INTERVIEWER Will you be making any more?3
‘Will you be making any more?’: it was yet another one of those ‘Don’t tell him, Pike!’ moments, and, like the original, it sounded witless, but meant well. The programme might have stopped, but the need for it has not. We keep being told, in a tone that Captain Mainwaring might have reserved for a particularly stupid boy or girl, that television has changed, and that we have changed, and that the advent of satellite, cable and digital has at long last liberated the undernourished niche from the suffocating preoccupations of the nation, and that we are now too smart, or dumb, and too sophisticated, or shallow, to watch the same things, or enjoy the same things, or care about the same things, and yet, whenever an old episode of Dad’s Army is shown, millions of us – in spite of our myriad individual differences – still manage to find it, and stay with it, and appreciate it. The enduring appeal of the show ought to inspire the programme-makers of today rather than merely embarrass them: it ought to reassure them that believable characters, in believable situations, can still hold the attention of a large, demographically-mixed audience, and that viewers still warm to shows that treat them like intelligent human beings rather than craven consumers, and that exceptional talent, exceptionally well-presented, will always stand out, and be applauded, and cherished, whether it exists in a world of two or three, or two or three hundred, channels.
‘It is possible, on television, to serve a subject, to serve the audience, and to serve the craft of television itself, stinting none,’ Huw Wheldon used to insist. ‘Indeed if a programme of any kind is to be any good, all this service, performed with zeal, is a first requirement. Television has never been a medium for mere self-expression.’4 Both the cast and the crew of Dad’s Army, clearly, believed wholeheartedly in this dictum: every little thing that they ever did, from Croft and Perry’s much-deliberated decision, following the second series, to restrict Mainwaring to addressing the members of his platoon as ‘men’ rather than the more informal-sounding ‘chaps’,5 to Arthur Lowe’s choice and execution of each perfectly-paced, slow-burning response, carried a rare stamp of care. ‘If ever a programme was written with love and compassion and respect,’ Tom Sloan once said of the show, ‘it was this.’6 He was so right: it is the reason why Dad’s Army was, and remains, such a privilege to watch, and such a pleasure to remember.
Episode Guide
Principal Cast
Arthur Lowe
: Captain George Mainwaring
John Le Mesurier
: Sergeant Arthur Wilson
Clive Dunn
: Lance Corporal Jack Jones
John Laurie
: Private James Frazer
Arnold Ridley
: Private Charles Godfrey
James
: Private Joe Walker
Ian Lavender
: Private Frank Pike
Series One (BBC1, black and white)
1. THE MAN AND THE HOUR
It is Tuesday, 14 May 1940, and Anthony Eden has just announced the formation of the Local Defence Volunteers. In the sleepy little English town of Walmington-on-Sea, George Mainwaring, manager of Swallow Bank, wastes no time in appointing himself commander of the Invasion Committee, and Arthur Wilson, his chief clerk, as his second-in-command. Volunteers are enrolled at the church hall. ‘Come on, Adolf,’ cries their captain. ‘We’re ready for you!’
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Mavis Pike), Caroline Dowdeswell (Janet King), John Ringham (Bracewell), Bill Pertwee (ARP Warden Hodges) and Neville Hughes (soldier).
Recorded
15/4/1968
First broadcast
31/7/1968
2. MUSEUM PIECE
Mainwaring and Wilson come up with an idea for getting the platoon some much-needed weapons: Operation Gun-Grab. The plan is to requisition any firearms of use from the local Peabody Museum of Historic Army Weapons – but to do so the platoon must first find a way to outwit the wily 88-year-old caretaker who just happens to be the father of Lance Corporal Jones.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Mavis Pike), Caroline Dowdeswell (Janet King), Eric Woodburn (museum caretaker), Leon Cortez (milkman) and Michael Osborne (boy scout).
Recorded
22/4/1968
First broadcast
7/8/1968
3. COMMAND DECISION
Leadership agrees with Captain Mainwaring – he has taken to quoting from Kipling – but the men, still without uniforms and weapons, are getting restless. The platoon’s fortunes take an upward turn when the blustery old campaigner Colonel Square arrives with an offer of rifles and horses. There is, however, a catch: in order to secure their delivery, Mainwaring must hand over command to Square.
