It Ain't Half Hot Mum | |
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![]() Series title card | |
Genre | Sitcom |
Created by | |
Written by |
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Directed by |
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Starring | |
Theme music composer | Jimmy Perry |
Opening theme | "Meet the Gang" |
Ending theme |
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Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 8 |
No. of episodes | 56 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Producers |
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Running time | 30 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | BBC1 |
Release | 3 January 1974 3 September 1981 | –
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) |
It Ain't Half Hot Mum is a British television sitcom about a Royal Artillery concert party based in Deolali in British India and the fictional village of Tin Min in Burma, during the final months of the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who had both served in similar roles in India during that war.
Fifty-six episodes were broadcast across eight series on BBC1 between 1974 and 1981, covering a real-time historical period of approximately thirteen weeks. Each episode ran for thirty minutes. The title originates from the first episode, in which young Gunner Parkin (Christopher Mitchell) writes home to his mother in England.[1] In 1975, a recording of "Whispering Grass" performed by Don Estelle and Windsor Davies in character as Gunner "Lofty" Sugden and Sergeant Major Williams (respectively), reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and remained there for three weeks.
The series, which attracted up to seventeen million viewers in its heyday, has been accused of racism, homophobia and a pro-imperialist attitude.[2][3] One specific criticism has been the casting of a white actor, Michael Bates, as an Indian character, with darkening makeup that some have described as brownface.[4][5]
Jeffries
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).