Hello and welcome to Saluting Dad's Army.
A series that wallows in sheer enjoyment of a classic
comedy series.
This edition goes behind the scenes to look at the nuts and bolts
of the show.
We'll meet the people behind the camera, who made the magic
possible, the members of the public who became part of the 'Dad's Army'
story and ask the big question about the stars of the series.
What were they really like?
Warmington-on-Sea...
I've forgotten the number. You stupid boy.
It's Warmington-on-Sea...
Just a moment.
LAUGHTER
Wilson, Wilson.
Yes? Just checking on the number.
Oh, yes. 333 sir. Quite correct.
LAUGHTER
Arthur was Captain Mainwaring and Captain Mainwaring was Arthur Lowe.
There was no splitting the two, really.
Say no more, Captain Stewart.
You're coming to tell me that you want us for special duties,
aren't you?
Special duties? That's it.
I want you for special duties.
You can rely on us. What exactly are special duties? Oh!
I got to like him eventually, yeah.
Goodnight. Goodnight, sir. Goodnight, sir. Night, night.
He's almost human sometimes, isn't he?
He was a very private person, Arthur.
You know, very, very private indeed.
Do you know where the key is? Yes, sir.
Jones, can you hear me?
I'm going to tell you where the key is.
It's here. It's here.
LAUGHTER
He would do what he had to do with you and sort of in between
waiting for something, a prop or something like that,
he wouldn't chat with you.
You know, you were there to say your lines to him and that was that.
When we went to rehearsals,
Mainwaring was always respected as being the senior person.
Everybody was very friendly, but you were aware that everybody
had a status.
Arthur Lowe's son Stephen witnessed his father's status consciousness
at first hand, in the BBC bar after a 'Dad's Army' recording.
All the cast would sit around one table all having a great time
and he would insist on sitting at another table, away from them.
Go and find another table, Pike.
Can't have the rank and file eating with us.
It wasn't like he was unsociable.
It was like he thought he was the captain of the ship.
He thought he was like, a bit better than them and that he ought
to keep a bit of a distance, and they teased him rotten about it.
Well thank you, Jones. I've already decided who the highly important
secret agent is going to be.
Excuse me sir, it's not by any chance going to be you is it?
Yes.
How did you know? Oh, it was just a guess.
Radio times photographer Don Smith shot dozens of episodes of
'Dad's Army' in rehearsal and Don saw the generous side of the
man the nation knew as Captain Mainwaring, when he took his
young son to the 'Dad's Army' studio for an episode which begins
with Mainwaring in hospital, struck down by an ingrowing toenail.
Arthur Lowe saw me walk in with what was obviously my son,
and he got out of bed and with a greatly exaggerated walk,
walked across the studio floor and he said,
"Oh, good afternoon young man", and he shook him by the hand
and saluted him.
Right. And that's my memory of Arthur Lowe and my son.
And if I did look for salutes, I least I did them properly.
That salute you just gave me was rotten.
They say David Croft and Jimmy Perry started writing the show to
the characters and, of course, they did.
Well done, Wilson.
I was just waiting to see who would spot that one first.
And the line from 'Dad's Army' that makes me laugh the most
is when the Air Raid Warden calls him Napoleon.
Buzz off, Napoleon! This is my night to have the hall.
I mean, that was dad.
He was just like Napoleon.
I'm not a hard man really, you now?
It's just that some men are born to be leaders.
LAUGHTER
Some men are born to be led.
One of those born to be led was, of course, Captain Mainwaring's
subordinate in the platoon and at the bank where they both worked.
The long suffering Arthur Wilson, played by John Le Mesurier.
Excuse me sir, I don't think you really need me here any more,
do you? Yes, I do. Oh!
What's the matter with you? Nothing sir. Nothing at all.
I mean, why do you ask?
Shall we say, you don't seem your usual laughing self.
Well, I think the whole situation is just a little bizarre.
I don't see why. Well, I mean...
We come into a funeral parlour to ask the undertaker if we can look
inside one of his coffins just to find a spare part for a Lewis gun.
