Dad's Army

by Graham McCann

  Dear Cap,

  Thanks for letting me off. Had to go up to the Smoke for a few days to do a deal. I think I can swing it for a grand, but I shall have to drop the geezer a pony. On the other hand, I may cop it for a bit under the odds, in which case I’ll have to sweeten him with a monkey, and half a bar for his nippers.

  PS Here’s a couple of oncers for yourself!12

  Mainwaring, after slipping the pound notes into his pocket, is indignant: ‘How dare he try to bribe me!’ he exclaims. ‘I’ll see him in the office as soon as he comes back!’

  Walker never would come back. On 6 August, three weeks after he first lost consciousness, Jimmy Beck died from what the coroner described as a combination of heart failure, renal failure and pancreatitis.13 ‘I’m shattered,’ Arthur Lowe was quoted as saying. ‘He was one of the greatest. He had great talent. All of us in Dad’s Army were very fond of him. His contribution to the team was enormous.’14 Clive Dunn would later confess that it felt not only as if he had lost a dear friend, but also, quite possibly, a much-loved job: ‘It was awful for his wife and for all his friends,’ he said. ‘It was a shock, and, of course, from a selfish point of view, I thought, “My God! What’s going to happen to the programme? Are we still going to be able to do it?”’15

  When, three months later, the sixth series was actually broadcast, there was an obvious poignancy about the fact that Beck (and Walker) was still there, in five of the six episodes, a vivid presence that viewers knew was now absent. The opening episode, ‘The Deadly Attachment’, was broadcast by BBC1 on the evening of Wednesday, 31 October 1973, and, under normal circumstances, it would surely have been greeted with unqualified enthusiasm. It had everything: the confrontation with the German U-boat captain (‘Face to face with the enemy at last, eh?’), the pertinent contribution from Pike (‘Hitler is a twerp’), the swift intervention from Mainwaring (‘Don’t tell him, Pike!’), the order to supply the prisoners with a meal (‘I’m afraid we’ve only got our own sandwiches, Colonel!’), the fussy fish and chip suppers (‘Und I don’t want any nasty, soggy chips. I want mine crisp und light brown’), the grenade down the trousers (‘It was originally going to be down Arthur’s trousers,’ recalled David Croft, ‘but, of course, he wasn’t having any of it. He said he’d have it inside his tunic, but not down his trousers. So we handed that part of the business to Clive Dunn. It was much better that way, of course, and I think Arthur was a little jealous’),16 and Wilson’s very English brand of aggression (‘Now, listen to me, you German fellows! Would you mind getting up against the wall and putting your hands up, please?’). The writing, the acting, the pace, the tone and the direction were all shrewdly judged, and it is hard to believe any series could have had a stronger start, but the reaction that it attracted was, by the programme’s high standards, surprisingly subdued. The BBC’s own audience research report noted that, while many viewers had expressed the opinion that Dad’s Army was still ‘one of the funniest situation-comedies on television’, and that the latest episode had contained ‘some remarkably fresh ideas’, a significant number had commented on how sad it made them feel to see James Beck on the screen so soon after his death (‘he provided so many laughs and one cannot forget he is no longer with us’).17

  Just under thirteen million people watched the show – a figure which, though by no means unimpressive, represented a loss of more than three million viewers from the previous season’s average.18 The feelings of discomfort engendered by the news of Beck’s death may well have played a part in this relative decline, but so, too, did the new time-slot to which the programme had been assigned: 6.50 p.m. on Wednesdays. It now played against the final ten minutes of ITV’s surprisingly popular soap opera, Crossroads (which regularly pulled in an audience of well over six, and sometimes seven million)19 and the first twenty minutes of either Whicker Way Out West (a popular travel/’lifestyle’ show that attracted some seven million viewers) or, later on in the run, This Is Your Life (which was normally watched by more than twelve million).20 ‘I never felt that [Dad’s Army] was being well handled by the schedulers,’ said David Croft. ‘We never got good spots, soft spots, like opposite World In Action.’21 There was no doubt that the programme was still extremely popular – BBC1’s share of the general television audience rose by more than ten million viewers when each episode of Dad’s Army began, and then fell by almost eleven million when the closing credits rolled22 – but there was also no doubt that the show would have fared far better in the ratings if it had occupied a proper prime-time slot: ‘The only regret of some,’ noted the BBC’s audience report, ‘was that the programme was [on] so early in the evening that they missed the beginning (“on the way home” – “having a meal” – “clashed with Crossroads”).’23

