Review of Get Some In!

And far more true - to - life. 'orrible NCOs,crafty cockneys,miserable Jocks....all 1950s human life is here - except for a marked absence of the calming influence of the opposite sex;from the colonel's lady to Rosie O' Grady they are seldom seen,as was the way in those primitive testosterone - fuelled years. Did they really put bromide in the tea? One thing's for certain - if you'd asked for coffee instead you would have been laughed out of the NAAFI. "Get some in" goes where "Carry on Sergeant" and countless army comedies had gone before,exploring the cultural differences of young conscripts and making brilliant comedy that reflected it's era. It could hardly do otherwise,of course,and to find it unacceptable to today's tastes does not mean that it was not hugely funny in 1975. Blokes with droopy moustaches and flares rolled about laughing at their TVs and again on the factory floor the next morning. Of course,today we may laugh at their clothes and their "juvenile" sense of humour,but we regret the passing of their factories and sense of comradeship and shared experiences they invoked. This series saw the first flowering of the great Mr R.Lindsay as a Teddy Boy - a species that was coming to the end of it's time by 1955. A few more years fuelled by the music of Bill Haley and they would fade away as Ruby Murray and Dickie Valentine crooned their way onto our record - players. But the shining star of the series was Mr T.Selby as the Hut NCO,a blustering bullsh*tter who tried but failed to rule by fear,whose façade was soon seen through by the more shrewd members of his squad. His was the performance that remains in the mind thirty years after the programme was televised. The intolerance towards "poofs",though regrettable,merely reflected that of society as a whole. But then we drove Austin Allegros and Vauxhall Vivas,went to Margate on our hols and loved our Queen and Country - what did we know?