Yes.
Well, I suppose it could happen to anyone.
John would raise his eyebrows and was always looking up, you know?
For inspiration, I suppose.
But that was John. Very vague.
John Le Mesurier's somewhat detached attitude was a
factor the production team bore in mind when setting up complex scenes.
There was one particular episode where Ian Lavender got stuck
in a bog. Help, Uncle Arthur, help!
Just, just keep still, Frank. Keep still.
Whatever you do, keep still.
And the rest of the platoon went to help him.
I'm sinking, Mr Mainwaring.
But John Le Mesurier was deliberately kept out of it
because he was so impractical, we knew that he would not help at all.
In fact he'd probably make it worse.
I saw this happen in a Tarzan film once, Mr Mainwaring.
Blokes trying to get a man out of the swamp,
and he got eaten by a crocodile.
Though, for all John Le Mesurier's vagueness,
his sheer skill as an actor captivated his colleagues.
I can remember one episode.
John just walked around the table saying "Oh, dear!
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!"
Oh, Lord!
Oh, dear, oh, dear!
Oh, dear!
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!
When we were rehearsing in the church hall, I always used to stop
reading my newspaper and watch him, cos it was so brilliantly timed.
Over the years, firm friendships were forged among the cast of
'Dad's Army.'
Clive and Jimmy Beck were arm in arm, really.
Great friends.
And they would pace up and down the rehearsal room together.
Well, I can tell you, when I was out in the Sudan there was some
terrible carryings on in the Officers Mess.
It was absolutely alarming.
But I'll tell you one thing, if you drunk too much out in that heat,
that would turn you into a gibbering idiot.
Blimey, you must have knocked a bit back, then.
Though the 'Dad's Army' starts spent a lot of time working
together, they still sought out each other's company when off duty.
We were very lucky, actually, that dad mixed quite a bit with the
other members of 'Dad's Army.'
We had a lovely place growing up and often they'd all come along,
John Le Mesurier, Frank Williams, Teddy Sinclair.
Arthur was there, and I think there was a kindness that was,
that was there that I certainly felt growing up.
In the 'Dad's Army' episode 'The King was in His Counting House',
Captain Mainwaring hosts a party for the platoon at his home,
with excruciating results.
Well, very nice of you to come.
Very nice of you to ask us, George.
Aye, v-v-very nice.
Oh, very nice, indeed.
What a lovely party Mr Mainwaring.
Yes, I'm enjoying myself.
However, off duty, Arthur Lowe could be a highly entertaining host.
After dinner he played, I can't remember if it was a
clavichord a spinet, but he played this beautiful
17th century instrument.
And he's very cultured, but he was an odd mixture.
He bought this huge boat with a big funnel.
It was a big old steamboat.
It turned into a huge restoration project.
My dad loved having a project.
You can imagine him with a clipboard and a jobs list, and getting
everybody organised to do all the jobs on the boat.
The next thing in our line of fire is the cricket pitch.
That scoreboard will have to come down. Oh, no, please sir,
please, please, not the scoreboard.
I know you're captain of the cricket club, Wilson, but we can't make
any exceptions. But why can't we wait until the end of the cricket
season? Unfortunately, the Nazis don't play cricket.
If they did, we wouldn't be on opposite sides now.
It's difficult for somebody who is a well known actor to get much
privacy, and I think that that was where he sought his privacy.
However, I particularly remember visits from John Le Mesurier
and Ian Lavender at different times.
Oh! Pike.
Hello, uncle. Mr Mainwaring.
Couldn't you, couldn't you get in either?
No.
Mum threw a bucket of water over me.
That's what she does to the cat. Oh, I see.
Well, it's supposed to cool their ardour, you see. Yeah, well...
Very good. It certainly does that, uncle.
I don't think I'll get married after all.
Oh, I think you're very wise, Frank.
I never did.
Coming up in part two,
the partnership behind the magic of 'Dad's Army.'
Welcome back to 'Saluting Dad's Army' and more behind the scenes
stories from the comedy series, which endures like no other.