Cast: Caroline Dowdeswell (Janet King), Geoffrey Lumsden (Col. Square), Charles Hill (butler) and Gordon Peters (soldier).
Recorded
29/4/1968
First broadcast
14/8/1968
4. THE ENEMY WITHIN THE GATES
A stranger with a suspicious foreign accent convinces Mainwaring’s men that he is a Polish officer serving with GHQ who has come merely to inform them of a 10 shilling reward for every Nazi arrested. While on night patrol, Jones’ section capture two German pilots, but Private Godfrey complicates matters by allowing them to escape while he visits the lavatory.
Cast: Caroline Dowdeswell (Janet King), Carl Jaffe (Captain Winogrodzki), Denys Peek and Nigel Rideout (German pilots), Bill Pertwee (ARP Warden Hodges) and David Davenport (Military Police Sgt).
Recorded
6/5/1968
First broadcast
28/8/1968
5. THE SHOWING UP OF CORPORAL JONES
The brusque Major Regan pays the platoon a visit from Area HQ to assess its progress. All is well until he judges Jones to be a potential liability. In order to remain in the platoon, Jones must negotiate the divisional assault course in no more than 15 minutes. His comrades hatch a devious plan to save him.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Martin Wyldeck (Major Regan), Patrick Waddington (brigadier), Edward Sinclair (caretaker) and Therese McMurray (girl at the window).
Recorded
13/5/1968
First broadcast
4/9/1968
6. SHOOTING PAINS
The platoon is selected to provide the guard of honour for the Prime Minister’s impending visit, but a poor show at the shooting range prompts the irascible Major Regan to consider using the Eastgate platoon instead. A shooting contest between Walmington and Eastgate will settle the matter.
Cast: Barbara Windsor (Laura La Plaz), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Caroline Dowdeswell (Janet King), Martin Wyldeck (Major Regan), Jimmy Perry (Charlie Cheeseman) and Therese McMurray (girl at the window).
Recorded
20/5/1968
First broadcast
11/9/1968
Series Two (BBC1, black and white)
(Episodes marked * are missing, believed wiped, from the BBC Archives)
7. OPERATION KILT
Mainwaring has received an order from GHQ: there must be 15 minutes of PT before every parade. The platoon’s first session is interrupted by the arrival of Captain Ogilvie from the Highland Regiment, who proceeds to brief the men on Saturday night’s manoeuvres. A sergeant and nine others from Ogilvie’s regiment will attempt to capture the Walmington-on-Sea HQ. Mainwaring’s men should win comfortably: they have a numerical advantage. There is, however, a problem: Ogilvie’s soldiers are ‘one hundred percent fit’.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), James Copeland (Capt. Ogilvie) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
13/10/1968
First broadcast
1/3/1969
8. THE BATTLE OF GODFREY’S COTTAGE
In the event of an invasion, announces Mainwaring, the platoon will establish two command posts: Wilson will take one half of the platoon off to the crossroads, and he will take the other half off to Private Godfrey’s cottage. When the church bells start ringing their war
ning, however, one section of the platoon fails to realise where the other one has disappeared to, and each ends up attacking the other.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Amy Dalby (Dolly Godfrey), Nan Braunton (Cissy God frey), Bill Pertwee (ARP Warden Hodges) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
20/10/1968
First broadcast
8/3/1969
9. THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE WALKER*
Private Walker is called up for National Service. The platoon is appalled: where will Mainwaring and Frazer get their whisky from, and Jones his gin, and Wilson his cigarettes, and Godfrey his boxes of fudge, if Walker walks? Mainwaring fights the War Office, but fails, and Walker joins the Army. There is only one thing that can save him now from his fate: a corned-beef fritter.
