The Optimist

As chief greenfly sprayer to both the Chinese and Indian Embassies, the Optimist (Enn Reitel) is 'persuaded' to smuggle messages into the Russian and American Embassies via roller towels. MI5 then persuades him to become a double agent. In the mayhem of a poisoned cocktail party, he pulls off the job with the help of the bewitching Mata (Annette Lynton) but ends up in a Chinese takeaway, persuaded by a meat cleaver to work again for the Chinese.

After losing money at the racecourse, the Optimist (Enn Reitel) meets Sal (Julia Chambers) the owner of the stables, and manages to get work as a stable boy, where he saves the aptly named horse Nutter from being sent to the knackers yard and lovingly prepares him for the big race. Betting spies are afoot and the stakes are high as the day arrives, with Nutter the favourite. Unfortunately, Nutter loves his saviour so much that during the race he suddenly stops to go over and give him a nuzzle. Now the Optimist is on the run.

Working as a humble cobbler, the Optimist (Enn Reitel) is thrown into an international world of crime and classical ballet when a diamond is stolen - the famous Light Fantastic. Beautiful dancer Olga (Karen Smith) is on the run from incompetent thugs when she hides the stone in a ballet shoe and draws the Optimist into a plot that leads to him being forced on stage to dance a pas-de-deux in Swan Lake with Olga and the Corps de Ballet to great acclaim.

On his arrival at a plush London casino, the Optimist (Enn Reitel) discovers that he has become an instant celebrity. What he doesn't know is that he is actually the identical double of the Boss who owns the club. After loving and losing his double's girl Gloria (Eileen Preston), facing the mysterious Mrs Blue (Jenny Runacre), and winning and losing a million pounds on the tables, the Optimist must work out how to make a run to safety from the thugs Syrup and Fig.

An unexpected inheritance leaves the Optimist with a crumbling and sinister country estate, which includes an equally crumbling and sinister butler named Old Norman (Eric Francis). While the Optimist spends his time trying to learn the ways of the landed gentry, he also needs to avoid the murderous attempts of cousin Rachel (Rosalind Lloyd), who is seriously unhappy she didn't benefit from the will - and is determined to put it right by filling the river with piranhas as the Optimist fishes, a tarantula in his four-poster and poisoning his breakfast boiled egg.

Whitewashing the walls and unintentionally the entire garden of a suburban home, mistaken identity causes the Optimist (Enn Reitel) to be hailed a new impressionist painter. His absurd abstracts sell for thousands and the art world flocks to this new master of the brush for his signature on sausages. When his muse, Mimi (Julie Peasgood), suddenly leaves, he is left in despair and attempts to paint his defining piece of art. Unveiled, the oil painting of three kittens is derided as a disaster. But back on the streets as a labourer, the Optimist unwittingly creates a true masterpiece.