At the heart of the success of 'Dad's Army' was an extraordinary
relationship and I don't mean the romance between Wilson and
Mrs Pike, compelling though that was.
I'm talking about the happy,
brilliant and hugely productive partnership between the
co-writers of 'Dad's Army' Jimmy Perry and David Croft.
David and Jimmy were always an interesting couple.
Where David was quiet, Jimmy was the extrovert.
Jimmy's the flamboyant one.
He loved his clothes, his fancy clothes.
We used to send him up sometimes about that.
And David was more, you know, steady and serious.
In 1916, when I was in France, I used to lob those bombs over
one at a time. Pin out...
Over...
Bang! Over...
Bang!
They used to call me the mad bomber, you know?
I'm not mad really, you know, sir.
I'm as sane as you are.
Oh, really?
Comic mayhem, often on a grand scale,
became a hallmark of 'Dad's Army.'
but behind the on screen chaos lay the meticulous planning and
even temperament of co-writer and producer David Croft.
I don't think I ever saw him in a mood or angry.
He took everything as it came.
Just a minute. Just a moment.
Wilson, Wilson.
Yes, sir? Tell that boy to go away.
If you have to do that, would you do it somewhere else?
David knew the technicalities of television,
even though there were complex problems with people up
flagpoles, people in boats, people on trains.
And if you read the scripts before going to see it,
how on earth is that going to work?
But David would always have sorted that in his mind.
Though he appreciated the work of his team, the former army
officer, David Croft, was not given to big displays of emotion.
David would slap you on the back and say, "Well done", and that was it.
I mean, I'd walk away.
Well done, Godfrey.
We did the first studio and David put his head in
at the end of the day, into the sound control room,
and just said, "Thank you", and "Goodnight."
Oh, fine!
I've bought that for you.
What's this?
Your favourite tobacco.
Oh, thank you very much, madam.
And I'll be in later in the week.
And this happened after episode two, and after episode three and
after episode four...
And so I met the production manager in the corridor outside after
episode four.
I said, "Is David happy?"
He said, "Well, you wouldn't be here if he wasn't."
I mean, there was never any emotion shown in those terms,
but it was only that, yes, he was happy, so I was still there.
David Croft was very quiet.
He was very kind, but you didn't want to be on your own at lunch
with him, because even though we can all talk for England, David didn't.
He was just such a wonderfully approachable man,
and a very likeable man.
I would like to have had David as my dad, let's put it that way.
David Croft's steady disposition extended to handling the
large cast, which he and Jimmy Perry had very deliberately created.
We like this sort of interaction of a lot of characters.
It works terribly well.
The various scenes you have between various different
characters, all bring a different dimension to whatever the
situation is at the time.
Yes, "The movement... The movement of the whiffling stick
represents the frightening away of evil spirits".
There you are. Away from what Mr Mainwaring?
This is a fertility dance, Pike.
Oh, dear.
I don't think my sister Dolly would approve of that sort of thing.
Oh, you silly old duffer.
It's just to encourage the crops to grow.
It's danced every spring by the young, fertile men of the village.
Well, it's not much good us doing it, is it?
Well, David had a very measured kind of way of running rehearsals.
The actors were quite difficult,
but he knew what he wanted out of them and they liked him very much.
Though, inevitably, problems with the actors would arise
from time to time.
Obviously, one person stood out as being difficult.
It was John Laurie, in the fact that he shouted all his lines.
And so, the only thing that David had to do was tell him to
take it down a bit,
then he got him to do the sotto voce ghost stories and things.
There was a temple, a ruined temple covered with jungle creepers.
The place was deserted.
We crept inside and there it was.
A huge idol with a great ruby in its forehead.
And that was wonderful, because he was a great actor, John Laurie.
After all these years I can, I can still hear that terrible curse.
"Death!", he screamed.
"Death!
"The ruby will bring you death.
"Death!"
Did the curse come true Mr Frazer?
Aye, son, it did.
He died...
..last year. He was 86.