Cast: Anthony Sharp (brigadier, War Office), Diana King (chairwoman), Patrick Waddington (brigadier), Edward Evans (Mr Reed), Michael Knowles (Capt. Cutts), Gilda Perry (blonde), Larry Martyn (soldier), Robert Lankesheer (medical officer) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
27/10/1968
First broadcast
15/3/1969
10. SGT WILSON’S LITTLE SECRET
Mrs Pike tells Frank that the WVS has asked her to take in a little boy as an evacuee, and remarks that it will be ‘funny being a mother again after all these years’. Sgt Wilson – who is on his way in for tea – overhears their conversation from outside the door and, jumping to completely the wrong conclusion, comes over all faint. Later that night, after a dazed Wilson has ‘confessed’ to his astonished superior officer – ‘I thought you said you only went round there for meals!’ – Mainwaring orders him to do the decent thing and marry the expectant mother – ‘You can’t go about behaving like Errol Flynn, you know.’ The frantic wedding preparations are brought to a premature close, however, when Mrs Pike arrives with the boy – ‘little Arthur’.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Graham Harboard (Little Arthur) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
15/11/1968
First broadcast
22/3/1969
11. A STRIPE FOR FRAZER*
Mainwaring has the opportunity to promote one of his men to the rank of corporal. Rather than going straight ahead and handing Jones another stripe, he decides to appoint a second lance corporal and see which one shows the best potential. Mainwaring, rating himself ‘a good judge of character’, chooses Frazer: ‘He’s our man, mark my words.’ The competition commences: Jones loses points for lagging behind, and Frazer for jumping the gun, but it is the volatile Scot who loses out after alienating the platoon with his increasingly dictatorial manner.
Cast: Geoffrey Lumsden (Capt.-Col. Square), John Ringham (Capt. Bailey), Gordon Peters (policeman), Edward Sinclair (caretaker) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
15/11/1968
First broadcast
29/3/1969
12. UNDER FIRE*
Hitler, Mainwaring announces, lacks the courage ‘to come and scrap with us toe to toe’, and so is now resorting to the cowardly strategy of aerial attack with fire bombs. The following night, while on guard, Frazer spots a flashing light on the corner of Mortimer Street and is convinced that a spy is signalling to the enemy planes overhead. Mainwaring and his men arrest a suspect, Sigmund Murphy – formerly Von Schickenhausen – who protests that he is a naturalised Englishman. An incendiary device lands on the church hall and the platoon struggles to control the fire that follows. Mrs Pike embarrasses the men by smothering the flames with a sand bag, and then the warden embarrasses them further by confirming that not only is Mr Murphy a British subject but also that he is married to his Auntie Ethel.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Geoffrey Lumsden (Capt.-Col. Square), John Ringham (Capt. Bailey), Queenie Watts (Mrs Keen), Gladys Dawson (Mrs Witt), Ernst Ulman (Sigmund Murphy), Bill Pertwee (ARP Warden Hodges), June Petersen (woman) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
27/11/1968
First broadcast
5/4/1969
Series Three (BBC1, colour)
13. THE ARMOURED MIGHT OF LANCE CORPORAL JONES
The Home Guard has been ordered to co-operate more closely with the ARP. The new Chief Warden, however, turns out to be ‘that rather common fellow’ Bill Hodges, who proceeds to ‘co-operate’ by bossing everyone around. When, however, he commandeers Jones’ newly-converted delivery van as an ambulance for his air-raid practice, he comes to regret not walking to the ‘flipping ‘ospital’.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Pamela Cundell (Mrs Fox), Jean St Clair (Miss Meadows), Nigel Hawthorne (angry man), Queenie Watts (Mrs Peters), Olive Mercer (Mrs Casson), Harold Bennett (old man) and Dick Haydon (Raymond).
Recorded
25/5/1969
First broadcast
11/9/1969
14. BATTLE SCHOOL
The platoon set off by train for a ‘perfectly straightforward’ weekend course in guerrilla warfare. After arriving late, hungry and tired, and then oversleeping and missing breakfast, Mainwaring’s men are determined to end up victorious.
