Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (1973) – Nostalgia Central

Shot at Pinewood Studios, this movie-length adaptation of the popular television series brought Irishman Patrick Brendan Kevin Aloysius Kelly (Joe Lynch) and Jewish Manny Cohen (John Bluthal) to the big screen. Together they comprised ‘Cohen & Kelly – Bespoke Tailors of Whitechapel’.

Already involved in arguments about their respective religions, the partners have a violent quarrel when Patrick takes the day off to attend a funeral (or rather a drunken wake).

But worse is to come when their takings are robbed, they have a full-scale fight in a pub, and join a cheap tour to Rome with a party of Catholic priests.

All the old favourites are there – jokes about the rabbi and circumcision, the Pope and the Virgin Mary – and the long-suffering Yootha Joyce seems as frustrated as newcomer Wendy King (ukulele-playing Opportunity Knocks winner) is quick to remove a skirt or something whenever the plot looks a bit bare.

Bill Maynard turns in a neat job as a roguish monumental sculptor.

Joe Lynch died on 1 August 2001 in Alicante, Spain, aged 75. John Bluthal died on 16 November 2018 in Australia. He was 89.

Manny Cohen
John Bluthal
Patrick Brendan Kevin Aloysius Kelly
Joe Lynch
Mrs Finch
Yootha Joyce
Rita
Wendy King
Bridie
Ann Beach
Father Ignatious
Eddie Byrne
Nathan
Bernard Stone
Rabbi
David Nettheim
Bishop Rourke
Ivor Dean
Larkin
Bill Maynard
Murphy
David Kelly
Tramp
Jerold Wells
Riley
Paddy Joyce
Maria
Vicki Woolf
Gina
Hilary Farr (as Hilary Labow)
Swiss Guard
Steve Plytas
Italian Policeman
William F. Sully
Lad
Peter Denyer
Hostess
Lindsay Marsh

Director
Ronnie Baxter

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