When I first joined David, I'd only be there with David two days
and people kept saying "Have you met Jimmy Perry yet?"
And I said "But he's just the writer" you know?
"Oh no, he'll be there all the time" and, of course, the door opens and
in bounces this bubbly personality, and the two just clicked.
Jimmy was a great enthusiast.
He, everything the glass was always half full, never half empty,
and he was also tremendously loyal to the people who'd worked
with him when he was running a repertory theatre, struggling actors
and he rewarded them all by,
when he could, getting them into television.
We had Colin Bean and so, whenever a line was needed from someone
who wasn't one of the main seven, Colin did it as Private Sponge.
Did you enjoy the picture, Sponge?
Not really, Sarge. I couldn't see very well. Oh, Lord!
You know, we should have sat in the nine pennies, Mr Mainwaring.
Oh, no, no, no, no. I wouldn't sit in those cheap seats down
at the front. You never who's been sitting in them.
And he'd be a leading actor for Jimmy when he was at Watford.
So, you know, he was very loyal to the people who worked with him.
One of Jimmy's roles on 'Dad's Army' was to maintain harmony among
the cast by keeping count of their lines and laughs in the script.
Do you think this is the place, Wilson? Mm?
I'm very careful. I'm very meticulous, cos I keep how
many lines, cos you get complaints from actors.
They don't realise the problem. We have, don't we David,
we have 29 three quarters minutes.
Now, during that time you've got to tell a story, it's got to be
funny, you've got to go into the depth of the character.
You can't just have jokes. You've got to do a lot.
And, therefore, it's not always possible to give the actors
the amount of lines they'd like.
Brought together by chance, Jimmy Perry and David Croft had
rapidly formed an award winning, ratings topping partnership.
I think they were a terrific team, although they wrote,
I believe, totally separately,
and then just checked each other, and never changed anything
the other one did.
Speaking in 1975, David Croft confirmed that he and Jimmy
didn't actually write together.
We confer very closely on plots.
We spend a couple of days on each episode and have enormous
numbers of notes and then we go away and write a separate episode each.
Present arms.
While some cast members believed they could distinguish
between David and Jimmy's work, Frank Williams isn't so sure.
I can remember one particular thing where they were doing
initiative tests, and one of the things was they had to get a
whole barrel of feathers from one place to another.
You've had some damn silly ideas in your time sir,
but this is the damned silliest.
Frazer, that's no way to talk to an officer.
I can remember, I'd say, "This is obviously Jimmy's hand.
"This is ridiculous." This is Arthur, is it? Yes.
And when we found out, it wasn't.
It was, that was one of David's ideas. Isn't that funny?
So, I think when people did make guesses as to which was which,
they got it wrong. Take your trousers off.
I will not take my trousers off. Take your trousers off.
Why should I have to be the one to take my trousers off?
Because you're to set an example. Right, trousers off everybody.
Why can't you...
When the scripts were complete and 'Dad's Army' went into production,
there was a clear division of responsibility between
David and Jimmy.
Jimmy would advise on casting, but David had the overall
responsibility, and Jimmy had nothing to do with the shots.
Nothing whatsoever, either on filming or in the studio.
David was very much making the show possible and happen
and look good on television, whereas Jimmy seemed to be much more
concerned with the words and the performances.
They didn't argue or anything. If they were cross they'd just shut up
and didn't talk to each other.
We've never had, really had a cross word, have we?
I think we go a bit quiet with each other sometimes.
When you saw them together, you could see that there was a
fairly natural balancing of their personalities.
You know, Jimmy Perry, who wanted to be Walker initially,
you know, was high, very social, very chatty,
and David Croft had that lovely sort of elegant officer charm,
and you could see that they were a very good pairing, you know?
Jimmy said at David's funeral, he said, "I was the Sergeant Major
"and David was the officer, and it remained that way".
It was a good line, but I don't think it was true.
They were equals, and they bounced off each other so well.
Things will be very different after the war, you mark my words.
Common man will come into his own.
This country will be run by professionals.
Doctors, lawyers, bank managers.
