Hut 33

2000s British radio comedy series

What did you do during the war, daddy? I was sitting in a hut, I can’t tell you where, I can’t tell you what I was doing, but it was vital for the war effort...

What would put together an Oxford linguist professor, Geordie Marxist, 17-year-old mathematics genius and psychopathic Polish woman? The war, of course. Meet the crew of Hut 33, one of the buildings in Bletchley Park, where during the World War 2 the British were decoding the enemy communication. While the Allies knew the Enigma code there were so many combinations that every day they had to try to figure out the correct setting of the machine to decode the messages.

Of course it took great minds and a lot of time, but in case of Hut 33 great minds were rarely in use, so it was taking them a lot of time. Well, maybe except for Professor Charles Gardner, who saw his role in Hut 33 as typical 9 to 5 job without pretending to care. He was a target for Archie, who was active socialist and always was antagonising posh Charles. Young Gordon with IQ of over 180 would be a great asset to the cause, if he wouldn’t be wearing shorts all the time (his mother will allow him to wear long trousers when he will be grown up) and worry mostly about the fact that he is a virgin. And there is Minka, former Polish resistance member, who finds a violent solution to every problem...

British radio comedy series about Bletchley Park workers during the World War 2. It is hard to describe the style of the show - early episodes were rather chaotic, some of the jokes about Minka were on a verge of being offensive, but second and third series when the characters were better developed Hut 33 became a surprisingly entertaining comedy show. Despite the main characters are bound to stay in one place the episodes covered variety of themes and kinds of humour, so it was hard to spot a flaw in the concept. Well developed characters, the plots were rarely similar to previous ones - all of it put together puts Hut 33 among better radio shows of recent years.

Rating	7.2
Funny	7 / 10
Entertaining	4 / 5
Characters	4 / 5
Nonrepetitive	3 / 5