Cast: Alan Tilvern (Capt. Rodrigues), Alan Haines (Maj. Smith) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
1/6/1969
First broadcast
18/9/1969
15. THE LION HAS PHONES
An enemy aircraft crashlands in the town reservoir. There is no sign of any Germans – until, that is, they start shooting in Mainwaring’s direction. Jones goes off to call GHQ, but calls the local cinema by mistake. Private Walker, however, thinks he knows how to make the crew surrender.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Avril Angers (tele phone operator), Timothy Carlton (Lt Hope Bruce), Stanley McGeagh (Sgt Waller), Richard Jacques (Mr Cheesewright), Pamela Cundell, Olive Mercer and Bernadette Milnes (women in the queue), Gilda Perry (Doreen), Linda James (Betty), Colin Daniel and Carson Green (boys).
Recorded
8/6/1969
First broadcast
25/9/1969
16. THE BULLET IS NOT FOR FIRING
Captain Mainwaring is alarmed by the fact that the platoon has used up all of its ammunition firing at a solitary passing aircraft, and he feels obliged to insist that a Court of Inquiry be held. Constant interruptions, however, rapidly reduce the proceedings to farce. Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Frank Williams (vicar), Tim Barrett (Capt. Pringle), Michael Knowles (Capt. Cutts), Edward Sinclair (verger), Harold Bennett (Mr Blewitt), May Warden (Mrs Dowding), and Fred Tomlinson, Kate Forge, Eilidh McNab, Andrew Daye and Arthur Lews (choir).
Recorded
22/6/1969
First broadcast
2/10/1969
17. SOMETHING NASTY IN THE VAULT
The Swallow Bank takes a direct hit during an air raid. Mainwaring and Wilson end up in the strongroom holding an unexploded bomb. Captain Rogers arrives from Bomb Disposal, but, after discovering that they have a ‘trembler’ on their hands, he rushes off again in search of the right tools; in his absence, the anxious platoon takes matters into its own hands.
Cast: Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Norman Mitchell (Capt. Rogers) and Robert Dorning (bank inspector).
Recorded
15/6/1969
First broadcast
9/10/1969
18. ROOM AT THE BOTTOM
The staff at GHQ have had a shock: Captain Mainwaring, they have discovered, has never, in fact, been commissioned as an officer, and, as a consequence, he is demoted to private. As a quietly gleeful Sgt Wilson assumes temporary charge of the platoon, Mainwaring does his best to toe the line.
Cast: Anthony Sagar (Drill Sgt Gregory), John Ringham (Capt. Bailey), Edward Sinclair (verger) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
29/6/1969
First broadcast
16/10/1
969
19. BIG GUNS
Some good news: the platoon has been given a large and powerful naval gun. Some bad news: the town’s bandstand is directly in its line of fire. Mainwaring demands that it be dismantled, but the town clerk insists that, as a rare example of Victorian ironwork, it must be preserved. A little demonstration of just what the gun can do, reasons Mainwaring, will win over any doubters.
Cast: Edward Evans (Mr Rees), Edward Sinclair (verger), Don Estelle (man from Pick-fords) and Roy Denton (Mr Bennett).
Recorded
6/7/1969
First broadcast
23/10/1969
20. THE DAY THE BALLOON WENT UP
A stray barrage balloon has to be brought back down to earth, and so the platoon is called into action. One mistake leads to another, however, and eventually Captain Mainwaring finds himself embarking on an aerial sightseeing tour of the English countryside.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Nan Braunton (Cissy Godfrey), Jennifer Browne (WAAF sgt), Andrew Carr (Operations Room officer), Therese McMurray (girl in the haystack), Kenneth Watson (RAF officer), Vicki Lane (girl on the tandem), Harold Bennett (Mr Blewitt) and Jack Haig (gardener).
Recorded
23/10/1969
First broadcast
30/10/1969
21. WAR DANCE
Captain Mainwaring decides a platoon dance is just the thing to lift morale. He is less than pleased, however, when Pike announces that his date for the evening will be none other than Violet Gibbons, whose mother used to clean for the Mainwarings. The more obvious it becomes that Pike is infatuated with this ‘common’ young woman, the more concerned his commanding officer grows.
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