

Few wartime prisoners have attempted escape quite as many times as bumbling RAF Officer James Forrester. Though Officer Forrester has twenty-three escape attempts to his name, each successive attempt he makes to break free somehow seems to go worse than the last. But this time there's a difference, because Officer Forrester isn't just plotting his own escape, but the escape of all 327 of his fellow prisoners as well - and all at once. In fact even the Germans want to escape!
Acting
Stephen Fry's magnificent buffoonery anchored by Geoffrey Palmer's weary authority
Writing
Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais nail the 'comedy of errors' structure

Director
Adrian Shergold
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made for ITV as part of a 1990s wave of British WWII comedies, it deliberately subverts the 'noble prisoner' myth of The Great Escape.
Sam Kelly had already played Hitler in four separate productions; this was his fifth and final Führer.