LAUGHTER
People like you? All right, yes, people like me.
You mean common?
LAUGHTER
Now watch it, Wilson.
I didn't know you were a socialist, sir?
How dare you?
Coming up in part three,
out and about with 'Dad's Army' on location.
Welcome back.
And it's time to explore the world of 'Dad's Army' on location.
Every summer the cast and crew would head to Norfolk to film some
of the exciting and elaborate sequences that made
'Dad's Army' what co-writer Jimmy Perry called "Adventure comedy."
And there were certainly some adventures to be had.
Come on, men. Follow me.
Give me the rope, Wilson.
I'll have this bomb down in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
Stupid boy. It's supposed to be slack.
You should have said, shouldn't you?
Stop!
Mr Mainwaring stop it!
Will you stop it?
Look what you've done.
What are you playing at, Pike?
Look at the mess you've made of your uniform.
Do you hear that, sir? They're gonna use live ammunition.
Oh, I shouldn't take too much notice of that, Wilson. Right.
I can assure you they wouldn't dare.
Wave the flag. Aye, sir.
GUNSHOTS
For all nine series of 'Dad's Army', the Norfolk town of Thetford
and its surrounding area, stood in for Warmington-on-Sea.
This Thetford lane saw the climax of 'The Deadly Attachment.'
The game's up.
What are you going to do now?
I am not going to do anything.
While in 'The Lion Has Phones' this quiet corner hosted some
memorable camouflage training.
For the production team,
their filming trips to Norfolk were very social affairs.
We used to go out every evening.
We were all dressed up.
Everybody bought new clothes to go out in and it was just,
it was just wonderful, really.
Jimmy Perry and Bill Pertwee used to do a double act,
and they kept us entertained.
For their part,
the amateur theatricals of Thetford came to know the cast both on
and off duty, as three veterans of those days vividly recall.
So Keith, how did your connection with 'Dad's Army' come about?
I was chairman of the Thetford Music and Drama Society,
of which we all were, and David Croft got in touch with me and he
just said, "Keith, do you think you can find extras for 'Dad's Army?'"
Well, of course, I said yes, because I instantly became one of the most
popular people in Thetford.
To start with, we were not paid, but we didn't mind at all.
And then Equity said that it was wrong that there shouldn't be
extras in 'Dad's Army' that were not being paid, and so we were
paid, and I became even more popular.
So, what did you do? Did you get in your entire,
you brought in the entire cast?
No, no, no, no. I was very selective.
David said "Right, Well, I need two firemen",
so I got my mother and father.
They came and put a fire out somewhere.
And then I wanted a tramp so, of course,
I looked at Derek straight away.
When I was made a tramp,
I maintained that role for two or three different shows.
And you were the tramp who looked up in 'Time On Their Hands?"
'Time On Their Hands,' yes.
Hilfe!
Come on, men.
When you were filming that,
it was filmed out of sequence wasn't it, those two shots?
When the pilot gets caught in the rigging of his parachute in
the town hall, well, that was a mock up of the town hall.
But the real filming took place, and what you see when you see the
bottles coming down from the town hall,
they're actually coming down from a high rig, from a hydraulic platform.
Mad man!
What message was in that, Pike? None at all.
I was just trying to hit the warden. Good.
Keith, presumably you got to know the cast pretty well?
Oh indeed, yes. In fact, the Drama Society one day invited the
'Dad's Army' to a party at my house and so we all came along and,
of course they, I think they drank us dry.
I think we ran out of all the liquid,
but I think one of the things I remember most of all was that
John Le Mesurier looked at my piano,
started playing it and complained bitterly that it was not in tune.
So I thought well...
You know, I gave him a gin and tonic.
Oh, how lovely.
Pam, what was the atmosphere like on set?
Some of the things that did go wrong, which caused a lot of
laughter was when they were filming, something would happen that would
tickle one's fancy and then they'd dissolve into laughter, which I
liked, because the rest of the time they all seemed fairly miserable.
Oh, dear, I'm sorry to hear that.
