Our Brave Boys is Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee (historian)

Christopher Lee is a British writer, historian and broadcaster, best-known for writing the radio documentary series This Sceptred Isle for the BBC.Lee's career began as a defence and foreign affairs correspondent for the BBC...

's Radio, Comedy drama series about a high-flying civil servant who is posted to the Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

, where she finds herself boss to four military officers.

The "boys" are nearing the end of their stint at the Ministry of Defence, and each of them is looking forward to returning to his particular service and, hopefully, to promotion. But with their departure imminent, both they and the redoubtable Zelda discover that their feelings are surprisingly ambivalent.

Directed by Peter Atkin and produced by Rosalind Ayres

Rosalind Ayres

Rosalind Ayres is an English actress. Active since 1970, Ayres may be best known by a wide audience for her role was in the 1997 film Titanic, in which she played Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon....

.

Cast list

• Assistant Under Secretary Zelda Maclean Fiona Shaw
  Fiona Shaw
  Fiona Shaw, CBE is an Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is probably most familiar for her minor role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, she is an accomplished classical actress...
  
  
• Colonel George Martin Jarvis
• Wing Commander Bryan Thomas Christopher Neame
  Christopher Neame
  Christopher Neame is an English actor.-Education:Neame was educated at The King's School, Canterbury, an independent school in Canterbury in Kent.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Commander Bill Nox Jonathan Hyde
  Jonathan Hyde
  Jonathan Hyde is an Australian-born English actor, well known for his roles as J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line in Titanic, Egyptologist Allen Chamberlain in The Mummy and Sam Parrish/Van Pelt, the hunter in Jumanji. He is married to the Scottish soprano Isobel Buchanan...
  
   (Series 1 only), Christopher Godwin
  Christopher Godwin
  Christopher Godwin is a British actor who has been active since the late 1960s.He made his TV debut at the age of 25, when he took on the role of PC Grange in an episode of Softly, Softly...
  
  
• Chief Petty Officer Grieves Peter Capaldi
  Peter Capaldi
  Peter Dougan Capaldi is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director. In 1995, his short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film...
  
  

Episode guide

Series 1 - First Broadcast 2001

1. Nanny Knows Best - George and Bill are fed up of making government excuses to the armed forces.

2. Bangety Bang - This week Zelda launches an anti-moonlighting campaign.

3. Ladies Who Lunch - The MoD has to make cuts, and each service is vulnerable.

4. Crabs and Penguins - What to do with empty houses?

Series 2 - First Broadcast 2002

5. Thickly Buttered Toast - There is to be a new bank holiday - but can the boys agree which military event it should commemorate?

6. Lloyd George's Motor Car - Brass nuts and Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy crop up in another tale of the MoD's clerical front line.

7. Brown Sauce - Can Zelda make arms sales seem legitimate?

8. Stiff Limb Syndrome - Problems of recruitment, broken legs and the Queen's tea party dominate life at the clerical end of the MOD.

9. Honour Your Partners - The new 'people's honours' list causes Bill and George a few headaches.

Series 3 - First broadcast 2003

10. Flying Tonight - Can it really be true that the MoD is taking the UFOs seriously? And is Bryan the right man to take charge of the secret file?

11. Tally-Ho - For once, Colonel George's fondness for hunting overlaps with the interests of the Ministry of Defence.

12. Stakeholders - Plans are afoot for Zelda's department to join the move back into the Ministry of Defence main building

13. Toujours Amis, Sunshine - The imminent arrival of an official visit of the French defence minister poses several tricky diplomatic problems.

14. England Expects - If no one can say exactly what the Future Rapid Effects System will consist of, how can anyone say what it's going to cost?

15. Going Going Gone - Bill, George and Brian discover the true price of peace, when various parts of the military are "outsourced".

Series 4 - First broadcast 2004

16. Tell It Like It Isn't - With the general election in the air, should Zelda and the boys give the same answers to the opposition and the government?

17. Goodbye Sailor - The Ministry of Defences office move may be imminent, but that doesn't explain why Bryan seems to want to become a student.

18. Stretched Limo - Bryan's logical leaps are sometimes hard to follow, even for his Ministry of Defence colleagues

19. Camping It Up - No Information

20. Oompahs and Camels - Could the Red Arrows really be facing their last flight? Bryan wants to prove he isn't as stupid as people think by saving them

21. Hello Sailor - Some in the Ministry of Defence feel that the Trafalgar Day 200th celebration is taking attention away from more vital concerns.

Series 5 - First broadcast 2005

22. The Last New First

23. Pills for the Boys

24. The Nuclear Option

25. Shake, Rattle and Roll

26. The Season of Giving

27. Pay Day