  The irony was that, although neither the mood nor the time may have been quite right, this was actually a splendid series. ‘The Deadly Attachment’ was followed by such deftly entertaining episodes as ‘My British Buddy’ (which saw the first contingent of American troops arrive, belatedly, in Walmington-on-Sea, followed by several bungled photo-opportunities and one profoundly impolitic pub brawl); ‘The Royal Train’ (in which the mayor, the vicar, the verger and Hodges ended up on a pump truck, alternately pursuing, and being pursued by, an unruly steam engine); ‘We Know Our Onions’ (featuring a seemingly never-ending efficiency test); and ‘The Honourable Man’ (concerning the consequences of Wilson’s elevation to an even loftier level of eminence). The critical response was positive – Peter Black praised the programme’s ‘innocent and sane comedy’,24 and Shaun Usher remarked that ‘the characters are real enough to make us want to know more about them, even if the framework is familiar’25 – but the disappointing dip in the ratings (the series ended up with an average audience of 12.3 million),26 coupled with the sad loss of a key member of the cast, meant that the future of Dad’s Army suddenly seemed a little less certain, and a little less bright, than it had done for some years.

  ‘I don’t think, at that stage, we considered stopping,’ said Jimmy Perry, ‘but it was obviously a very difficult time. Jimmy’s death was pretty shattering. It was always a worry after that. You never knew what might happen.’27 The character of Walker would be retained by the radio series – the role was passed first of all to Graham Stark and then later to Beck’s close friend and neighbour, Larry Martyn – but there was never any attempt to recast the role for television. Croft and Perry did feel, however, that the front row of the platoon, for reasons of balance, ought to keep up its numbers, and so the decision was made to introduce a completely new regular character to fill, or at least obscure, the current gap in the line-up. The two co-writers thought back to one of their most recent episodes, ‘My British Buddy’, and the performance of Talfryn Thomas as the somewhat gauche but very persistent photo-journalist from the Eastbourne Gazette, Mr Cheeseman. Thomas, a 52-year-old, Swansea-born actor whose top set of teeth stuck out like a row of high-kicking legs in a chorus line, had wrung every last laugh out of his modest little role, he had worked very well with Arthur Lowe, and, as one of the most notorious scene-stealers in the business, he had kept all of the other actors on their toes. ‘I just thought he was amazingly funny,’ recalled Jimmy Perry. ‘And he was very different from Jimmy [Beck] – we didn’t want a character that reminded the audience of Walker. And David and I were very fond of Welsh characters. So we built up the part of Cheeseman.’28

  Work soon began on a seventh series, but, as Ian Lavender remembered, Beck’s absence continued to be felt:

  All kinds of silly little things used to set us off. There was the a cappella singing, for example. We had this habit, on location, of sitting around in the fields, while we were waiting to film something, and singing. It was never planned, it always just happened: someone would start singing – ‘You’ll never know just how much I love you’ – and then someone else would join in – ‘You’ll never know just how much I care’ – and it would just grow and grow, until all of us were together, singi
ng, with Arthur, of course, conducting. It was one of those lovely little things. Well, the first time we went filming after Jimmy died, we were sitting around the van, waiting to begin filming, and somebody started it – ‘You’ll never know …’ – and nobody took it up. We never did it again after Jimmy died. And that was how it was. Something had gone. No matter how good the things were that we went on to do without Jimmy, something was missing.29

  The actual shooting, however, went well, and, when the time came for the new episodes to be recorded in the studio, the response from those who saw them seemed favourable, but, right up until the moment when the series reached the screen, the nagging doubts continued: ‘We just didn’t know what was going to happen,’ said Ian Lavender. ‘Would the viewers accept the show without Jimmy? Would they take to Talfryn Thomas? I honestly wasn’t sure that we could actually survive.’30

