Light Up the Sky!

Somewhere in Europe, during the Second World War, a group of young men make up a Searchlight Squad. If an adventure is days of boredom interrupted by short bouts of terror, this is an adventure.... but for most of it they spend their time bickering, picking up women, and worrying about what's for dinner.

It's a comedian's show, with Ian Carmichael, Tommy Steele and Benny Hill at the top of the cast list, yet they are all tamping down their performances. If you've ever observed a comic actor giving a serious performance only to be surprised and impressed, you shouldn't be. As Edmund Kean said on his deathbed, dying is easy; it's comedy that's hard. Yet this quasi-service comedy tries to alternate the comedy with the difficulties of actual war, and doesn't really manage the first half of the remit. The actors step on the punchlines, deliberately.... but the result is 75 minutes of boredom, and 15 minutes of terror.