Meet The Gang 'Cos The Boys Are Here...!

Some would argue that the best material comes from within. It can’t be read, or over heard, but it can experienced, so where could growing script legends Jimmy Perry and David Croft go for situation comedy genius? After existing careers had since flourished both behind and in front of the camera from their own memories of National Service and the Home Guard, what more could be tempt the BBC into script writing submission? A Royal Artillery Concert Party.

Since the acclaimed success of the original series in 1968 of ‘Dad’s Army,’ the BBC’s most successful partnerships decided to create a follow up but on a different slant. Since the highly regarded series of the British spirit of the Home Guard ran on for an incredible 9 years, the two extraordinary writers, still in their prime, needed to vent their material towards a slightly different audience. Since the praise they had both achieved with their attributed ‘Dad‘s Army,’ surely the idea behind the second greatest hit for the duo would be from the next chapter of their young lives in Burma as soldiers, and it was these years which gave us ‘It Ain’t ‘Arf Hot, Mum,’ first broadcast in 1974 for BBC 1. Reflecting with great strength back on Perry’s days as a Sergeant and producer for the Royal concert party in Burma, India, it also appeared to the once Major, David Croft, to be a stoke of writing intelligence.

Basing their episode ideas on true events as they had done for ‘Dad’s Army,’ material, it had meant that for a situation comedy to be a real as possible in ‘It Ain’t ‘Arf Hot, Mum,’ then the sets, accents and the feel of the hot sweaty jungle had to be right or the idea simply wouldn’t work. As soon as filming began, the actors found themselves in uniform for long hours in a sand pit in King’s Lynn being sprayed with a mixture of sugar, water and glycerine to make it look like sweat. For the jungle shoots, they piled down to a thick wooded area near Farnham in Surrey. Everything had to be authentic. For one particular scene, they needed a busy town shot of an old Indian bus crowded in and out with Indian peasants and much bustle and noise to make it look as though it was a real street scene in Deolali, India, 1945. Extra’s clambered all over the bus in the studio, quite frightening the film crew close by. It was these extraordinary moments where upon the well educated Croft and ex comedy actor, Perry pulled out all the stops and engaged in television making that had never been dared to be created before.

As well as pushing out the physical boundaries of programme making, there was another hurdle in which Perry and Croft took the public, as well as the BBC by surprise and into a world of awkwardness and political correctness. One of the stars of the show was a character with the important relationship between the natives and the army troop itself. A well experienced, white actor by the name of Michael Bates appeared to the writing pair who could speak fluent Urdu and with a rather convincing Indian accent. Blacked up, he became the first white actor to be as convincing enough that an Asian audience wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

This sparked immense controversy amongst the ranks at the BBC. Audiences complained of racism on the show and refused to believe that there was such a derogatory relationship between the countries during the war. What the audience hadn’t realised was the theme that was being depicted had to be true, in it’s brutal sense. As the majority found it enjoyable and entertaining viewing, some small groups found it insulting. These groups were obviously people who had not fought in Burma during the war. Besides, as many Asian and Indian actors trying to get work in Britain found, it was such talented actors as the late Michael Bates who stole the part of bearer to the British Army in the series - he was the epitome of all that was Victorian colonial. With exaggerated accent, he would express his continuous gratitude to the Army being present in his country. He spoke as being one of them and would finalise each episode with a fable which would start off as , ‘..there is an old saying in Hindu…’ or words to that effect…

Although the programme was shot around the fumblings of a concert party, simply there to entertain the troops, it showed the strengths and the weaknesses of these men who preferred to drag up as women instead of go into the jungle and fight the enemy. Each character was as important as the next, sharing individual complexities yet engaging within each other’s characters to create great British comedy. The key to the show was Sergeant Major Williams played by the up standing, regimental Windsor Davis; an absolute Pitball of a men who expected his men to be real men. Again, reflecting back on his own personal days in the army, Jimmy Perry created the loud mouthed, patronising Battery Sergeant. Using such catchy lines as the very hilarious ‘Shut Up,’ at the ending credits in belittling the local Indian musical melodies and yet belittling his company even more by shouting ‘You Is A Bunch Of Poofs,’ on parade then promptly getting them to repeat it back, maybe be offensive to some today, yet, one can take away the fact that this is the way the British Army was, and in some aspects, still is. It is with this, that we can see the failings of the world today and the way we were more at ease with each other in the days when ‘Ain’t ‘Arf Hot, Mum,’ was shot. We understand that it’s these realised concepts of real men and the relationship between India and the British Army towards the end of the Second World War is the pathetic reasons why this series is not shown on television today.

Perhaps the next notable character who, like Bates’s ‘Rangi Ram,’ figure was naturally, ‘Gloria.’ Played by the effervescent Melvyn Hayes, he was as camp as ten John Inman’s. Surprisingly, the latter was first thought when it came around to casting, until Croft had picked up on Hayes who appeared flamboyant if only in his voice - the camp ness would come later. Gunner ‘Gloria’ Beaumont lived the theatre. Along with budding concert party producer and ‘Perry - like’ Bombardier ‘Solly’ Solomons, they were the only characters who wanted to take each performance for the troops seriously. Inspired by the Golden Age of Hollywood, both characters breathed life and glamour into each fumbling performance. ’Gloria,’ who was always featured in silky dresses and theatrical make up was constantly thrilled at ’her public,’ when the soldiers would shout out for her. ’She believed’ that her fate was to be the next ’Ginger Rogers,’ or ’Betty Grable,’ yet, the Gunner was appalled on a daily basis with the fighting, the heat and everything that was the Army, whereas, ’Solly,’ the producer played by actor and writer in his own write, George Layton was loosely based on Jimmy Perry in his early Army days as producer for his own concert party.