  The BBC gave the new series special support: it was scheduled on Fridays at 7.45 p.m. – a good day, traditionally, for situation-comedies and a great improvement on the previous slot – and it was thoughtfully promoted (with several well-positioned television trailers, and a tie-in exhibition at the Imperial War Museum).31 The opening episode, ‘Everybody’s Trucking’, went out on 15 November 1974, and, much to everyone’s relief, was deemed a success: the faces were all familiar (Talfryn Thomas did not make an appearance), the plot (concerning an unmanned, stranded, steam engine) was simple but solid, the performances were strong and the viewing figures – 14,140,00032 – represented a welcome step in the right direction. The reaction to the next episode, however, would be rather more significant, because it marked the introduction of the new character, Cheeseman.

  ‘A Man of Action’ provided further proof of just how accomplished Croft and Perry, as craftsmen, actually were: not only did they devise an effective way to draw Cheeseman into the platoon – Mainwaring agrees to enlist him as a temporary trainee recruit so that he can write a series of morale-boosting articles on the Home Guard – but they also employed American-style multiple plot strands in order to ensure that the audience would never have the time to over-analyse this unfamiliar figure. The show had seldom seemed so busy: Pike, in the course of reliving a childhood memory for the benefit of Lance Corporal Jones, gets his head stuck between the iron bars of a gate; Mainwaring is flattered into allowing Cheeseman to spend some time with the platoon (‘“Captain Mainwearing: Man of Action!” I’m right behind you, boy! The power of the press, remember, the power of the press!’); a landmine hits the railway line and cuts off the town’s gas and water supplies; the vicar, the verger, Hodges, a policeman, a fireman and the town clerk take over Mainwaring’s office; Mainwaring declares his intention to put Walmington-on-Sea under martial law; Mr Blewitt wanders into the church hall clad only in a flat-cap and pyjamas; and an officer from GHQ is sent over to relieve the power-hungry captain of command. All of this artful misdirection achieved its desired effect, and Cheeseman’s potentially contentious arrival seemed more of a side-attraction than the main event. The closing credits – sans Beck – went by, the episode ended, and the show moved on.

  Subsequent episodes saw the freshly enlisted Private Cheeseman become a little more involved in Home Guard activities – in ‘Gorilla Warfare’, for example, he arrives on parade sporting a home-made armband with the initials ‘WC’ (‘That’s so everyone knows what I do,’ he tells Mainwaring. ‘WC: War Correspondent!’) – and a little more shamelessly sycophantic in his dealings with his leader (‘Yes, indeed! There’s no one more important than you, Captain Mainwearing! Yes, indeed!’), and, in general, a little more irritating (‘Take that Welshman’s name, Wilson’), but, in spite of the fact that he occupied a prominent position between Godfrey and Frazer in the front row of the platoon, he rarely seemed to interact with the other characters. The problem, perhaps, was that, although he was not remotely reminiscent of Private Walker, he was rather reminiscent not only of Frazer (another exotic Celt) but also of Jones (another enthusiastic flatterer of Captain Mainwaring), and the comic equilibrium was disturbed. The show continued to be funny, and, indeed, popular – an average audience of 14.8 million33 tuned in each week of the run – but, when the series came to an end, Croft and Perry decided, reluctantly, that their most recently-created character would have to go. ‘It had been our mistake,’ Croft reflected. ‘It wasn’t Talfryn’s fault – he was a good actor – but it had just been wrong to try to bring such a strong character into such a well-established show.’34 One actor who was not particularly saddened by the news of Thomas’s departure was John Laurie, who, as the series had progressed, had grown increasingly irritated by the Welshman’s eagerness to steal the same scenes that he was intending to steal. ‘John had come up to me to complain,’ remembered Jimmy Perry. ‘He said: “James, can I have a word, please? Is yon Welsh fellow going to be in the new series next year?” I said: “I don’t know, John.” So he said: “Well, make sure he isn’t – he’s getting far too many laughs!” Totally ruthless old pro! But that didn’t influence our decision; we just came to the conclusion that the character wasn’t quite right.’35