Yes, they did keep themselves very much to themselves, actually,
but that sort of lightened it all up.
I used to be amused to see that.
The one I enjoyed talking to most was Godfrey.
Oh, really? Godfrey was a splendid fellow. He'd chat about anything.
No, we enjoyed it.
It was a very happy time.
Well now, we've got to get this machine going. Would you know
anything about that Wilson? Well, no not really, sir. No. I'm afraid not.
Mum says you can't even use a tin opener, doesn't she Uncle Arthur?
I don't think that's awfully funny, Frank.
Probably true, though.
In the summer of 1972,
local man Brian Woods captured the cast and crew on location.
Here, in the episode 'Brain Versus Brawn', the men of the platoon
are disguised as firemen, to carry off an initiative test,
but are called on to put out a real fire.
There's nothing coming through! Tell them to hurry up!
Let me see. There's probably some obstruction in the pipe.
There we are. That's it.
Let's go and help.
No sign of any foreign body there.
Turn the valve on, Frazer.
Maniac!
What are you doing, maniac?
The 'Dad's Army' filming inevitably drew a lot of local interest, but
not all the residents of Thetford were happy to see the crew at work.
There was a time when we were actually filming in the street,
which we obviously did very often, and we got police permission
and everything,
but this little elderly lady kept walking in front of the camera.
There was nothing we could do about it,
because it was a pubic highway, and she said the reason she was
doing this was because she'd seen us filming the last time we were
there, she'd watched it on air and it was on for about two seconds,
and were wasting licence payers' money and she wouldn't stop and they
had to rewrite it, and we had to do it on Forest Commission
land in the end.
Pike, we've got him.
Jones? Yes, sir.
Tell him to come out with his hands up.
Oy, come ze out with handy hoch!
Likewise, at least one of the show's stars didn't always welcome
attention from bystanders,
as 'Dad's Army' vicar Frank Williams remembers.
A whole lot of people from the village came out and asked for
autographs. We were all signing them, you see, and Arthur said,
"Oh no, no, I don't do that. Not when I'm working, no."
And in the afternoon a whole lot of other people came out,
and Bill Pertwee overheard one of the afternoon people say
"Oh, there's Arthur Lowe over there. I think I'll go and ask him".
And the man who'd been here that morning said, "No good asking him.
"He's a miserable old toad, he is."
Well, Bill, of course, told this story at dinner that night
and Arthur's wife Joan said "There you are, Arthur.
"That's the image you give. A miserable old toad."
And he did have the grace to laugh at himself.
Company, onto the next test. That's the lot.
Oh, no, it's not. What about that one?
I'll get it, sir. I'll get it, sir.
Hurry up, Mainwaring. Square's lot have finished.
He's gonna win. I knew he would.
And you're not leaving until you've got that one.
I'll get him, sir. Leave it to me, Jones.
Good heavens! What do you mean "Good heavens?"
Good heavens.
Wait a minute.
You were supposed to do that with your bayonet.
Another word out of you and I'll do you with a bayonet.
Large scale battle training sequences were staged on the
military site north of Thetford, and on one occasion, RAF planes
practising an attack came perilously close to the 'Dad's Army' crew.
As producer David Croft told reporters...
They're over there. They're over there. Over there.
They're over there.
He can't miss.
He can't miss. Oh!
It was a case of expecting the unexpected when the
'Dad's Army' platoon headed out on location.
With one important exception.
Mr Hodges's devious plans to put one over Captain Mainwaring and
his men would always, always go wrong.
Put that cigarette out, Walker.
Blimey, a few minutes ago you were only too glad of it.
This one's for you, Napoleon.
I hate you, Mainwaring.
Still to come, explosive tales from behind the scenes.
Well, of course, the bomb was a real bomb.
Hello again.
Across nine years and 80 episodes,
'Dad's Army' gave us a host of memorable plots and ideas
from the fertile minds of writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft.
Taking those ideas from the page to the screen could be a real
challenge, even for the hugely talented raft of experts
behind the scenes.
But it was a challenge they relished.
