Get Some In!
Get Some In! is a British television sitcom about National Service life in the Royal Air Force, broadcast between 1975 and 1978 by Thames Television. Scripts were by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, the team behind sitcoms like " Brush Strokes" and "The Good Life". The programme drew its inspiration from late 1950s – early 1960s National Service situation-comedy "The Army Game" and from nostalgic BBC TV sitcom "Dad's Army" but the RAF setting gave it enough originality not to seem formulaic. Thirty-four (commercial) half-hour episodes were made. The title is a contraction of "Get  some service in!", which was a piece of Second World War-era military slang sometimes shouted by conscripted soldiers at civilians of conscription age whom the conscripts may have believed were avoiding call-up. By the 1960s the expression had a clear and self-evident sexual connotation which replaced the original meaning and resulted in a convenient double entendre for the programme. The series has never been repeated in full on terrestrial TV in the UK, although the UKTV Gold cable channel has aired the episodes uncut. The whole series was shown on Forces TV (UK) in 2016 and again  in 2019, and on Talking Pictures TV in 2019 and 2021. It was screened in Australia in the early 1980s. Premise. The overarching concept follows a single hut of recruits at RAF Skelton in 1955. They are a group of social misfits of which, through default, Jakey Smith is the alpha male. Most stories concern their ongoing conflict with the sadistic corporal who runs the hut. The corporal lives in married quarters on site, and this female dimension gives an occasional sexual dimension to the plots. Relocation in series 3 to RAF Midham next to a WAAF station allowed an  additional sexual angle, as did Corporal Marsh moving into married quarters on-site (albeit a caravan). Marsh also decides to retrain and effectively becomes an equal rather than superior to the other boys as all train to be medics. Series 4 ends with the main group posted to Malta as medics. Series 5 is effectively a hospital comedy, and whilst the characters are the same, the change of atmosphere and recasting of Jakey Smith impact heavily and detaches this series from the first four. Theme song. The theme song composed by Alan Braden, quickly communicated to audiences that national service  would not be a fulfilling experience for the recruits with the lines "Though you're in the RAF, you'll never see a plane" and "There's only one way to get out and that's to get some in. Get Some In!" Stage show. A stage version of "Get Some In!" was produced for a 1977 summer season at the Princess Theatre, Torquay. Setting and filming locations. Series 1–2 were set at the fictional Royal Air Force station RAF Skelton. They were filmed at Hobbs Barracks near Felbridge in Surrey. The barracks are, as of 2017, an industrial estate . At the beginning of the third series, the recruits' barracks hut is destroyed by fire and so in series 3–4 events were set at fictional RAF Midham. Series 5 was set at fictional RAF hospital Druidswater which was filmed at RAF Halton, the very first scene was filmed outside the old Guard room. The Christmas special (broadcast between Series 1 and 2), set at RAF Skelton, was captioned "Christmas 1955", but the remainder of the series (involving two changes of camp) continued to be set in 1955. Home release. All five series including a 5-DVD set of the complete  series of "Get Some In!" have been released by Network.