Hello, and welcome to Saluting Dad's Army,
a series celebrating the brilliance of a comedy show that's
become part of all our lives.
In this edition, we'll look at how Dad's Army
was demobbed on television after nine years,
but only after bringing us some of its most memorable moments.
How the series had other lives on radio and the stage and how
the exploits of the Walmington-on-Sea Platoon live on
decades since Captain Mainwaring and his men last marched into action.
The platoon do look all right to be looked at by the film people,
don't they sir? Yes, yes, yes,
all right, just as long as they get an all-round picture of the platoon.
Very good, sir. Attention! About turn. About turn. Series eight of Dad's Army began in 1975...
About turn. ..with the platoon called up to do a turn as film extras. About turn.
Well, I don't understand this at all, sir. Why do we want costumes? I mean, we've got our own uniforms.
Well, Mainwaring, your chaps won't be Home Guards.
They're playing the Nazis.
Captain Mainwaring is outraged by the news...
AUDIENCE HOWL WITH LAUGHTER
..though some members of the platoon embrace the chance to be the baddies.
Schweinhund!
FAUX GERMAN ACCENT: So,
we are the masters now, eh?
You have just five seconds to tell us your plans, or else it is...
..kaput.
NORMAL VOICE: I like being an officer, don't you, Uncle Arthur?
But when they spot the platoon in German uniforms,
Mr Hodges, the vicar and the verger... Germans! ..sound the invasion alarm.
Now, pay attention, men.
The whole of the south coast is on red alert! The Brigadier,
he wanted to know what blithering idiot was responsible!
So I've made an appointment for you tomorrow morning at half past ten.
AUDIENCE LAUGH
You stupid boy!
Later in the series, Captain Mainwaring is much happier
facing some genuine Nazis, after a Luftwaffe crew ditches in a
nearby lake.
Hey, don't blow it here! A Scout troop served as extras...
..in this dramatic episode, with a
special musical role for local lad Tim Ball. Blow it here, and I'll give you sixpence!
Well, Tim, this is a great honour.
Did you have as much fun making it as we all do watching it?
I had incredible fun making it and, I think,
for a 14-year-old lad, it was an honour... Yeah. ..to know that
you're going to be on television... Yeah! ..with the cast of Dad's Army.
So there you are, you're playing the reveille, which is the, this is sort of the wake-up call, isn't it?
I learnt reveille, and I learnt it tune-perfect.
Hodges was a little bit aggrieved.
Here! Hey, don't blow it here! Come with me.
Seeing me, about to wake up the whole camp,
he thought he could have a bit of fun.
Divert the noise directly into Captain Mainwaring's tent...
Blow it here, and I'll give you sixpence!
But instead of reveille, just before we'd shot the scene,
one of the producers said, "Can you just play something very
painful and out of tune, because we think it would sound a little
bit more horrible for Captain Mainwaring to wake up to." Yeah.
HE PLAYS HORRIBLY
Go away, boy.
Well done! Here you are.
What was it like when it came out on telly?
Mum, Dad and I sat there and we watched it and, straight away,
as the credits rolled, the phone was ringing. Course.
You know, "Oh, we've just seen you on the television."
Yeah, it was a special moment.
So, Tim, the big question, did you get paid?
I got paid the vast sum of money of £50.
50 quid?
It bought me a bicycle, and that bought me a record player.
Everything a 14-year-old kid needs.
Ha-ha, now, you've brought your bugle. Mm.
Give it a blow. Let's see what you can do.
HE PLAYS A STRANGULATED NOTE
Oh, sweet!
Left, right, left, right, left, right...
At Christmas, 1975, Dad's Army brought viewers a really special present. Come on, pick it up!
Arthur Lowe playing, not only respectable bank manager and Home Guard Captain George Mainwaring,
but also his embarrassing brother Barry,
a travelling salesman who likes a drink.
Remember that wonderful episode with the brother, the trick salesman?
Well, I mean, Arthur...
..Arthur, as a drunk, I think,
is absolutely brilliant.
I remember his wife Joan saying to me,
"Every time I see one of the episodes where Arthur's drunk,
I always burst into tears cos he was so brilliant at being a drunk."
Is it...
Hello, good evening everybody!
Is this the party?
Uh... Excuse me, sir? Yes?
Could you tell me your name, please? Mainwaring.
Barry Mainwaring.
Jokes and carnival novelties.
Like, when he's in the chest.
Yes.
And then they lift it up. Yes.
"What floor's this?" Yes, I know. I think it's brilliant.
Ready? Lift!
Crikey! He's not much of a weight, is he?
No, you see, it's much easier when you all pull together.
Come on, let's go...
Hey! Look!
He don't look after his boots like Captain Mainwaring, does he?
Come on, put him down... All right.
