It Ain't Half Hot Mum to Bombardier after Solly is demobbed and sent back to Britain. The soldiers are under the orders of Battery Sergeant Major "Shut Up" Williams, a belligerent Welshman who has spent almost all of his life as a professional soldier. In turn, Williams reports to the two officers in charge of the Concert Party: Captain Ashwood and Lieutenant-Colonel Reynolds. Both Ashwood and Reynolds are characterised as coming from upper-class backgrounds. Ashwood, the younger officer, is rather stupid and slightly excitable, while Reynolds is older and more worldly-wise and sensible. While often bemoaning the rough conditions of Army life, both Ashwood and
It Ain't Half Hot Mum actor Michael Bates as the Indian bearer Rangi Ram as an example of blackface, "All Michael Bates [...] wore was a light tan", protested Jimmy Perry in a 2013 interview with the journalist Neil Clark, an admirer of the series. In Clark's opinion, the series "delightfully lampooned the attitudes of the British in India", but is "wrongly attacked by the PC brigade for being racist and homophobic". Such a perception, however, is believed to be at least partly responsible for the programme not being repeated on British television in later years, along with, according to Darren Lee of the British