52. Bill Pertwee, interview with the author, 27 May 2000.
53. Ibid.
54. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
55. Ibid.
THE COMEDY
1. Frank Muir, quoted by David Nathan, The Laughtermakers (London: Peter Owen, 1971), p. 36.
Chapter IV
1. Duncan Wood, quoted by Nathan, The Laughtermakers, p. 118.
2. James Frazer (Dad’s Army): ‘Asleep in the Deep’, broadcast on BBC1, 6 October 1972/‘If the Cap Fits …’, broadcast on BBC1, 10 November 1972.
3. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
7. John Laurie, quoted in Ted Hart, Dad’s Army (London: Peter Way, 1972), p. 33.
8. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
9. ‘Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler’, words by Jimmy Perry, music by Jimmy Perry and Derek Taverner (Veronica Music Ltd). Before the song was edited for television it ended as follows: ‘So watch out Mr Hitler/You have met your match in us./If you think you can crush us/We’re afraid you’ve missed the bus./’Cause who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler/If you think old England’s done?’
10. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
11. Ibid.
12. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
13. Ibid.
14. Clive Dunn, Permission to Speak, p. 198.
15. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
16. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 22 November 2000.
17. John Le Mesurier, A Jobbing Actor, p. 118.
18. James Beck, quoted in Hart, Dad’s Army, p. 40.
19. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
20. Croft and Perry, Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes, p. 110.
21. Wheldon, The Achievement of Television, p. 11.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid. Wheldon also discussed this experience in his 1976 Richard Dimbleby Lecture, The British Experience in Television (London: BBC, 1976), p. 6.
24. John Le Mesurier, quoted in Hart, Dad’s Army, p. 19.
25. Barry Took, interview with the author, 17 May 2000.
26. Paul Fox, interview with the author, 2 May 2000.
27. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
28. Bill Cotton, interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
29. Paul Fox, interview with the author, 2 May 2000.
30. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
31. Bill Cotton, interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
32. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/880/1: memo from Michael Mills to Paul Fox, 23 May 1968.
33. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/880/1: memo from Paul Fox to Michael Mills, 27 May 1968.
34. The first episode of Monty Python was broadcast on BBC1 on 5 October 1969; the pilot episode of Up Pompeii! was broadcast on BBC1 on 17 September 1969.
35. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/880/1: Fox to Mills, 27 May 1968.
36. Ibid.
37. The original title sequence is missing, believed wiped (although the stock wartime footage is preserved at the Imperial War Museum and in the BBC’s film library), and therefore it has not been possible to compare the two versions as they were actually screened to preview audiences. My impression of the original sequence is based on the descriptions given to me by David Croft, Jimmy Perry, Paul Fox and Bill Cotton Jr, as well as the various references to it in the BBC’s written archives.
38. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
39. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
40. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
41. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
42. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000. (There is no trace of the report in the BBC’s written archives.)
43. Bill Cotton, interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
44. Russell Twisk, ‘Dad’s Army’, Radio Times, 25 July 1968, p. 32.
45. A new set of ITV companies – including Thames (the result of a merger between Rediffusion and ABC), London Weekend, HTV and Yorkshire – came into existence on 30 July 1968. The change necessitated a renegotiation of the working agreement between ITV and the ACTT: formerly, ACTT members worked a 40 hour week, receiving salaries ranging from £19 per week for trainees to £70 for producers and directors; the ACTT’s new demand was for a reduction of the working week to 35 hours, 4 weeks annual holiday and a 7 per cent pay rise. The new ITV companies complained that this would cost them more than £1,000,000 per year, and offered instead to increase pay by 42 per cent and grant 4 weeks annual holiday to some, but not all, grades. The ACTT rejected this offer on 23 July, and the stoppages began. The industrial action lasted three weeks, ending on 19 August after both sides had compromised. See Daily Mail, 31 July 1968, p. 1; Daily Express, 1 August 1968, p. 1; Daily Mirror, 2 August 1968, p. 11; and London Evening Standard, 5 August 1968, p. 16, 7 August 1968, p. 7 and 13 August 1968, p. 16. (In 1991, the ACTT was absorbed into a new union: BECTU, the Broadcasting Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union.)
