A group of soldiers took time out from their work in the battle-torn country to film a joke version of "(Is This The Way To) Amarillo", featuring comedian Peter Kay, itself a charity remake of the 1970s hit by Tony Christie.

The film, featuring a Kay look-alike Sergeant Roger Parr and a series of side kicks, was emailed back to army friends at home and proved so funny it spread like wildfire around the defence ministry.

"The video is brilliant. Soldiers maintaining their moral on operations is always important," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

"The fact that it proved so popular in the office that it caused the system to crash is unfortunate but this did not affect operations and everything is up and running again," he said.

On a serious note, however, the spokesman added: "Our computer people will look at the cause and evaluate what happened."

Images of the four-minute film -- which include Parr, 34, pulling some of Kay's trademark dance moves in front of three portaloos, before the doors of two open to reveal a naked soldier sitting inside each -- were splashed across The Sun tabloid on Tuesday.

Mimicking Kay's march towards the camera, in which he is accompanied by a string of celebrities, Parr stomps through his regiment's camp in al-Faw, southern Iraq, flanked by soldiers dressed in an array of garments from underwear to Iraqi-style robes.

Their video, dubbed "Is This The Way To Armadillo" -- after an animal living in the desert with them -- prompted the defence ministry's crucial computer system to crash for five hours, the Sun reported.

The soldiers behind the film, who are from the Royal Dragoon Guards, recently completed their tour of duty in Iraq and have returned to a base in Germany, the defence ministry spokesman said.

Christie, 61, helped remake "Amarillo", a big hit for him in 1971, for Comic Relief. It enjoyed seven weeks at the top of the British music charts, only being knocked off the slot on May 9.

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