A mixture of hap hazard figures completed the incredible farce that was the amateur concert party - the very essences of what gave troops the spirit to keep going under the most extreme circumstances, particular in Burma, where conditions in the jungle were the most unbearable and many returned home with bouts of Malaria for the rest of their lives. So, even though it was one of the greatest comedies ever written, it’s back drop was of one of the worst British conflicts in living memory, and it could not have been any more serious. Yet the party featured the very best of the lousiest acts you could imagine from Old Time Music Hall; Gunner ‘Lofty’ Sugden whose angelic singing voice was just as remarkable as his squeaky speaking voice and his lack of physical height on which, Sergeant Major would refer to him as ‘the mushroom.’ Gunner ’Atlas’ Mackintosh who was supposedly the strong man act although he could barely tear a flimsy book in half and not forgetting Gunner ’Parky’ Parkins who was the most diabolical ventriloquist act and also the suspected love child of a brief fling Sergeant Major had had with his Parky’s mother whist on training at Aldershot barracks. It was this relationship that supposedly kept the entire troop our of moving forward on to the frontline in the jungle. The Major was always complementing the ’boy’ on his ’wonderful talent’ and ’smart shoulders.’ He would have nothing said bad against him, believing the young Gunner to be his own flesh and blood.…

These characters strolled on each night in front of the troops exactly the way that similar acts had done in real life. Whistling, playing piano complement amongst other things and each night, the troops applauded the awful barrage of poor acts and flat singing. Men in make up, dressed in drag was, according the Sergeant, a poor excuse to join the Army where soldiers fought and killed the enemy, not ponced about on stage like a ‘bunch of poofs.’ When, in the third series and at the exit of Layton, his stripes are handed over to ‘Gloria,’ to take the roll of Bombardier and this infuriated the Sergeant Major. Suddenly ‘Gloria’ was next down the rank from him and the party found themselves moved into the jungle - their greatest fear. This piece of shift in story line was written in after the end of Michael Bates’s long battle with cancer finally won him and the ‘troop was moved,’ to a different location in respect.

The Sergeant Major found himself, repeatedly in the middle of not only the bumbling, ram shackled excuse for a Artillery troop, but up against the very British, middle class Colonel and Captain Ashwood. Setting themselves almost in a Noel Coward relationship of their own, the two higher ranked service men conducted their own interaction like a marriage between husband and wife. Ashwood appeared as ‘the upper class twit,’ who had merely found his way up the ranks of the British Army through education and connections. The Colonel Reynolds was a stereotype of the First World War when he remembered how the Great War was won, yet, now serving his country from behind a desk, he preferred to have little to do along the lines of fighting the enemy and stood back enough to guarantee to go home alive, after the War.


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Keeping each episode self contained, the whole show represented not just a true to life account of the one of the most famous British conflicts, we, as the viewer, knew very little about, but the essence of what humour is genuinely all about. Since the birth of the relationship between two of the greatest comedy writers of all time, we have started to understand a pattern from such a show to the comedy we have on television today - or not, as the case maybe. We certainly can’t get away from the fact that writers now have to be vigilant about their work- engaging in a state of mind where upon no minority is offended, so in that respect, we can no longer be free to laugh at anyone, even though the first laugh is on us - and at our expense..


None the less, this piece of comedy history deserves a place in our hearts and also on the format we now know as DVD. Since a lot of the BBC’s best work has been scrapped, deleted or just plain taped over, over the years, we should be lucky that some gems have survived the great cull. This is one of them so I leave you with one last final thought from the land of Perry and Croft comedy…


If, by any chance, you may find the suggestion that this show could offend and degrade, let me prove to you this; the biggest laugh is upon the British Army. Despite the fact that they are the most defiant in the world…


Windsor Davis and Don Estelle released the swoon some ‘Whispering Grass,’ on EMI records in 1975 and stayed at number one for three weeks.


‘It Ain’t ‘Arf Hot, Mum,’ came to a natural end in 1978 when the end of the War comes and the troop is sent home - a final episode of thought provoking pathos.




Towards the end of ‘It Ain’t ‘Arf Hot, Mum,’ Perry and Croft had started writing ‘Hi De Hi.’





Written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft.
Starred Windsor Davis, Melvyn Hayes, Don Estelle and George Layton.

Series One - Spring 1974
Series Two - Spring 1975
Series Three - Spring 1976
Series Four - Autumn 1976
Series Five - Autumn 1977
Series Six - Autumn 1978.
All shown on BBC 1

A collection has now been released on DVD featuring a series on each one. The entire collection includes all 56 episodes. On Sendit.com for £12 each.
Another DVD was released in 1998 which featured only three episodes on BFS Entertainment. None of them have been released by the BBC. Price unknown.
Series One is available from HMV on DVD at £6.99, also for this price at HMV, Series Two.

Series One included the episode;

Meet The Gang, My Lovely Boy, The Mutiny Of Punkah Wallahs, A Star Is Born, The Jungle Patrol, It’s A Wise Child, The Road To Bannu, The Inspector Calls.


©M. Duffy (sam1942) 2007.