If you like war films, there’s a chance you might enjoy a patently silly spoof of them. If you don’t, the danger is this collection of cliches, tongue in cheek sexism and double entendres will leave you cold.
Directed by Alistair Green, the beginning is about as good as it gets. On a turbulent flight, the valiant troops act out eating cream eclairs and flapjacks minutes before a stomach-churning parachute descent into daring adventures.
Once on German soil, the cast of four, led by the craven, hard-drinking, emotionally inadequate Major John Smith Carling-Black-Label-Brew (Adam De Ville), delivers jokes of the calibre: “He’s dead, sir.” “But how bad is it?” “Well, he’s dead.”
Carole Carpenter gamely takes on the part of Lieutenant Tom Thomason as well as the token female stereotypes - domina matrix Fraulein Guertter-Hoffitupherr and Foxy Fawcett Majors, a sex kitten with attitude.
It all culminates in an ascent to Sparrow Heights castle to rescue the teddy bear “of few words” General George-Geoffrey-Bungle.
Perhaps the biggest positive is that, in contrast to the extremely partisan war films it sends up, this war theatre portrays the German enemy as only as silly as the supposedly heroic Brits.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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