COMEDIAN Al Murray dropped the gags and showed off his prowess as a military historian to launch a new film night in Oxfordshire.

The TV funnyman, best known for his role as the Pub Landlord, joined his father Ingram at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock for the first of its monthly movie nights.

The pair lectured on the strategy behind Operation Market Garden – the ill-fated attempt to liberate and secure the Rhine bridge at Arnhem in Holland immortalised by the film A Bridge Too Far. Instead of screening that movie though, they selected an older film, Theirs is the Glory – filmed in 1946 and directed by First World War veteran Brian Desmond Hurst, using soldiers who had taken part in the battle for Arnhem rather than actors.

Speaking after the event last Wednesday Mr Murray said: "It was a really good event in an interesting venue. It was an interesting film, which was very much of its time with a unique provenance. It's a great introduction and a good place to start this series of films."

He added: "War films are interesting and speak of the time they are made. Just as historians write about the present, so war films are about the way we thought at the time they were made."

In 2014, Mr Murray published Watching War Films with My Dad, in which he revealed where his fascination with military history began.

His father, retired Lt Col Murray, served in the Parachute Squadron of the Royal Engineers and is now a volunteer at the museum.

Guests on the first film night included Arnhem veteran Stephen Morgan, from Chadlington.

Pte Morgan, who was born in Witney, is a former member of the Parachute Regiment and in September 1944 was in the thick of the fighting under the command of Major General John Frost.

He admitted to having cried during the screening, saying: "Theirs is the Glory is the definitive film of the battle: it shows exactly what it was like, it took me right back there.

"I even knew some of the people in it."

He added: "They called the other film A Bridge Too Far – but it wasn't too far for me. I was on the bridge for three and a half days, from start to end. I was the last man to leave it.

"I loved it. My mother's family had lost seven men in the first war and my father had been gassed. All I wanted to do was get out there and kill some Germans."

The film nights are first new events being staged at the museum after it was granted a licence to serve alcohol and stage films, plays and music.

Museum director Ursula Corcoran said: "It was an extraordinary film and amazing to have a veteran here - and it was good to have Al and Ingram set the scene for what happened."