Product Details

• Actors: Louisa Rix, David Buck, Marilyn Galsworthy, Tim Pigott-Smith, Geraldine Gardner
• Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 5
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• VHS Release Date: October 6, 1999
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302648653
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,716 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Harrowing, funny, and immediately addictive, the 1979 British television series Danger UXB stars Anthony Andrews as Army Lieutenant Brian Ash, an engineering student whose excitement about his rapid commission as an officer during World War II is tempered by his unenviable post with a bomb disposal unit. Assigned to a fatality-heavy team that defuses unexploded German bombs scattered throughout London during the blitz, Ash faces down his terror and eventually becomes the closest thing to an expert one can be dismantling sometimes booby-trapped ordnance. In doing so, he earns the respect of his superiors as well as from the enlisted men working under him, and his protracted survival is nothing short of miraculous considering the tragic number of friends and colleagues Ash loses.

There is a dark side, however. The longer Ash sticks with his unit, the more obsessive he becomes about his responsibility to keep London safe. Meanwhile, his nerves grow frayed and his morale collapses. Ash's desperate romance with a married woman (Judy Geeson) provides him little to hold onto, and when a true crisis ambushes his spirit toward the end, one can't be sure if he's headed for the scrap heap of permanent casualties. Based on the recollections of an actual wartime bomb disposer, Danger UXB was created by John Hawkesworth, who later produced (and wrote many episodes for) the fantastic Sherlock Holmes TV series starring Jeremy Brett. Despite many tense moments in Danger UXB's 13 episodes--one is always expecting a bomb to blow away a favorite character--the show is also graced by great humor (Ash's crew sometimes bring to mind Sergeant Bilko's hustlers) and a warm, likable cast. Andrews himself, perhaps, has never been better. This boxed set includes a History Channel documentary, "Bomb Squad." --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rivetting World War II Suspense Drama!, June 7, 2005

By 

Tiggah "the Anglophile" (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews

The setting is England, 1940. A young, newly-commissioned officer arrives at his headquarters. Whatever he may be expecting, it is not to find out that his first appointment is heading up a bomb disposal unit. It is an assignment in which the life expectancy is ten weeks, and the disposal men die at a rate of one per day. When Lieutenant Brian Ash (played superbly by Anthony Andrews (Brideshead Revisited)) realizes that there has been no mistake and that, with no previous knowledge, training or understanding of bombs or bomb defusal, he is to take charge of one of the units, the look on his face is worth a thousand words. I for one certainly felt a shiver go down my spine. You see, as the officer in charge, it will be Ash's duty to physically disable the bombs. The rest of the unit--the sappers, as they're called--are there to do the digging and wood-framing around the bombs so that the officer in charge can access them and so that they can be lifted out and carted away for detonation once they're disarmed.

Produced and written (for the most part) by John Hawkesworth, who is most famous for having brought us both Upstairs Downstairs and The Duchess of Duke Street, Danger UXB is a 1979 production and is an absolutely superb period drama--every bit as good as his two better-known offerings and sure to be enjoyed by those who've enjoyed either of those series. This series, which consists of thirteen 50-minute episodes, revolves around Ash and his unit as they fight the neverending battle of getting rid of unexploded bombs. The Germans actually used to drop bombs that were designed to remain intact upon impact, often until such time as they were tampered with or until a certain amount of time had passed. The British were initially unprepared for such a tactic, and with no instruction manuals, they had little choice but to learn about the types of bombs and how best to defuse them through observation and experimentation and with the aid of a lot of luck. To make matters worse, the Germans kept redesigning the bombs in order to thwart the efforts of the defusers. As a point of interest, over 20,000 UXBs were moved by disposal units during the war.

DVD extras: A 45-minute "History Channel" documentary (an American production) about modern-day bomb disposal units which includes interviews with the men who do the job wherein they share their experiences and reasons for choosing such a high-risk occupation. One nice thing about this DVD set is that the four discs come in extra-skinny cases (half as thick as the usual cases), which makes it much more compact for storage!

In conclusion, this is an intelligently written, superbly acted British suspense-drama (indeed, the suspense is almost unbearable at times!), and the information about the types of bombs and how they work is accurate and informative--so informative that when the series was broadcast in England, a viewer apparently realized that one of his child's toys was in fact a butterfly bomb! This is a series which will of course be of immense interest to fans of the war genre, but the appeal is broad enough that I would highly recommend it to fans of period productions in general or to anyone looking for a good suspense drama. Personally, I debated getting it, as I don't really care for war shows, but I'm glad I took a chance on it, as it's as much about relationships and individuals as it is about the dramatic and suspenseful war-time jobs the men do. With a little of something for everyone, this was a show that both the men and the women in our family thoroughly enjoyed.

Extremely highly recommended!

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Danger UXB Masterpiece of Television Drama, December 12, 2003

By 

Michael Ziegler (Philadelphia, Pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Danger UXB Set (Volumes 1-5) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In 1979, Public Television launched this important look at another set of heroes during the London blitz days of 1940. Much outside of the ordinary, this chilling, tension filled drama unravels with characters from a bomb disposal unit who constantly risked their lives in a learn -as -you- go approach to unexploded bombs. This story follows one unit headed by Lt. Ash,( Anthony Andrews) from his innocent first arrival during the confusion of pre-invasion days to his becoming a veteran of defusing live ordinance.Perhaps the most fascinating feature is the constant introduction of new inventions in order to assist UXB men in their trade. Characters come in and out in dramatic fashion, blowing up attempting to dismantle a type 17 (booby trap) bomb or by fate. We begin to believe that perhaps nothing is going to happen to Lt. Ash until "The Pier" episode is shown, where he becomes the victim of friendly fire. I should mention that all of the stuff that happens beyond Ash receiving the letter from his girfriend ending the relationship is created fiction beyond what Hartley had written in the book. It (the book) being rather short, the screenplay writers developed the characters admirably further on into the war and we are all the better for it. A tremendous series, one of the best ever and is in urgent need of DVD development. Watching this program through to completion will leave you with a feeling that you will never view things in the same way ever again. Very effective!

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little known segment of British history, May 2, 2000

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Danger UXB Set (Volumes 1-5) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Although Anthony Andrews is the main charecter of this series, it is the exceptional cast that makes this series both entertaining and worth watching time after time. The entire cast, whether they are seen throughout the series or just in one episode are all exceptional. This series is so well done that I got the feeling that I was right there seeing the bomb being dug out. From the moment newly minted LT Ash discovers that he is in a bomb disposal section and no it is not a voluntary organization to the final destruction of a defused bomb on the heaths outside London, one is captivated by the realism of the situations and the true to life depiction of the men and women. I was stationed in Berlin in the late 70s and Britsh and American bombs were still being dug out of the ground in that city. Seeing bomb disposal in action makes this series much more interesting. This is a series that does much to bring a little known or appreciated aspect of World War II to an audience in the country that never had to go through what the British did in World War II. It is well worth seeing over and over again.