Hut 33

A Monopoly on Comedy - and Character

Episode 3 of Hut 33 is called 'Yellow' (at time of writing being here). And it starts with one my favourite scenes of the series. It throws the character into a simple game of Monopoly.

A Busload of Quakers

'Pigs n Spivs' is the title of Ep 2 of series 2 of Hut 33 (now on iPlayer here) I'm not convinced this is the best title,since it implies that there is more than one pig and one spiv in the episode, when there isn't. There is one spiv who sells our starving codebreakers a job-lot of bacon. Which is still in pig form. Unfortunately, they discover the origins of this pig and could be in serious trouble.

The start of the new series of this sitcom is neatly timed, considering the recent announcement of lottery funding for the restoration of part of Bletchley Park, the epicentre of Allied decoding efforts during the Second World War. In the series, which is set at the complex during the war, the feuding among the code breakers is rampant. Archie (Tom Goodman-Hill), a revolutionary socialist, clashes with Charles (Robert Bathurst) over a long-held grudge, while the young maths prodigy Gordon (Fergus Craig) attempts to keep the peace.

Before the first series of Hut 33 was broadcast last year there were those who wondered whether it was a wartime-based comedy series too far. What humour could the writer James Cary glean from the activities of codebreaking folk? Quite a lot, as it happened, as Cary tacitly admitted that the Enigma machine was not in itself a laugh riot, and that a few broadly delineated comic characters were what was wanted.

As a result Hut 33 could be set anywhere, at any time, and still be just as funny. You've got your dithering commander Joshua, to whom the fact that Britain is even at war comes as a surprise, your lascivious landlady Mrs Best, your psychotic Polish refugee Minka, all of whom get their fair share of laughs.

Mention the crack squad of code breakers working from Bletchley Park in the Second World War and thoughts turn to the brilliant young men of Robert Harris' novel Enigma. The team in this sitcom are more of a crap squad and have been placed inside Hut 33 where their incompetence - more social than work-related - can be safely hidden.

It's a bit like Dad's Army in as much as the humour is gentle and the characters are intrinsically appealing. But the humour is far saucier: Robert Bathurst plays an officer terrified by a sex-crazed barmaid, for example, while the jokes about gay sex would never have been allowed in Walmington-on-Sea.

Not only is Hut 33 one of the very few radio shows set in a shedlike atmosphere, it's also very funny.

I'd heartily recommend tuning in as the first series was a hoot and the cast, including Robert Bathurst and Olivia Colman, are excellent.