British Comedy Guide
It Ain't Half Hot Mum. Image shows from L to R: BSM Geoffrey 'Shut Up' Williams (Windsor Davies), Bombardier 'Gloria' Beaumont (Melvyn Hayes). Copyright: BBC
It Ain't Half Hot Mum

It Ain't Half Hot Mum

  • TV sitcom
  • BBC One
  • 1974 - 1981
  • 56 episodes (8 series)

India, 1944 - a Royal Artillery Concert Party try to avoid going in to action by performing for the troops with their brand of camp entertainment. Stars Windsor Davies, Don Estelle, Melvyn Hayes, Michael Bates, George Layton and more.

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Press clippings

Beloved BBC star John Clegg dies aged 90

John Clegg has passed away aged 90 as tributes poured in for the beloved star.

The actor was best known for playing Gunner 'Paderewski' Graham in the BBC sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum across 56 episodes.

Jonathan Rose, The Sun, 20th August 2024

Melvyn Hayes on his 'angry young man' beginnings - and It Ain't Half Hot Mum

He was tipped to be the next Richard Burton - but ended up as crossdressing Gunner Gloria in the now controversial sitcom. As his breakthrough classic No Trees In The Street returns to the screen, Hayes looks back.

Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian, 22nd July 2024

Melvyn Hayes says BBC should be 'ashamed' for not repeating It Ain't Half Hot Mum

Melvyn Hayes has said it's a 'disgrace' that the BBC 'treats It Ain't Half Hot Mum as an object of shame' and said there's no reason it couldn't be repeated nowadays.

Stian Alexander, Daily Star, 20th January 2024

TV sitcoms give clues to why Brits voted for Brexit

Sitcoms such as 'Allo 'Allo!, Dad's Army and Fawlty Towers could explain Brexit, an academic has claimed. Historian Gavin Schaffer says the comedies offer a way to understand the political cultures that led to the seismic vote to leave Europe - reflecting the British public's ambivalence towards Europe and their desire to stand apart from the reset of the continent.

University of Birmingham, 3rd July 2023

Why does Penny Mordaunt hate Dad's Army?

Charles Moore has dug up quite the quote from Tory leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt today. In her 2021 book Greater: Britain After The Storm she reveals that she hates Dad's Army and the other sitcoms written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft.

Gareth Roberts, Unherd, 12th July 2022

Sanjeev Bhaskar defends It Ain't Half Hot Mum

It's the classic sitcom that the BBC has reportedly deemed too racist to ever air again. But It Ain't Half Hot Mum has received support from an unlikely quarter: the liberal, British-Indian comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Ross Kaniuk, Daily Mail, 30th January 2022

It Ain't Half Hot Mum - where are they now?

Whatever happened to the cast of the sitcom?

Chortle, 21st January 2019

A last interview with the man who made Dad's Army

When Jimmy Perry died in October this year, British comedy lost one of its true greats. He was the man behind It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Hi-De-Hi! and of course Dad's Army, which almost 50 years on from its television debut, retains a special place in many of our hearts.

Neil Clark, The Telegraph, 25th December 2016

Watching unPC sitcoms should be part of the curriculum

The BBC's remakes of Till Death Us Do Part and Are You Being Served? are only to be appreciated through the filter of irony. But things like It Ain't Half Hot Mum weren't malicious.

James Delingpole, The Spectator, 1st September 2016

New exhibit shows archive pictures of BBC comedians

Compton Verney exhibition charts 60 years of comedy, from Hancock's Half Hour to Miranda Hart.

Mark Brown, The Guardian, 26th June 2016

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