything, anytime’. Superficially, this appears to be just a nicely executed comedy of transposition; yet, there’s a deeper level to the Goodies’ banter—a comedy not only of transposition but also of superimposing.
Now that the Romans are in charge, Britain is experiencing a flint shortage. The Roman governor has decreed: no torches are to be lighted. (Graeme takes a sledgehammer to the wall and makes a window instead!) ‘SOS. Switch Off Something.’ This catch cry, lifted from the British government’s propaganda campaign to preserve fuel stocks during the energy crisis (and consequent state of emergency) of 1973/1974, equates Heath’s conservative party with Ancient Rome as a foreign power in military occupation. Likewise, Bill’s complaints as to the cost of living (‘Ever since the country has become part of Europe, the whole place has gone to pot’) constitute a more-or-less overt reference to Britain’s having joined the Common Market.
Such comparisons are not merely comedic in effect. They serve also to convey the point that present-day issues and crises will be tomorrow’s history.[2] All governmental decisions have consequences—for everyday people, for the grand sweep of nations—and while some of these are manifestly ludicrous in the moment (price-regulating that forces Tim to trade six chickens and a goat for a handful of spaghetti), others will be judged only at some future remove.
But then, of course, we have the question: who does the judging; who writes history? Equating the Heath government with Nero’s Rome seems at first a damning comparison. Nero was, on the surface, the quintessential depraved tyrant—hence guest star Roy Kinnear’s outrageous turn as the effeminate, fruit-obsessed hedonist dictator. And yet, modern studies have tended to reappraise Nero, separating the truths of his reign from vilified characterisation after the fact. In Kinnear’s Nero we are presented with both: the callous autocrat ‘burning Christians at both ends’ and the misunderstood innovator replacing blood sports with market gardening displays.[3] Notably, in the Goodies’ revised account, Nero abdicates his throne and it is Emperor Tim who burns Rome to the ground (while fighting off an anachronistic Attila the Hun and inaugurating the Olympic Games!).
‘Rome Antics’, in short, isn’t just funny. Like so much of the Goodies’ oeuvre, it’s also very clever. The lads plaster layer upon layer of comedy… and then set it to music! The sacking of Rome and the Super Chaps’ impromptu discovery of track-and-field play out to ‘Big Brave Bold Hunka Man’, an urgent, ivory-tickling, soul-grunge earworm that drives events towards their denouement and thankfully has itself survived history’s vicissitudes, preserved now on The Cricklewood Tapes:
Whose voice is this, we may ask? Bill as wannabe pop star; as writing/performing Goodie? The Emperor Nero? Edward Heath dictating his memoirs? The answer, gloriously, is any/all of the above… depending on your historical perspective!
Jacob Edwards, 7 April 2025
Tweets:
[1] Though to be sure, next week’s ‘Cunning Stunts’ (aka ‘Fleet Street Goodies’) may have thrown certain viewers into an oonerspistic tizzy…
[2] This concept of different perspectives—the consequential and the mundane—is sublimely brought out (again, through inversion) in references to the Venus de Milo and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The former, far from its modern status as sculptured celebrity, serves as Emperor Tim’s coat stand, losing its arm to the weight of Bill’s jacket (and then its head, not its second arm, to Graeme’s; again, expectations are subverted). The latter, rather than the architectural marvel it has become, is merely a helter-skelter designed by Graeme as part of Rome’s seaside funfair redevelopment!
[3] Given the use of ‘fruit’ as gay pejorative slang in the 1970s, there’s fertile ground for commentary in Nero’s overt ‘depravity’ (in essence, consenting sexual abandon) contrasted with the commonplace, bloody brutality that was demanded and taken for granted by his Roman countrymen.
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