Coming to 'Dad's Army' you really had this feeling you were
joining a family of people who were there to provide
the very best in entertainment.
Now, I want you to imagine that the Germans have landed,
and all our supplies are cut off.
We're starving and we have to comb the land for food.
With a hairbrush. With a hair...
Tell them what that is, Wilson.
A hedgehog.
It was great fun.
Honestly, it really was.
Mr Mainwaring? Yes.
Why do you want Sergeant Wilson to comb his hair with a hedgehog?
We're going to eat the hedgehog.
Oh, sir, I don't think I could ever bring myself to eat a poor
little hedgehog.
This is war, Godfrey.
It's either the hedgehogs or us.
It was just like a family.
It was just like...
..going around with your friends, really.
Pay attention, men.
It will be light soon. Steady.
We shall be spotted by a boat.
Yeah.
What happens if we're not spotted?
We're only in the English Channel, you know, Walker. There are plenty
of boats about. Well, suppose it's a German boat, sir?
Not any of that sort of talk here, Wilson.
There are no German boats in the English Channel.
Bringing Jimmy Perry and David Croft's ambitious ideas to
the screen, ensured that life was never dull for key members of
the 'Dad's Army' production team.
Whether that meant flooding the set with water...
..bringing huge railway carriages into the studio...
..building spectacular secret weapons...
..getting one of comedy's most famous vehicles on the road...
..or putting Mainwaring and Wilson in a tricky position
with an unexploded bomb.
Well, of course, the bomb was a real bomb, or it had been.
It fell out of the plane.
We rescued it, and put fins on it,
and completed it, so it was a real bomb actually, in fact.
In this behind the scenes footage from
'Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel', Peter was controlling
the secret weapon which threatened to blow up Warmington.
But not all his 'Dad's Army' assignments
had an explosive flavour.
In 'Getting the Bird', Private Walker hatches a plan to sell
pigeons to customers desperate for meat.
But the scheme goes awry when some of the birds escape.
Mr Mainwaring?
There's a pigeon in your pigeon hole.
I think we used a real pigeon one time, and then we made one that
was, you know, you could put your hand in and fiddle around with it.
It's all a misunderstanding, you see, sir.
She thought I'd been, she thought...
As the platoon gathers for a church service, the episode makes
another unusual demand on the visual effects department.
Oy, where's Jonesy going?
He's gonna play the organ for the last hymn
'Onward Christian Soldiers.' There.
What's the matter, Joe? You've gone pale.
He can't do that. Why not?
150 pigeons in the pipes.
If I remember rightly, we had a compressed air bottle, so we were
able to put it in the container then...
..blow it up in the air, you know?
Firing pigeons out of a church organ,
all in a day's work on 'Dad's Army'.
Other tasks faced by the production team were less bizarre,
but just as challenging.
Well, Jones' wan was difficult to achieve.
It wasn't roadworthy, so we had to persuade the supplier to make
it roadworthy which they just about did,
and I took it over and designed all of the graphics on it to reflect
Jones' character, the old-fashioned, florid,
Victorian old chap that he was.
Look at that. That's real gold leaf, that is.
Vanity, sheer vanity.
He just wants to bandy his name all over the town as if it was a
tin of baked beans.
I think it looks rather jolly, you know?
It'll cheer people up a lot as it runs along,
even if there isn't any meat in it.
I really enjoyed designing that van, and I think it's much-loved
and I'm so pleased.
Jones' van frequently carries the platoon into action,
and benefits from some wartime optional extras.
It became an armoured vehicle, didn't it?
Enemy dive-bomber up ahead.
Five rounds, rapid fire.
GROUP: Up two, three. One, two, three.
One two three.
Down. All right, well done.
Quite ridiculous, really.
This was straight out of Jimmy and David's brain.
Oh!
In 'The Day the Balloon Went Up', Jones' van leads the chase
when Captain Mainwaring is carried off by a barrage balloon.
Keep her steady, Jonesy.
Have a go, Pike.
What are you doing you idiot?
