On TV last night

IT'S a man's life in the army - discipline, drilling and learning to smoke a pipe. The reprobates undergoing 1950s-style military training really did have to master the art of pipe smoking. Filter cigarettes didn't exist back then and roll-ups were far too common for officers.

"When you hold your pipe it's like cupping your loved one's breast," suggested the officer. You place the stem in your mouth for a spot of teasing, then light a match, run the flame across the bowl and "suck for England".

Filling their pipes is the closest these young men will get to a bit of nookie for weeks. Less pleasurable duties include being woken up at 6.15 in the morning by having buckets of cold water thrown over them, a cross-country run carrying a stretcher loaded with a 120lb sandbag and the section leader, and generally being subjected to humiliating punishments that, quite frankly, and not to make light of the subject, are the sort of goings-on in the military that make headlines today.

In one exercise they were blindfolded, made to lie on the ground and told their corporal would drive a lorry close enough to touch their head. What they didn't know was that the wheel was a spare tyre being moved manually. A good way of instilling trust and courage, or unnecessarily sadistic? I'll let you choose.

Those who believe that what young tearaways need is a dose of National Service would say the recruits - all bad lads responsible for petty and serious crimes - deserve everything they get.

They certainly get smelly. Lack of deodorants meant that "most boys stank" and the worst offenders were scrubbed, "often very unkindly", recalled art critic Brian Sewell. We saw what he meant as Ben Priestman was given a regimental bath. He sat naked in a small tin bath on the parade ground while his fellow recruits scrubbed him with brooms.

No-one would have called him clean living before this, as he said that his idea of a good Saturday night out was "a few drinks, maybe a fight, a curry and, if I'm really lucky, some pussy" - and I don't think he was referring to charity work at his local animal shelter.

Some recruits showed true grit. "You are not being compliant," said the sergeant major, for once using a sentence that didn't contain umpteen instances of the f-word.

Roberts' punishment was to strip naked (they do a lot of that in the bad lads' army) and lie face down on the parade ground while buckets of cold water were thrown on him. One bucketful was thrown between his legs so that the sergeant major could tell him: "Your balls aren't so big now".

Amazingly, Roberts was judged to have shown the virtues of grit and determination needed to be an officer. He was held up as a good example to the rest of the platoon.

Another recruit, put behind bars for insubordination, was clearly a hopeless case. "Marching and drilling gets on my nerves. I just want to go out and shoot people," he said.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, sergeant major.

Summer Holiday, York Grand Opera House

IT'S a shame that when so much talent and hard work has been put in that sound problems should mar this production.

Dodgy microphones meant that the opening scene was like watching a mime show as you couldn't hear a word. The rest of the time, the sound was patchy.

Hopefully, a solution was found after the opening night's performance as this technical glitch is unfair on the 90 or so local youngsters presenting the show under the Clear Channel Stage Experience banner. This summer scheme, run at ten of Clear Channel's theatres, allows youngsters to take part in a professionally produced show.

Summer Holiday is a good choice because it's bright, cheerful and audiences of a certain age (and Cliff Richard fans) go in singing the songs from the film.

As a stage musical, the show amounts to little more than a series of song-and-dance numbers held together by a slim plot about young mechanics travelling around Europe on a double-decker bus. En route, they pick up a female singing group and a boy who turns out to be a runaway American heiress.

Sam Coulson has the looks and voice (microphone permitting) to carry the romantic lead of Don, who falls for Claire Brett's perky runaway Barbara.

If they can solve the sound problems, this will be a bus worth catching.

l Runs until Sunday. Tickets 0870 6063595.

Steve Pratt