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SERIES ONE               EPISODE TWO
"MY LOVELY BOY"
Recorded xx/xx/1973   Televised 10/01/1974
Plot:
When Gunner Parkins shows a picture of his mother to the Bearer, Rangi realises that it is the same woman that the Sergeant Major keeps a picture of by his bed.  The Bearer goes to see the Sergeant Major, and after a look at Parkins file, they discover that they are indeed the same woman, Edith Parkins, the Sergeant's long lost love whom he met in Colchester 20 years earlier.
The Sergeant Major reveals that they only met briefly, as he left for India a few days after they met and that the last he heard of her, she had married another man.  She was the only woman he had ever loved.
But upon reading the file, the Sergeant Major realises that Gunner Parkins is Twenty years old, having been born on the 2nd October 1925, and that would tie in with the New Years dance where he met Edith.  He is convinced that Gunner Parkins is his son, but soon remembers that he is due to be posted up the Jungle.
The Sergeant Major and the Bearer then hatch a plan to keep Parky in the Concert Party.  It is the Bearer who suggests that Parky could take the place of Gunner Smith, the ventrilaquist, who has since returned to blighty.  They wake Parky, and proceed to teach him the basics of being a Ventrilaquist int he hope of keeping him from being posted.
On the night of Gunner Parkins stage debut, which goes disasterously wrong from the moment he sets foot on stage, the Colonel stops the show to announce that the War in Europe is over as the Germans have surrendered.
The Sergeant Major arrives in the wings and mistakes the crowds cheering for the Colonel's announcement for applause for Gunner Parkins.  The Concert Party themselves celebrate backstage, and discuss the possibility of going back home.  But the Sergeant Major brngs them back down to earth by announcing that the Japanese are still out there, and that the only place they are going is "up the Jungle!"
CREDITS
Michael Bates
George Layton
Windsor Davies
Melvyn Hayes
Donald Hewlett
Michael Knowles
Christopher Mitchell
John Clegg
Stuart McGugan
Don Estelle
Dino Shafeek
Babar Bhatti
Mike Kinsey
Kenneth MacDonald
Main Cast
Signature tune by
Jimmy Perry and Derek Taverner

Script by
Jimmy Perry and David Croft
Make up by
Lyn Dewinne
Rhian Meakin

Costumes by
Susan Wheale

Film Cameraman
Max Semmet

Sound Recorder
John Gatland
Produced by David Croft
BBC COLOUR 1973
12
"Meet the Gang" ,   "Soldiers of the King (My Lads)"  ,  and,  "It's a Long Way to Tipperary"
The concert party rehearse "A Pretty Girl is just like a Melody"
Film Editor
Bob Rhymer

Visual Effects by
Len Hutton

Lighting by
Howard King

Sound by
Michael McCarthy

Design by
Barbara Gosnold
"It is an ill wind that blows up nobody's creek!"
"It is wise Buffalo that knows his own spore!"
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