It Ain't Half Hot Mum

SHUT UP YOU 'ORRIBLE LITTLE POOF!

It Ain't Half Hot Mum was a TV comedy produced by the BBC from 1974 to 1981.

Featuring the cross-dressing adventures of a Royal Artillery concert party in Burma during the Second World War. It was a combination of Carry On style humour with Dad's Army and just a touch of The Virgin Soldiers but shot for a pre-watershed audience. It never achieved the same degree of affection the UK audience had for Dads Army but it did have its moments... including introducing such certain ARRSERS to cross dressing.

Staring Windsor Davies as Battery Sergeant-Major Williams, Don Estell as an opera singing midget and Melvyn Hayes as the ever so camp Bombardier "Gloria" Beaumont.

Davies, the bombastic and extremely loud Sergeant Major, was the star of the show. His catch phrases live on today in the British Army any time some poor tom is getting or about to get a ferocious beasting...

• Oh Dear, How Sad, Never Mind!
• SHUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUP!
• IF YOU DO NOT SHUT UP AND GET ON PARADE I WILL HAVE YOU POSTED UP THE JUNGLE .. err .. DESERT SO FAST YOUR FEET WILL NOT TOUCH THE GROUND!
• YOU IS A POOF WHAT IS YOU?

In the first four series ... in an not at all dodgy racist way ... a bearer Rangi Ram (a controversially blacked up Michael Bates) was the narrator to the audience. Rangi was an Indian native who spoke a pidgin English and proudly considers himself British to the point of calling all other Indians 'You Bloody Foreigners!'.

One reason that the show has hardly been repeated is that the show is a tad non-PC for the 21st century (no bad thing). However the thought of Sergeant-Major Williams calling all and sundry 'poofs', 'mincing gay boys' or threatening people with transfer up the jungle would make a guardianista spill his low fat skinny latte.

Wiki Page to be found here

In the words of Sergeant Major Williams ... "Never before HAVE I SEEN SUCH A BLATANT DISPLAY OF POOFERY!" ... but not to be confused with 3 Para Mortar Platoon of course.