46. London Evening Standard, 5 August 1968, p. 16.
47. Ibid.
48. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
49. ‘The Man and the Hour’, written by David Croft and Jimmy Perry, first broadcast on BBC1, 31 July 1968.
50. The BBC Daily Viewing Barometer for 31 July 1968 put the size of audience at 14.2 per cent of the UK population (50,500,000 at the time); programmes on BBC2 and ITV during this 8.20–8.50 period attracted audiences of 0.5 per cent and 19.4 per cent respectively.
51. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
52. Sir Tom Stoppard, correspondence with the author, 31 May 2000.
53. Peter Black, ‘Can one person criticise the full range of television?’, Journal of the Society of Film and Television Arts, vol. 2, no. 7 (1973), pp. 4–5.
54. Nancy Banks-Smith, Sun, 1 August 1968, p. 12.
55. Sean Day-Lewis, Daily Telegraph, 1 August 1968, p. 19.
56. Michael Billington, The Times, 1 August 1968, p. 7.
57. Mary Malone, Daily Mirror, 1 August 1968, p. 14.
58. Philip Purser, Sunday Telegraph, 4 August 1968, p. 13.
59. Tom Stoppard, Observer, 4 August 1968, p. 20.
60. Ron Boyle, Daily Express, 1 August 1968, p. 10. (As often happened with television and theatre reviews, this piece arrived too late to appear in early editions of the paper, although some of them did carry another review of the programme – also positive – by Robin Turner; Boyle’s review first appeared in the fourth edition of that day’s Express.)
61. BBC WAC: Audience Research Report (VR/68/461, 16 August 1968) on Dad’s Army, ‘The Man and the Hour’.
62. See Freddie Hancock and David Nathan, Hancock (London: BBC, 1986), p. 59.
Chapter V
1. Huw Wheldon, The British Experience in Television, p. 11.
2. Nat Hiken, quoted by Mickey Freeman and Sholem Rubinstein, Bilko: Behind the Lines With Phil Silvers (London: Virgin, 2000), p. 13.
3. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
4. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
5. Bill Cotton, interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
6. Viewing figures calculated from the percentages recorded in the BBC’s Daily Viewing Barometer for 7 August 1968.
7. Richard Last, Sun, 8 August 1968, p. 12.
8. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/880/1 (General and External Correspondence): letter from H. Gregory, 16 August 1968.
9. Ibid., letter from J. Board, 7 September 1968.
10. Ibid., letter from Barry Took to David Croft, 15 August 1968.
11. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/
880/1 (General and External Correspondence). (Mr G. Watson, 1 August 1968, complained that his enjoyment had been ‘completely spoiled by the repeated gales of inane laughter from the unseen audience’, and Mr J. W. Camp, 3 August, was similarly irritated by the ‘idiotic laughter’.)
12. Ibid. (Mr Michael Sheppard, for example, wrote on 3 September 1968 offering the loan of his three wartime period GPO vans; Sonia Thurley, on 8 August, offered to donate her grandfather’s old Home Guard uniform and Mr R. Fortescue-Foulkes, on 9 August, proposed passing on his old overcoat and battledress. None of the scripts, or script suggestions, were taken up.)
13. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
14. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
15. Michael Mills, quoted in Croft and Perry, Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes, p. 86.
16. Michael Colbert, Yorkshire Post, 15 August 1968, p. 6.
17. Mary Malone, Daily Mirror, 16 August 1968, p. 16.
18. Stewart Lane, Morning Star, 24 August 1968, p. 2. (As there was no edition of Dad’s Army on 21 August, it seems likely that Lane was referring to the most recent episode, on 14 August.)
19. Viewing figures calculated from the percentages recorded in the BBC’s Daily Viewing Barometers for 14 and 28 August. The Reaction Index rating for episode 2 was 60.
