Bluestone 42

As the Afghanistan-based squaddie comedy continues to bed in, it's proving increasingly adept at handling the awkward balance of earthy humour and tense, life-or-death situations. Today, tetchy Captain Nick (Oliver Chris) thinks he's found a solution to the unending monotony of dull Army food when he hears of a supposedly tasty, though critically endangered, Afghan gecko - which just happens to populate the same area where his bomb disposal team is working. Can he clear IEDs while thinking of catching dinner?

Humour can be at its funniest when found in the darkest or toughest or most unlikely situations - and a British bomb disposal unit in Afghanistan ought to provide fertile ground. But so far this comedy-drama lacks subtlety and seems too puerile. In tonight's episode, team leader Nick (Oliver Chris, above) airs his complaints about the canteen food but then learns of a new - and endangered - food source that catches his attention, Millsy (Gary Carr) leads a retraining course and Simon (Stephen Wright) is ribbed about his age.

Radio Times review

Is now, or ever, the right time for a sitcom set among soldiers serving in Afghanistan? Bluestone 42 tested the question with its tales of a British army bomb-disposal unit.

Bluestone 42 is written by Richard Hurst and James Cary, who have both worked on Miranda and are experienced comedy technicians. They kept scenes to a minimum length, filled any gaps with gags, and efficiently established their characters and the central plotline of smooth captain Nick (Oliver Chris) chasing cute female padre Mary (Kelly Adams), who finds him attractive despite herself but constantly rebuffs him.

It was a bit too efficient. This was a fairly conservative workplace sitcom, hung on a talking point that was likely to get commissioning editors and journalists interested. There's no cause to doubt Hurst and Cary's research, or their interest in the subject matter. What is in question is whether the comedy and the subject matter meshed together in the right way.

The soldiers were comedy types: a fussy man, a tomboy, an exceptionally vulgar Scot, an omniscient boss (Tony Gardner) who pops up at inconvenient times. They schemed and joked with each other as the captain and the padre set a will-they-won't-they arc going. With Bluestone 42 unwilling to offer comment on the war itself, the driver for episode one's plot might as well have been a lost lever-arch file or someone scratching the MD's car.

In fact it was an American colonel (Mike McShane) being fatally shot in the head, the flip treatment of which might well have troubled you if you view Western soldiers in Afghanistan as making a grim but glorious sacrifice. But if you see them as oppressive occupiers, Bluestone 42 had that covered too. The Yank's death was softened in advance by his annoying habit of crowing endlessly about his tour of duty in Fallujah.

Fallujah. Fallujah. The word became a punchline. It's just one of those funny place names, isn't it? Like Penge, or Kidderminster. At least it might be for viewers who are a bit hazy on what happened to the locals there in 2004. Anyway, Nick the raffish captain sorted out all the palaver about the team being fired on by launching an RPG into the Afghans' hut, killing them all and letting us get back to the comedy.

Of course a sitcom in a warzone isn't off-limits. But Bluestone 42 shows that it's... a minefield.

Writer's Blog: In a Chinook, no-one can hear you scream

Why are they in a Chinook? Well, it looks great, obviously - especially with the set that Harry Banks' creative cohorts put together. A Chinook is an exciting place to start a TV comedy. It's the first scene of the first episode and it screams loud and clear that this is not a show set in a laundrette or a failing video store.

It takes a special sort of show to make a comedy out of a bomb disposal unit in contemporary Afghanistan; a show that dives into the dark, dank hollows of a man's heart, then drags its way painfully out, up the ridges of thwarted hope and bitter laughter. Or else, you could do it Dad's Army-style, using the war mainly for uniforms and comedic scenarios, making sure the only people who die are idiots or invisible insurgents in far-off sheds. That's what BBC3's Bluestone 42 (pronounced four-two, if you want to pretend you watched it, and not watch it) has done: it's very broad and kind, and I was impressed by it. It was confident and deft, and brooked no squeamishness, no uncertainty about which jokes you're allowed to make and which you aren't (though there's one running gag, in which a squaddie mocks a dead American and is persistently told that it's too soon, that one infers was generated by the writing process.

"A suicide bomb? Would that be funny, if it only got adults?" "Too soon.") It's by the Miranda writing team, and has that distinctive worldview in which people are basically nice, and the comedy comes from the degrees of absurdity by which that niceness is manifested. And, like Miranda, a lot of its watchability comes not from actual laughs, but from enjoying the company of the nice people. Inevitably, however, this means that it never gets anywhere near the bone, and has none of that wincing discomfort that has one, while watching Peep Show or The Thick of It, literally drawing away from the telly, crying. While on the one hand it feels unfair to judge all comedy by the best of it, I sometimes think television could apply some industry standards, and learn from itself, like science.

Some joke structures persistently don't work; they clank along the ground like an exhaust pipe falling off a van. I'm thinking in particular of the Socratic school of joke, demonstrated here when phlegmatic and likable Katie Lyons (playing a soldier called Bird) hefts down the material for this exchange like a scree: "So you've never named anything?" she asks another soldier. "Nothing except my cock, which is called Andy McNab." "Why would you name your cock Andy McNab?" Because of all the action it's seen ... because it would survive on nuts and berries ... because it's full of bollocks ... I'm paraphrasing but, seriously, it's only one rung above a knock-knock joke. In short, it could be harder on itself, and harder on the viewer, and probably a bit harder on the cast, and we would still like it, and maybe love it.

Last night's viewing - Bluestone 42, BBC3

I think Bluestone 42, BBC3's new comedy about a bomb-disposal team in Afghanistan, may be unique. Of course, there have been other sitcoms that tried to see the funny side of a bloody war before now. M*A*S*H did it brilliantly, as did Blackadder Goes Forth. But neither of those series went out while the war in question was still underway.

Review: Bluestone 42, BBC Three

Damp-squib start for sitcom set in a bomb-disposal unit.

During the pitching process for this new comedy you'd guess the words "a 21st-century M*A*S*H" were uttered. Without overstating the comparisons it's not a bad description, because Bluestone 42 is a series that similarly deals in gallows humour as it follows the travails of a British bomb disposal team in Afghanistan. This first episode is largely an exercise in getting to know the characters, especially IED expert Nick (Oliver Chris) and the unit's new padre, Mary (Kelly Adams). Expect explosions, swearing and death.

Richard Hurst and James Cary's new comedy drama is set among a bomb disposal team in Afghanistan. Informed by the tales of serving and former soldiers, the series finds - mostly puerile - humour in this most dangerous of occupations. The opener sees the Bluestone 42 team called out on a routine ops mission.

Is it OK to play a bomb disposal squad in Helmand Province for laughs?

While TV's no stranger to using war as a context for laughter - M*A*S*H dealt with the Korean War and Blackadder the trenches of World War I - this new series has caused a stir because it relates to a current conflict.

But the black humour feels natural, an instinctive response to an extreme situation.

Delivered with the deadpan grin of Green Wing, there are sharply observed performances from a cast that includes Oliver Chris (Green Wing) and Kelly Adams (Hustle).