But the nobles, led by Sir Braggart de Bombast, abduct baby Lurkalot and abandon him in a forest to die.

By way of remittance, Lurkalot aids his master by selling love potions and chastity belts as well as some unusual inventions in the local village, as Sir Coward is not a particularly successful noble.

Lurkalot and Lady Lobelia flee to his workshop where to protect his master's daughter, he locks her up with a chastity belt.

Sir Coward responds to the challenge by running away to join the crusades, whilst Lurkalot, encouraged by his voices, goes to find both him and Richard the Lionheart.

He suffers withdrawal symptoms from the loss of his hookah and Lurkalot offers to make him a remedy based on sulphur and charcoal, but spills in saltpetre by accident.

He mixes it together, but Sir Coward, who hates taking medicine, throws it in the direction of a fire, where it ignites and blows open the door.

The writer of the TV series, Talbot Rothwell, was busy on Carry On films so the script was done by Galton and Simpson, who were clients of Beryl Vertue.

He said the problem came when producer Ned Sherrin told him the film was running short so Galton and Simpson wrote extra material which turned out not to be needed.

"The problem of editing these miles of film down to just an hour and a half of screen time envitably resulted in a bit of a hodge podge", wrote Howerd.

[8] Producer Ned Sherrin said the film opened better than Up Pompeii (1971) but shortly after its release there was a power strike which hurt its momentum and the movie "did little more than recoup its investment.

But he is, to ape the style of the distributor's handout, still greater than the sum of his parts, and there are some delicious moments, such as his lightning transformation into a chanting nun ("Dolce vita ad nauseam...") in order to deceive a husband; or his confrontation with Rita Webb's appallingly gross Maid Marian ("Who is this fragile wood-nymph?").