Watch Private’s Progress Online

Private’s Progress follows the adventures of young undergraduate Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael), who is conscripted into the British Army. Unlike his friend Egan (Peter Jones), Windrush is a most reluctant soldier and struggles through basic training at Gravestone barracks. Failing his officer selection board, he is posted to a holding unit, under the command of Major Hitchcock. Most of the soldiers there are malingerers and drop-outs.

Windrush is finally posted to train as a Japanese interpreter, where he becomes the prize pupil; he’s then contacted by his uncle, now a senior officer in the War Office, to join a secret operation known only as “Hatrack”. He is quickly commissioned and the operation is launched, ostensibly to recover looted artworks from the Germans but really to steal them and sell them to two very dodgy art dealers.

Windrush survives the operation, despite being briefly arrested by British forces whilst in German uniform and is discharged from the army. He returns to University but when some of the artworks are found to have identical copies in circulation, the game is up.