Recorded
30/5/1975
First broadcast
3/10/1975
72. THE FACE ON THE POSTER
Mainwaring wants his platoon to become a company. He wants to become a major, too, but, most of all, he wants his platoon to become a company. To help him achieve his goal he launches a recruitment drive with a newly designed poster. Jones, of all people, wins the right to be the face featured on the poster, but, in the event, this turns out to be one honour he could well have done without.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (ver ger), Peter Butterworth (MrBugden), Harold Bennett (Mr Blewitt), Gabor Vernon (Polish officer), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge), Bill Tasker (Fred) and Michael Bevis (police sergeant).
Recorded
17/7/1975
First broadcast
10/10/1975
Special Episode for Christmas (BBC1, colour)
73. MY BROTHER AND I
Frazer encounters a very rum fellow on the train back to Walmington-on-Sea: short, round, cherry-nosed Barry Mainwaring, purveyor of carnival novelties. This cheerfully indiscreet little man is surely, inquires Frazer, no relation of that paragon of lower-middle-class sobriety, George Mainwaring, nor of his equally respectable father, who was a master tailor in Eastbourne? Barry – ‘Tell the truth and shame the devil, that’s me!’ – is happy to confirm the connection, and settles down to reveal all about ‘old Po-Face’. Frazer delivers his gleeful judgment: ‘They’re boozers, the lot of ’em! Boooozers!’
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Arnold Diamond (major general), Penny Irving (chambermaid) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
23/5/1975
First broadcast
26/12/1975
Special Episode for Christmas (BBC1, colour)
74. THE LOVE OF THREE ORANGES
The entire platoon joins forces with the rest of the town for a comforts-for-the-troops bazaar: Godfrey pledges some of his sister Dolly’s chutney, along with three pots of honey and ‘quite a lot’ of her elderberry wine; Jones donates a ‘monster brawn’; Frazer deigns to fashion a few silhouettes; Mainwaring promises some of the lampshades that his lady wife has created out of ‘odds and ends’; and Hodges has ‘a rather wonderful surprise’ – three oranges. Mrs Mainwaring, however, fails to show up – due to a bizarre enamelling accident – and there is no sign either of her ‘rather unusual’ lampshades. Mainwaring himself has only one chance of redemption: he must get his hands on one of Hodges’ oranges.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Pamela Cundell (Mrs Fox), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Joan Cooper (Dolly), Eric Longworth (town clerk), Olive Mercer (Mrs Yeatman) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
10/10/1976
First broadcast
26/12/1976
Series Nine (BBC1, colour)
75. WAKE UP WALMINGTON
Complacency is setting in among the townsfolk, so Mainwaring devises ‘Operation Wake-Up’. He gets his platoon to masquerade as fifth columnists – ‘cut-throats and desperadoes’ in ‘very sinister’ clothes – in order to shake everyone up. At first, it seems, the plan is not working, but then it starts to work rather too well.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Geoffrey Lumsden (Capt. Square), Sam Kydd (yokel), Harold Bennett (Mr Blewitt), Robert Raglan (colonel), Charles Hill (butler), Jeffrey Holland (soldier), Barry Linehan (van driver), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge), Alister Williamson (Bert) and Michael Stainton (Frenchy).
Recorded
8/7/1977
First broadcast
2/10/1977
76. THE MAKING OF PRIVATE PIKE
At long last, Mainwaring has his own staff car. Pike – still heady from drinking raspberryade – ‘borrows’ it to drive his new girlfriend, who thinks he has ‘smashing eyebrows’, to the cinema at Eastgate; on the way back, however, and nine long miles from home, the car runs out of petrol, and it takes Pike all night to push it back. It is time for Wilson to have a serious word with the stupid boy.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Jean Gilpin (Sylvia), Anthony Sharp (colonel), Jeffrey Segal (brigadier), Pamela Cundell (Mrs Fox), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike) and Melita Manger (Nora).
Recorded
1/7/1977
First broadcast
9/10/1977
77. KNIGHTS OF MADNESS
To support the ‘Wings for Victory’ week, the platoon restages the battle of St George and the Dragon. This does not go down well with Hodges and his ARP wardens, however, because they have been planning to stage precisely the same thing.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Olive Mercer (Mrs Yeatman), Eric Longworth (town clerk) and Fred McNaughton (mayor).
Recorded
22/7/1977
First broadcast
16/10/1977
78. THE MISER’S HOARD
Frazer keeps his savings in the form of gold sovereigns. Mainwaring thinks the money should be kept in a bank – his bank. Rumours start to spread around town about the Scotsman’s hoard, and Frazer is spotted setting off with a box to the graveyard. The platoon prepares to investigate.
Cast: Fulton Mackay (Dr McCeavedy), Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
24/6/1977
First broadcast
23/10/1977
79. NUMBER ENGAGED
A ‘highly secret invasion warning device’ – or, as Hodges prefers to put it, ‘some silly telephone wires’ – has been set up along the coast, and the platoon is to guard it. When the vicar arrives to give an open-air service, Mainwaring ‘raises his face to heaven’ and notices an unexploded bomb caught up in the wires. Wilson, however, has a bright idea.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Ronnie Brody (GPO man), Robert Mill (Army captain), Kenneth MacDonald (Army sergeant), Felix Bowness (van driver), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge), Stuart McGugan (Scottish sergeant) and Bernice Adams (ATS girl).
Recorded
15/7/1977
First broadcast
6/11/1977
80. NEVER TOO OLD
A wedding is announced, an invasion is threatened, and an institution is celebrated. At the end, Mainwaring, Wilson and all of the platoon raise their glasses for a toast: ‘To Britain’s Home Guard.’
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Pamela Cundell (Mrs Fox), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge), Joan Cooper (Dolly) and Robert Raglan (colonel).
Recorded
29/7/1977
First broadcast
13/11/1977
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