20. The ACTT industrial action ended on 19 August 1968.
21. Such big-budget shows as The Avengers, Man in a Suitcase, The Champions and Department S were usually scheduled opposite Dad’s Army at this time in most ITV regions.
22. BBC WAC: Audience Research Report, VR/68/540, ‘The Showing Up of Corporal Jones’, 10 October 1968.
23. Stanley Reynolds, Guardian, 5 September 1968, p. 9.
24. Maurice Wiggin, Sunday Times (Weekly Review section), 4 August 1968, p. 44.
25. Wiggin, Sunday Times (Weekly Review section), 8 September 1968, p. 51.
26. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
27. BBC Daily Viewing Barometer, 11 September 1968. The Reaction Index was 64.
28. Richard Last, Sun, 12 September 1968, p. 12.
29. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/880/1: memorandum from Keith Smith to David Croft, 16 September 1968.
Chapter VI
1. Dennis Main Wilson, quoted in Nathan, The Laughtermakers, p. 119.
2. Jerry Seinfeld, Sein Off (London: Boxtree, 1999), p. 66.
3. John Laurie, quoted by Pertwee, Dad’s Army: The Making of a Television Legend, p. 22.
4. Averages calculated from percentages recorded in the BBC Daily Viewing Barometers.
5. In 1971, when David Croft received the award, it was still known as SFTA (Society of Film and Television Arts); it was renamed BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) in 1975.
6. BBC1’s Christmas-time compendium featured specially-written Dad’s Army sketches on 25 December 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1972.
7. The Royal Television Gala Performance, which also featured Morecambe and Wise and Dave Allen, was recorded at Television Centre in the presence of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and was broadcast on BBC1 on 24 May 1970.
8. The ‘Monty on the Bonty’ sketch (written by Eddie Braben) was featured in the 22 April 1971 edition of The Morecambe & Wise Show, broadcast on BBC1.
9. See Chapter 11.
10. The Look In comic strip ran from 1970 to 1980; a Dad’s Army colouring and dot-to-dot book was published by World Distributors in 1971; the Dad’s Army Activity Book was published by World Books in 1973; Ovaltine produced a board game in 1971; Denys Fisher produced another in 1974; Lever Brothers marketed a Dad’s Army bubble bath in 1972; Primrose Confectionery produced a set of 25 sweet cigarette cards in 1971; Peter Way published an ‘official souvenir’ magazine, Dad’s Army, in 1972; and a series of six Dad’s Army Annuals was published by World Distributors between 1973 and 1978.
11. BCNZ (the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand) began showing episodes from Series 3 (the first to be filmed in colour) on 20 March 1970. The other countries followed soon after, each one starting from Series 3 (source: BBC Worldwide).
12. Parsley Sidings was set in a backwater railway station. Lowe was the stationmaster, Lavender his son and Pertwee his rival. The show ran for two series between December 1971 and December 1973.
13. Lowe appeared on Desert Island Discs on 12 December 1970. The movies he made with Lindsay Anderson during this period were If … (1969) and O Lucky Man! (1973); he also appeared in Anderson’s Britannia Hospital in 1982.
14. Le Mesurier appeared on Desert Island Discs on 17 February 1973. Traitor was broadcast on BBC1 on 14 October 1971; it won him the ‘Best Actor’ award that year.
15. Dunn appeared on Desert Island Discs on 19 June 1971. This Is Your Life was broadcast on ITV on 24 March 1971. An Hour With Clive Dunn (comprising a repeat of ‘The Armoured Might of Lance Corporal Jones’ and a half-hour Parkinson interview) was broadcast on BBC1 on 18 August 1971. ‘Grandad’ entered the charts in December 1970, reaching number one at the start of January 1971, and remained in the top 40 for 14 weeks.
