Looked at from the point of view of forty or so years later, ROMANY JONES is delightfully un-PC. John Watkins's script contains contemporary references to Trade Union leader Clive Jenkins, as well as the regular Friday ritual of going down the Labor Exchange to collect dole money. The easy fecklessness of central character Bert Jones (James Beck) not wanting to work is readily tolerated; no post-Thatcherite desire to "get on your bike" and work blighted his life.
Created by Ronalds Wolfe and Chesney off the back of ON THE BUSES, this series was consciously focused on the working class, or those who remained working class but aspired to be better. Bert and his wife Betty (Jo Rowbottom) live in a caravan at the back end of a field, but Bert is full of dreams about the prosperous home life he will enjoy at some unspecified future time, if only he could summon up the energy to work. His mother-in-law (Brenda Cowling) is a social climber too, but she has already achieved the respectability that the Jones family crave.
Yet the real stars of this show were the monstrous couple living next door, Wally and Lilly Briggs (played by Arthur Mullard and Queenie Watts). No one could ever accuse them of social subtlety, but they were so delightfully vulgar yet attractive in their ways that audiences could not help but admire them. When Wally discovers that his prize chicken has been eaten by Bert to entertain his mother-in-law, his demands for financial retribution are memorable.
Like many sitcoms of that time, ROMANY JONES basically revolved around one or two studio sets with occasional filmed inserts. The focus was very much on individual performances; and the four protagonists did us proud. Not the most memorable example of early 70s comedy, but well worth looking at anyway.