#74: All Star Comedy Carnival, 1973

We've already seen All Star Comedy Carnival 1972, so here comes the next one, the last time they ever did it as BBC dropped Christmas Night With The Stars and instead concentrated on their individual shows. Tarby hosts, dropping into his introduction an amazing Watergate-related prop joke followed by a pointed barb at Ted Heath. It's the most mixed of bags, as Man About The House, Sez Les and Doctor In Charge specials rub shoulders with the long lost Billy Liar (starring Jeff Rawle), My Good Woman with Leslie Crowther and Sylvia Sims and Spring And Autumn, a Jimmy Jewel vehicle that plays out to near silence. Bob Todd does a spectacular job as a drunk butler, with fellow guests Bobby Moore, Henry Cooper, Val Doonican, Fyffe Robertson and very briefly popular ventriloquist Neville King and Grandad, plus the repetory company from Jimmy's very shortlived sketch show Tell Tarby, Lynda Bellingham, Kenny Lynch, Frank Williams, Josephine Tewson and Hugh Paddick. And then right at the end Tarby and Kenny indulge in a dance-off over Wandsworth Boys School Choir's rendition of Walking In A Winter Wonderland.