16. Dunn, Permission to Speak, p. 207.
17. The Gnomes of Dulwich (a play on Harold Wilson’s description of Swiss bankers as ‘gnomes of Zurich’) was about the British (stone) garden gnomes of 25 Telegraph Road and their recently arrived (plastic) European counterparts. The show, starring Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd, ran for one series, from 12 May–16 June 1969. Lollipop Loves Mr Mole starred Peggy Mount and Hugh Lloyd as a lovey-dovey couple whose domestic bliss is disrupted by the arrival of a pair of sponging relatives (played by Rex Garner and Pat Coombs); the show ran for two series (25 October – 29 November 1971 and 17 July – 4 September 1972) on ATV/ITV.
18. The first series of Up Pompeii! ran from 30 March – 11 May 1970. Born Every Minute, a ‘Comedy Playhouse’ pilot written by Jack Popplewell about two con men, was broadcast on 28 January 1972. The short-lived Not Now Films was set up in 1973; its first movie – directed by Croft – was Not Now Darling (1973). The pilot edition of Are You Being Served? was broadcast on 8 September 1972; the first series began on 21 March 1973, and the tenth and final one ended on 1 April 1985.
19. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
20. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
21. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
22. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
23. Ibid.
24. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
25. Denis Norden, interviewed by David Bradbury and Joe McGrath in Now That’s Funny! (London: Methuen, 1998), p. 4.
26. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
30. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
31. Arthur Lowe, quoted by Terence Pettigrew, Photoplay, August 1978, pp. 54–5.
32. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
33. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
34. Arthur Lowe, quoted by Dunn in Permission to Speak, p. 204.
35. Arthur Lowe, quoted by Stephen Lowe, Arthur Lowe (London: Virgin, 1997), p. 121.
36. ‘The Test’, first broadcast on BBC1, 27 November 1970.
37. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
38. Croft and Perry, in Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes, p. 36.
39. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
40. Arthur Lowe, quoted by David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
41. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
42. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
43. Ibid. (Studio 8 was the preferred studio.)
44. Ibid.
45. Bill Pertwee, interview with the author, 27 May 2000.
&nb
sp; 46. Dunn, Permission to Speak, p. 200.
47. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/880/1: Michael Mills, memorandum to David Croft, 1 November 1968.
48. Croft and Perry, Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes, p. 6. (All six scripts from Series 2 are included in this book.)
49. The episodes, ‘Operation Kilt’ and ‘The Battle of Godfrey’s Cottage’, were recovered from a skip at Elstree Studio in the early 1970s, then stored at the home of a private collector until the summer of 2001, when they were handed back to the BBC (see Guardian, 2 June 2001, p. 18).
50. According to the figure in the BBC’s Daily Viewing Barometer, ITV regional companies, who screened such programmes as Mission: Impossible and The Avengers, attracted an average audience of 7,322,500.
51. BBC WAC: Audience Report (VR/69/142, 17 April 1969), on Dad’s Army, ‘Operation Kilt’.
52. The sequence of Reaction Index figures for the series was as follows: 68, 64, 66, 67, 66 and 71.
53. BBC WAC: Audience Research Report (VR/69/220, 5 June 1969) on Dad’s Army, ‘Under Fire’.
54. Bill Cotton, interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
55. Frank Williams, interview with the author, 4 October 2000.
56. Ibid.
57. Paul Fox, interview with the author, 2 May 2000.
58. Figures and comparisons based on the percentages of the viewing public recorded in the BBC’s Daily Viewing Barometers for the period in question.
59. BBC WAC: Audience Research Report (VR/69/664, 2 February 1970) on Dad’s Army, ‘Sons of the Sea’. (The average Reaction Index for the series was 67.)
60. See, for example, his congratulatory note to David Croft on the show’s ‘tremendous achievement’ in attracting twelve million viewers early on in its third series (BBC WAC: File T12/880/1: Dad’s Army: Sloan to Croft, 30 September 1969).
61. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/880/1: Paul Fox to David Croft, 13 January 1970.
62. The fourth series ran on Fridays from 25 September to 18 December 1970.
Dad's Army Page 33