Infamy , infamy! And how

If a Martian, a Mongol or even an East-Coast American comes to Terry Johnson's new comedy, he or she will spend a lot of time wondering who Sid, Kenny and Bar - bara are and why the dramatist takes their intrinsic interest so much for granted. Worse, an increasing number of young Britons must regard the Car - ry On films as off-peak pap aimed at the nostalgic classes. Yet 20 years after the last pair of boobs and buttocks flashed out from the last of those appall - ing , insular, hilarious movies, I reckon there is still an audience of several mil - lions that will enjoy Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick, and I am hap - py to count myself among them. Each of the play's four parts occurs during the shooting of one of the inov -

Cleo , Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick - , _ ;;;;' ; ' : /-/-LYtfeitp ' ri;:

ies evoked both by Johnson's title and (a sphinx here, a tent there) by the pro - jections behind the tacky trailer Wil - liam Dudley has designed for Sid James. In 1964 that gnarled old trouper is dressed in Roman armour for Cany on Cleo, and by 1978, when Cany on Em - manuelle is bringing the series to a close, he has successfully drunk, wom - anised , gambled and toiled his way to a fatal heart attack. It is his decline from the perky lothario who greets the PA who is stitching up his skirt with "What 's a nice girl doing in a place like that?" to a sickly soak hopelessly besot - ted with Barbara Windsor that gives the evening what plot it possesses. But what really matters is not the plot but the mimicry of much-loved comics. Until Cany on Dick in 1974, when he cuts a forlorn, abject figure, Geoffrey Hutchings's Sid comes off rather less well than the others. He...