'The Rough With The Smooth' was written by John Junkin and Tim Brooke-Taylor ( who also starred ). It began life as an edition of 'Comedy Playhouse' broadcast in 1971. A series would not appear for four years. Possibly due to Tim's commitments to 'The Goodies'. Tim plays 'Richard Woodville' ( who is frightfully posh ), while John plays 'Harold King', a more down to earth character. They share a flat in London and, when they are not writing scripts for an 'Archers'-type radio show, are chasing attractive females, such as Cyd Hayman, Jenny McCracken and Annette Andre. If the intention was to do a British version of 'The Odd Couple', then it failed because the characters were not as strong as Oscar Madison and Felix Unger and the dialogue not in the Neil Simon class. One season and the show was gone for good. Tim went back to 'The Goodies' ( 1975 was the year it stopped being a cult show and went mainstream ). Top-notch actors such as Robert Dorning and Richard Hurndall livened up the proceedings. Despite its faults, I was pleased to see this again recently ( including the pilot ). Its watchable, though never as good as it could have been. Modern audiences should give it a wide berth, however. There is sexism galore here. If you saw and disliked 'Casavova 73' starring Leslie Phillips, then this is not for you. I suppose it could conceivably be described as the 'Man Behaving Badly' of its time.
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