It Ain't Half Hot Mum

- Season 1

(1974)

In Camp Deolali, at the close of World War Two, a British army concert party is rehearsing 'Top Hat' to entertain the troops, when word comes that there will be an anti-British protest by locals. RSM Williams, a disciplinarian, finds the men's appearances sloppy. New arrival Gunner Parkin takes over in the show when gunner Mack is stricken with the runs but the performance is halted by the demonstrators, who pelt Williams with cow dung.

RSM Williams argues with the well-educated pianist Gunner Graham over spelling but loses the argument. Young Parkin identifies a picture of a woman in Williams' tent as being his mother and, working out the arithmetic, Williams is convinced that he is the lad's father and tries to get him into the concert party full-time to save him from active service. Parkin is talentless but is saved by the news that the war is ended.

Rumzan the company's punka wallah, who works a cooling fan with his feet, and other punka wallahs throughout the regiments, are to be replaced by electric fans - or electric fannies, as the camp's wheeler-dealer Rangi Ram terms them. The concert party agree to employ him but Williams points out that only officers can have punka wallahs. This leads to general unrest and sympathy strikes by the electricity and telephone employees. Eventually Gunner Solly provides a solution. Rumzan can power a fan by peddling a bicycle and another wallah can cool him.

Parkin is useless on stage so the other performers sack him. An angry Williams appoints him as stores clerk - at which he is also incompetent - and plans to send the rest of the men up into the jungle. They need a plan to prevent this until the absent commanding officer, Colonel Reynolds, returns. Rangi thinks of one but Williams forestalls him. However salvation comes when the men persuade Reynold's Number Two, Captain Ashwood, to put on a show built around his Noel Coward impression and cancelling the trip up country.

Williams, who disapproves of soldiers as entertainers, thinks the men need toughening up and leads them on a survival course in the jungle. Whilst he is surviving on berries and jungle water the men are having cups of tea and cooked meals provided by the local staff, who are following them. He cannot understand why they seem so much fitter than him. Soon they arrive at the house of the local district commissioner, who is hosting Reynolds and the captain. He likes the idea of a concert party and, to Williams' dismay, asks them to put on a show for him.

Parkin goes from one disaster to another. Asked to clear a mess from the yard he has the officer's mess demolished. However Williams still thinks he is his son and constantly defends him. Rangi gets blood samples from the sergeant major and the gunner,proving that the lad is not Williams' son. Parkin is relieved but the men realise that Williams must continue to believe Parkin is his son to keep him in the concert party and stop them from being posted up country. They therefore tinker with the samples to keep Williams in blissful ignorance of the truth.

The party heads for Bannu to put on a show, first by train and then by jeep, which breaks down in the desert. Knowledge that tribesmen killed British soldiers there 50 years earlier does not inspire confidence. Then some local tribesmen appear. The concert party sit down to talk with them with Rangi acting as interpreter. When the khan learns that they are a 'road show' he confuses them with the 'Road' film series, popular at the time, leading to Solly impersonating Bing Crosby and the company's drag queen Gunner 'Gloria' Beaumont doing a version of Dorothy Lamour--...

Williams, as ever, is annoyed that the men do not act like 'real' soldiers but the colonel explains that, as a holding unit, they are not obliged to wear identical uniforms. Williams tricks Solly into providing the company with uniforms on the pretext that he wants them to do a military song number. However, a general suddenly turns up to inspect the company. They arrive at the parade ground in their uniforms but are rubbish at presenting arms - until they are provided with music, including a song from Rangi. The general is impressed by their rhythmic performance and ...