Carry on Cabby (1963 Gerald Thomas)

Wow - was this ever funny? Did anyone ever really laugh at the schoolboy nudge nudge winkery of it all? It's a difficult question to answer without ancient newspaper archives but sadly I think they probably did.

Sid James was in a 1963-4 TV series called Taxi! which didn't do well. The best thing about this is the story, in which neglected wife Hattie Jacques starts her own rival and successful girl only taxi company which knocks Sid's into the ground. Naturally though in the climax Sid's team saves the girls from the villainous robbers, and sexual inequality is restored, to the merry tunes of Eric Rogers.

Weird taxis they had then, without an operating front passenger seat, just a dangerous space in which Charlie Hawtrey is perched perilously on a gas can.

With Liz Fraser, Esma Cannon, Kenneth Connor, Bill Owen, Jim Dale, Amanda Barrie and Carole (Coo Coo Pigeon Sister) Shelley (third and fourth from right, respectively).

Records show I first watched it in 1976 aged 13, and awarded it 5/10.