Almost in an odd coincidence, I've noticed that the radio has developed an appetite for (sitcom) series based on past wartime activities.

BBC7 is regularly nice to us, and gives us the well-known radio version of Dad's Army at fairly regular intervals, and most enjoyable it is too, and they also feature The Navy Lark,  however Radio 4 also dives (almost literally) into the same area.

The first series I discovered was Deep Trouble, which I can't really comment on since I listened to two episodes - and decided I'd had more than enough:

++++ In an increasingly uncertain defence environment, a deadly new arms race has begun. In an attempt to secure her boundaries, Britain has deployed the very latest sub-sea military technology++++

++++ Beneath and beyond the front line, these are the adventures of the HMS Goliath. A 55,000 tonne M-Class nuclear stealth submarine, prowling 5,000 metres below the surface++++

++++ Manned by idiots++++

Yes, that about sums it up - Laugh? I almost forgot what a smile was while this was on.

The next find was Hut 33.

Sitcom set in Bletchley Park in 1941. Three code-breakers are forced to share a draughty wooden hut as they try to break German ciphers. Unfortunately, they hate each other

I'm reserving any judgement on this one - I've only heard one episode so far, and it didn't impress, but, that said, it didn't make me wonder why I wasn't doing something more useful like watch old potato peeling rot either.

I was really more intrigued to see the series at all, and that someone thought Bletcheley Park would make a setting that anyone would be able to relate to nowadays.

Although it doesn't directly follow under the heading of wartime, there's also It Sticks Out Half a Mile.

Radio sequel to the classic TV comedy Dad's Army, in which Hodges, Pike and Wilson decide to renovate a seaside pier, starring members of the original cast.

And, for me at least, this is funny straight out of the box. It does maintain a wartime connection, as the pier in question has a gaping hole along its length, which was caused during the war, so as you can imagine, renovating it is not exactly straightforward.

This particular series is notable as it was piloted with Arthur Lowe, but he died after making the pilot, so the series did bit of restart without him when it got going, although the original pilot has survived in the archives, and is broadcast occasionally.

I knew there something missing from the above listing, and it's a little while since it's been online, and it didn't spring to mind immediately without a bit of prompt, and it's called Flying the Flag.

This one is takes place in the atmosphere of the Cold War, and is set in a British Embassy, located in a Republic... somewhere...

I think the comedy/satire in this one is best described as superb, to the degree that it fails miserably in Deep Trouble, mentioned above.

Notably, the older series seem to be the ones that work, and I wonder if I'm alone in thinking that most (not all, just most) comedy that tries to be clever and poke fun using satire fails miserably nowadays, as the writers seem determined to push the format to such extremes that instead of being satirical, they become crude, stupid and insulting - to both listener and subject. Much modern comedy seems to depend on little more than crude humour - perhaps there's just no real talent nowadays, as in the sense of the teams that wrote things like Dad's Army and the other sitcoms of around that time.