It Ain't Half Hot Mum

- Season 4

(1976)

It's the monsoon season and the men must take their salt tablets to stave off 'monsoon madness'. Lofty is accidentally left in a ditch and exposed to the elements. He catches the monsoon madness and tries to kill Williams, whom he sees as out to get him. Lofty has to be restrained with Parkin taking his place on stage, but the monsoon suddenly clears and Lofty returns to normal, wondering why Parkin has taken over from him.

The whole party heads to the North-West Frontier of India, near the Khyber Pass. Reynolds' affair with Daphne is revealed and she goes with them. They come across Pathan tribesmen who attempt to sell them some pornography and the Brits confiscate it. This angers the Pathan. The party are hiding in an old fort from the tribesmen when it is noticed that Daphne has been kidnapped by the locals. A sack is thrown over the wall to land at the men's feet. Does it contain Daphne's head?

The sack contains a melon and a note to say that Daphne will be returned if the Pathan can have their pornographic books back, plus the company's rifles. A plan is formed to send Lofty out with fake rifles used in the group's 'Desert Song' number, followed by the others but they fail to reach the tribesmen, who raid the fort in the men's absence, destroying their water containers. This means the company must drink engine water, medicine and gin, which causes them to pass out, but when they come to they find that Daphne has been returned on a white horse, given her by ...

Fed up with the sergeant major's hectoring, the lads decide that one of them should be part of a plan to get sent home. They draw cards and Gloria wins by drawing the highest card, aptly a queen. His first plan is to go on parade dressed as a woman. Williams sees through the plan and pulls Gloria's dress off. The ATS officer reports Williams for sexual harassment. Next Gloria feigns suicide by substituting mints for sleeping pills and pretending to overdose. He is sent to hospital, where he falls for a nurse and decides to stay on in India.

Sent into the jungle to collect a rare plant for Ashwood, Lofty is followed home by an elephant, which eats Ashwood's plant and all the other plants at the base. Its appetite is voracious and the Colonel gives the order to shoot it. However its owner arrives to retrieve it, claiming that it once performed to music in a circus and was attracted to follow Lofty because he was singing.

The concert party is engaged to perform at a remote air base in Jawani, whose men have not seen a woman in years and are feeling sex-starved. Seeing a picture of Gloria in drag, they assume he is a real woman and chant "We want Gloria." The Colonel feels the others should perform without Gloria but Gloria suggests that everybody drags up so that the audience will know that they are actually men. Unfortunately the audience believes that they are all women and chase them back to their plane.

A new, highly jingoistic, district commissioner is arriving and Ashwood has written a pageant to entertain him, extolling the virtues of the British in India. Everybody else concedes that it is dreadful but, no matter, their guest will enjoy it. However, the commissioner cannot come and sends his deputy, the Indian Mr. Patel. Hasty adjustments need to be made to the performance, cutting it to only four minutes long and leading Mr. Patel to claim that British culture is a mystery to the Indians.

It's Parkin's twenty-first birthday and Williams aims to give him his Samurai sword, which the lad has admired. However, as he is about to present it to him, he sees that the other men have also got the birthday boy a sword, so he puts his away. Hearing that Williams was brought up an orphan and does not know his real birthday, Parkin invites him to share in his. He and the men even have a present for him, his stick, which Parkin broke but has had repaired. Everybody celebrates the double occasion and Williams is jolly for once.