Combining film footage shot on location with scenes recorded
on tape in the studio, was a frequent challenge on 'Dad's Army.'
It was the Royal Train where the latter part of the show is
inter cut between the cast in the cab of the train, climbing over the
train, they get done in the studio, which was then inter cut with film.
Moving people about the studio, covering them,
getting the cameras in the right place, getting our sound effects
to match it all, was a very complex job,
but it didn't appear so because we knew it was going to work,
and everybody was so determined to make it work
that it just was a pleasure to do.
Stay there. Don't you move. We'll get you out of it.
For set designer Paul Joel, the most testing assignment of all was
what's become one of the most famous 'Dad's Army' episodes
'Time on My Hands.'
Now, what are we gonna do?
I don't know how I let it go through, because I read it
and I thought this needs to be filmed over maybe one week.
Instead, in order to capture the reaction from a live audience,
the action was recorded in one night in the studio.
It was a large set and it had moving objects.
It was mobile and it was tremendously complicated.
Oh, don't panic! I'm going out!
I'm going out!
SHOUTING
I'm going out! I'm going out!
Careful, sir. Your hand, Jonesy!
Don't look down! It's stopped!
The actors had never seen this set and it was such a mobile thing,
they needed a lot of rehearsal, but they didn't get it.
They only had that part of a day.
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
It's attacking me!
Ouch!
It still was extremely amusing, but if only we could have done it
properly, it could have been a tremendous success and
possibly the best one that they would ever produced.
One particular demand on the production team on
'Dad's Army' was producer David Croft's ambition to record
the show without stopping for retakes.
David didn't like retakes at all.
Mainly because he had come from the theatre, and he believed that
you gave a performance to an audience there and then.
That was your performance.
Oh, get on with it.
David was producing something for the audience in the studio
and it was for the enjoyment of that audience, and for the audience
at home, ultimately.
Now, there's no substitute for the cold steel.
They do not like it up 'em.
They don't like it up 'em!
I might have mentioned that to you before.
Many times.
Many, many times.
I'd just been looking through a few 'Dad's Armys'
and from a sound point of view there were plenty of places where I
would have loved to have redone it.
Pike. Yes?
Well, get on with it.
I'm waiting for the bomb to explode,
so I shan't be blown to smithereens.
To my mind, they are very rough at the edges from all points of view.
But the entertainment value in them is enormous.
Right. Now then, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Right, eight cod and chips.
I want plaice.
LAUGHTER
Mrs Fox is the finest cook what I've ever come across.
Haven't I always said you were the finest cook, Mrs Fox?
Well, you've always been very nice about my dumplings.
LAUGHTER
Here's your head bonker.
That looks a vicious weapon. No, it's quite harmless, sir.
It's only an old tennis ball.
Yeah, it wouldn't hurt a fly that. Look.
LAUGHTER
You stupid boy. LAUGHTER
So even though they would occasionally have liked another take,
for those involved in bringing Dad's Army to the screen,
their association with the programme is definitely something to cherish.
I have to say it was the happiest days of my life working on
Dad's Army, working with Jimmy Perry and David Croft.
It was hard work at times. Very hard work sometimes.
But it was always worth doing and it was always fun to do it.
The working atmosphere for all of us, it was just marvellous.
And what a joy and honour it was to work with David and Jimmy
and everybody else involved, to produce such a good show.
Mr Mainwaring, it's Lady Godiva.
Good Lord, it's not Mavis, is it?
I do wish you'd keep that woman in control.
LAUGHTER
Don't look, don't look, Mr Mainwaring.
Whatever you do, don't look, sir.
LAUGHTER
Oh, oh, oh, oh!
LAUGHTER
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
It is Mrs Mainwaring.
LAUGHTER
Oh, Mr Mainwaring! Speak to me, speak to me.
Oh, come round, come round.
Oh, poor Mr Mainwaring! He'll never get over the shock.
No. And neither will the horse. LAUGHTER
Next time...
Dad's Army comes to an end, but love of the show marches on.
A show that I hope will go on forever.