This really is painful to watch. I feel very sorry for Tony Selby. This was his main starring role in a British TV series and he was forced to play a ridiculous, unpleasant, unbelievable and unfunny bully who is a pathological liar and has psychopathic feeling of hatred towards all new recruits. He hates everyone who is ranked below him and will commit any enormity as long as it causes pain and distress to the people he is meant to be the guardian of.
To his credit he did play the disastrous part as well as he could. He still managed to be upstaged by the young Robert Lindsay, playing the world's only teddy boy who has no trace of teddy-boy-ness about him. There is also a Scotsman in the cast, included to allow Cpl Marsh an uninterrupted stream of vitriol against the Scots.
Because the Erks were training to be nurses there were lots of "jokes" about broken arms, legs, profuse bleeding, concussion, kidney damage: these are the funniest jokes in the series.
Lindsay was lucky: he got a better offer and jumped ship. The producers made the disastrous decision to keep the character going with a new actor. Why? Why not bring in a new character, and an explanation for the old character disappearing?
The theme song chirrups: "You'll be the lowest form of life, You'll wish that you were dead", that's how watching this series made me feel. I am sure that for the people nostalgic for National service in the 1950s this was the best sitcom of all time. For everyone else this was a pointless and inexplicable waste of time and money. The writers were wasting their time and talent on a directionless catastrophe.
Because the Erks were training to be nurses there were lots of "jokes" about broken arms, legs, profuse bleeding, concussion, kidney damage: these are the funniest jokes in the series.
Lindsay was lucky: he got a better offer and jumped ship. The producers made the disastrous decision to keep the character going with a new actor. Why? Why not bring in a new character, and an explanation for the old character disappearing?
The theme song chirrups: "You'll be the lowest form of life, You'll wish that you were dead", that's how watching this series made me feel. I am sure that for the people nostalgic for National service in the 1950s this was the best sitcom of all time. For everyone else this was a pointless and inexplicable waste of time and money. The writers were wasting their time and talent on a directionless catastrophe.