This short-lived 30 minute BBC comedy series was Frankie Howerd’s last sitcom.
Ostensibly a transfer of his Up Pompeii!persona into World War II khaki, Howerd played bungling Private Percy Potts who was acting as batman to Colonel Robert Witherton (Nicholas Courtney) in Churchill’s underground London bunker in 1941.
Howerd spent half the programme talking to camera, delivering panto-style chestnuts galore in his distinctive style. The rest was slapstick dialogue between him and assorted military stooges who fed him with double-entendre opportunities.
The show’s scheduled March 1982 transmission was dropped because of sensitivity over the Falklands War and the episodes gathered dust in the BBC vaults for 11 years until the series was finally screened by satellite channel UK Gold in 1993.
Sadly, Howerd died a year before the series got its eventual airing.
Pvt. Percy Potts
Frankie Howerd Lt. Col. Robert Witherton
Nicholas Courtney Petty Officer Joan Bottomley
Joanna Dunham Sgt. Maj. McRuckus
Shaun Curry Pvt. Norman Pain
Michael Attwell Sally Perks
Linda Cunningham Tea Lady
Peggy Ann Clifford
Episodes
Operation Panic | A Mole in the Hole | Nanny by Searchlight | Those Who Loot We Shoot | Goose Has Landed | Blow Out
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