What floor is this, then?
AUDIENCE ERUPT WITH LAUGHTER
Inventive, memorable episodes, such as My Brother And I, ensured
that Dad's Army remained highly popular in the mid-'70s.
No, thank you.
Not surprisingly, many people tried to replicate its appeal.
It's 5:30pm in the afternoon.
"Dad's Army...hilarious!" proclaimed an ad in one newspaper.
"Now, Uncle's Air Force...a riot! Original story, rights etc offered."
Meanwhile, ITV attempted to emulate the success of Dad's Army
with wartime comedy Yanks Go Home and followed
that with Backs To The Land, a show about the Women's Land Army.
And, not surprisingly, Jimmy Perry and David Croft's hit show
attracted attention from overseas producers.
I was in London on both vacation and business. I was watching television,
and I saw Dad's Army on the air and I fell in love with it.
Will you, er... Will you be bringing your wife, sir?
No. No, I don't think so, Wilson.
I don't think Elizabeth would do much for Anglo-American relations.
Both David Croft and Jimmy Perry were very flattered,
very excited to have somebody showing an interest to them
on their work of art, and we got along,
we were most compatible. And I arranged to licence the rights
to Americanize the show and bring it to the United States.
Now, look here, Wilson. Yes. When these Americans arrive... Yes. ..I want you to line the men up... Yes.
..and I'll just say a few appropriate words. Yes. I trust you're not going to be too formal,
sir? Well, no, no, no. Of course not. That's the whole point of the thing.
Now, I understand there's a colonel in charge of them? That's right, yes.
How does one greet him? Well, he'll probably say, "Howdy, partner, put it there."
Say what?
"Howdy, partner, put it there."
Put what, where?
When we shot the pilot in California, David Croft and
Jimmy Perry came over to be present and to be advisors to us and
they co-wrote that script that we used.
The US version of Dad's Army relocated the action from
Walmington-on-Sea to America's Atlantic coast and gave the
show a new title, The Rear Guard.
Well, The Rear Guard was a copy of Dad's Army.
The premise was exactly the same.
You can put down whatever you want,
but you're not going to win this war.
Oh, yes, we are.
Oh, no, you're not.
Oh, yes, we are.
Oh, no, you're not.
# Adolf Hitler is a jerk
# He's nothing but a Nazi
# He thinks that he will win the war
# He's not...so...hotsy-totsy... #
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Your name will also go on the list.
What is it?
Don't tell him, Henderson!
Henderson, thank you.
We loved the pilot of The Rear Guard.
We thought it went extremely well and were very happy with it.
Several story ideas were prepared for a series of The Rear Guard,
but a problem emerged when US broadcaster ABC showed the
pilot to focus groups.
American viewers just didn't get it.
Nowhere in America had bombers going overhead, churches bombed,
homes destroyed. That was just...
The audience didn't understand that and could not accept it and
could not associate comedy with that as a storyline.
So The Rear Guard remained just a pilot.
However, for producer Herman Rush, compensation came in the form
of enduring friendships.
David Croft and Jim Perry and I became close friends.
Our families, we visited with them and their families several
times in London, and we did other things in the future with
both of those gentlemen.
We've got to get some sandwiches for the prisoners. Go over to my cousin Mario's restaurant.
Hold it.
You can't feed them from your cousin Mario's restaurant.
I ate there last week.
So?
Under the Geneva Convention, you cannot give the prisoners
cruel and inhuman punishment.
Coming up in part two,
on tour with Dad's Army, as the platoon takes to the stage.
Welcome back, and it's time to look at the other lives of Dad's Army.
The series had been created for television, of course,
but radio listeners and theatre-goers also lapped up any
opportunity to visit Walmington-on-Sea.
I must say, we can't wait to get cracking.
We, uh, we haven't...we haven't handled any live grenades before.
Haven't you?
David Croft and Jimmy Perry cast Michael Knowles
in Dad's Army six times,
usually as an army officer.
Well, I started in Dad's Army because I was in Jimmy Perry's
rep at Watford and he kept calling me a silly arse, and I suppose
that stuck with me and so,
whenever a silly arse part came up, I was in it.
Jolly good. Now, Captain Mainwaring, I want you to get your chaps
together and brief them.
Oh, and don't forget, absolute secrecy.
Oh, and here's a list of...
Michael's involvement in Dad's Army took a new direction in 1973,
when the powers that be at the BBC asked permission to adapt
Dad's Army for radio.
Jimmy Perry and David Croft were too busy to take on the job themselves,
so Harold Snoad, veteran of five years on Dad's Army
as production manager and director, joined Michael to rework the
TV scripts for radio listeners.
It wasn't an easy task.
Because there was so much, erm, you know, activity and visual stuff...
Yeah.
..we had to write something else to fill those gaps in.
