Rogermex It's out now on DVD (but you have to have a non-zonal player). I was blown away when I saw it the first time. Also, I just did my about-35 year anniversary reading of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and I know I felt a strong resonance between Pynchon's acid-trip evocation of the late- and post-WWII years and this satire about Post-War Brit (world?) culture decay.Pynchon also is known for having assorted characters break into song at the drop of a situation.Furthermore, he incessantly switches between "reality" and someone's subjective fantasy life. Not that Potter doesn't in his own right love to do the same, but I'm not sure if it's a matter of influence or just coincidental genius.This is a must-see!

fellowdroogie I watched it when it was first televised in 1993 and watched at all again recently. Could sit and watch it again and again. Naked ladies, stuttering Welshmen, war office clerks/professional mimers, creepy old perverts, old school eccentrics...what more could you ask for? A great soundtrack? We can do that. Well written, well directed and superbly acted. It's a shame Dennis Potter is no longer with us, we need more of his ilk to produce top quality TV comedy so we don't have to endure anymore crap we get from across the pond. I think we're getting there with people like Peter Kay. Would LOYC or Phoenix Nights do well in the States? The guy who played Hopper stood out for me, what happened to him?

steve-1703 I never liked Dennis Potter until I saw this series. I don't like musicals – the idea of a group of people bursting into spontaneous communal song never appealed to me, but the combination of scenario (a post second world war era where the war is now fought as much in the halls of Whitehall as on the battlefield – and Britain is losing) and music (British 50's) just hit the right note with me (pun intended). The characters are superb (this was the first thing I ever saw Ewan McGregor in) and the situations genuine. The relationships between the junior ranks in both military and civilian life in the era they are set are really believable (so my dad says). I loved the music so much I bought the CD, I just wish they would bring it out on DVD. Thanks Dennis.

crudram A tale of youthful lust, against a backdrop of the Suez crisis and national service. Interspersed with some great music of the era, which, for some reason the cast just start singing along to. Seems silly, and it is, but it works, and adds the right touch to the storyline, reflecting all those times when you wish life was a musical.