  There would not, from this point on, be any new additions to the platoon. Croft and Perry decided simply to promote Private Sponge to the far end of the front row, and they also resolved to draw more than they had done before on some of the existing characters, such as the vicar, the verger and Hodges. One of the consequences of these changes would be an increase in competition among the actors for comic lines, but, as Clive Dunn acknowledged, the writers were actually rather good at keeping the cast contented – ‘[Croft and Perry] arranged laugh lines … as if giving out rations: so many laughs for the leading players, and then so many [fewer] for the “supports”’36 – and, if anyone ever did feel moved to complain, a chart was available which demonstrated how fairly the lines had been distributed.37

  Another subtle but significant change became evident soon after the cast started work on the next series: ‘Have ye noticed the transmogrification of young Pike?’38 remarked John Laurie to a colleague. It was true: the quality of Ian Lavender’s recent performances had prompted the writers to push Pike a step or two further forward. ‘I don’t recall it being a conscious thing,’ said David Croft. ‘Pike was just a good, silly character, and Ian Lavender was getting some marvellous laughs with him, and the relationship that had developed between him and Mainwaring was very funny, so I think we just took advantage of that, really.’39 Lavender’s youthful energy, combined with his mature technique, would certainly prove to be increasingly valuable to an otherwise elderly cast. Arthur Lowe, for example, claimed not to care for most of what passed as the more ‘physical’ kind of comedy – ‘I’m not doing that,’ he would exclaim, somewhat haughtily, ‘it’s pantomime stuff’40 – but he seemed perfectly happy to continue crumpling into Ian Lavender and then emerging with his cap askew, his glasses slanting across his cheeks and his face coloured cherry red. ‘That was our favourite little bit of business,’ Ian Lavender reflected. ‘We’d worked out how we were going to do it – “I’ll dive down there.” “All right, and while you’re down there, you do the glasses, because I can’t, and I’ll do the hat” – and, in the end, we got it down to a sort of shorthand. The reason it was me that he usually sprawled into was, of course, practical – he obviously couldn’t have fallen into and been supported by Arnold or John Laurie, and so, particularly after Jimmy Beck died, it made sense for him to perform that sort of business with me – but it was so beautiful to play, because we trusted each other totally.’41

  The show came back looking reassuringly refreshed. The eighth series began on Friday, 5 September 1975, with ‘Ring Dem Bells’ – an enjoyable episode in which the platoon was obliged to portray a group of Nazis in an Army training film (a task which encouraged Wilson to play up his supposed resemblance to the debonair Jack Buchanan, and Pike to don a monocle, a Hollywood-German accent and a cruelly arrogant manner). The BBC’s audience research report noted that the vast majority of viewers had d
eemed the episode to be a ‘splendid start’ to the new series, with a script that was ‘fresh and original’ and ‘as funny as ever’; the cast as a whole was judged to be ’impeccable’, but many singled out the performance of Ian Lavender for special praise (he had ‘surpassed himself’ in a storyline that gave him ‘his best chance to display his versatility and comedy talent’, and his portrayal of the Germanic Pike was ‘the highlight’ of an ‘hilarious’ show).42 These high standards were maintained in each one of the episodes that followed: ‘When You’ve Got To Go’ (in which Pike, much to his mother’s horror, received his call-up papers); ‘Is There Honey Still For Tea?’ (a finely-crafted story about the imminent demolition of Godfrey’s beloved Cherry Tree Cottage); ‘Come In, Your Time Is Up’ (concerning the platoon’s attempts to come up with a harmless method – ‘This is the penalty you pay for being a sporting nation and playing a straight bat’ – for the retrieval of three German airmen stranded in a dinghy on a local lake); ‘High Finance’ (featuring Mainwaring’s injudicious investigation, as bank manager, of a long chain of debtors); and ‘The Face on the Poster’ (in which the platoon voted in what Jones termed a ‘secret ballet’ in order to select someone to feature in a new recruitment campaign). The audience rose steadily to a peak of 15,503,50043 for the final episode (the series average was 13.5 million),44 and the praise – according to the BBC’s audience reports – was gratifyingly high (with a number of viewers expressing their surprise at how the show ‘seemed to have retained its original freshness’).45