There's a shot with a dog running off with a bomb in his mouth.
Well, you can't do that on radio.
So "look at that dog running away with a bomb", it doesn't work,
so you have to find something else to fill it.
But it was a lot of that.
Turning a television series full of visual comedy into a radio show
was a challenge, but Harold and Michael weren't afraid to
make radical changes to the TV original.
We were fearless, weren't we, Harold? We were totally fearless, yes.
For example, one television episode, Battle Of The Giants,
was combined with another called Shooting Pains to produce a
radio script titled Present Arms.
You hear that, Wilson? Yes.
Just before the King's Speech... This script, Broadcast To The Empire,
was a segment for the BBC's Christmas Night With The Stars
in 1972.
Would you mind speaking into the microphone, please?
LAUGHTER
That's the microphone there, you see...
HE BLOWS RASPBERRY
Argh!
But Harold and Michael adapted the 14-minute original to become a
30-minute radio episode, retitled Ten Seconds From Now.
GODFREY: Why did Captain Mainwaring send you down?
He could have just telephoned us.
WILSON: Private Godfrey, I won't tell you again, stop talking.
It's the first time I've said anything...
LAUGHTER
Jimmy Perry told Michael and Harold that some of the radio
episodes improved on the television original, but the Dad's Army
cast was more sceptical.
And some of them complained bitterly if one of their favourite
lines had gone... Gone, yes.
..and we had, "Where's my line gone from there?"
I said, "Well, we had to change it."
One particular member of the platoon would make his opinions very clear.
John Laurie was always very vocal... Yeah. ..if he didn't like something.
"Rubbish, rubbish!" "Rubbish, rubbish!" Yes.
Rubbish!
He wouldn't say that to Jimmy and David, but he shouted it at us. Yeah.
The last of the 67 radio adaptations was recorded in 1975,
and later that year, Dad's Army took on another new incarnation.
ALL: Woo!
Jimmy Perry and David Croft had already incorporated musical
set pieces into the hit television show.
Now, a singing and dancing version of Dad's Army was heading for the stage.
We were on location filming, and we were all summoned up to Jimmy Perry's room,
and he said, "Oh, we're going to do a stage show of this.
"It's going to be a musical," and he went on and on and on about it.
Great enthusiasm, you know, everything's going to be brilliant,
and then he turned to Ian and he said,
"I've got this wonderful...where you dream about having a
banana, and you actually become a banana, and you'll be dressed
as a banana," and Ian's face was a total picture.
And Teddy Sinclair, who played the verger,
said, "That all sounds very interesting."
# When can I have a banana again? Tell me, mother, do... #
Here's a rare sight of that spectacular banana-based
musical number, filmed behind-the-scenes by Frank Williams.
I remember saying to Arthur, "Arthur, I'm thinking of getting
a cine camera, what would you suggest?"
And he said, "Well, if you're going to use it, Frank, I think it
should be something very simple."
Jeffrey Holland would go on to star in two Perry and Croft
television series, but he was still making his way when cast in
the Dad's Army stage show.
It was the chorus, basically,
the boys and girls of the ensemble,
and I was, er, understudy Private Pike and Private Walker.
A disastrous afternoon came along once when I was asked to do a
matinee as Private Pike because Ian Lavender, for some reason,
was unavailable that afternoon. And I learnt the lines,
they all came out in the right order, but I didn't get a
single laugh all afternoon, because I wasn't Ian Lavender.
The only laughs I did get were from the boys and girls in the
chorus behind me, who were sniggering up their sleeves because
I wasn't getting laughs from the audience.
It was a disaster, but it was good fun.
BBC cameras captured the Dad's Army stage show in London's
West End in October 1975.
Look me straight in the eyes, Wilson.
Right, sir.
Look out!
No, no, please, please. I'm sorry, sir, but that wasn't fair.
I wasn't ready.
No, the bosh won't be ready, either.
And they put it together from little bits and pieces of vignettes
from various episodes of the TV series, you know,
linked together with huge musical numbers.
It was an incredible idea, and it really did work so well.
# We three in Happidrome
# Working for the BBC
# Ramsbottom
# and Enoch
# and me. #
APPLAUSE
I've brought you some sausages.
I know you like a nice banger.
We've got one of our own, Jones.
Unexploded bombs featured in Dad's Army television scripts more
than once, but in London the stage show was disrupted by a real-life bomb scare.
Well, it was the time of the IRA, and we all had to evacuate the
theatre, the audience and everything.
Well, of course, if you ask actors to evacuate the theatre and
there's a pub opposite, they're all going to disappear into the pub.
And I remember the sort of look of surprise on the regular
customers' faces, seeing people in Home Guard uniform, and a
vicar and a warden and all those people coming into the pub.
Arnold Ridley celebrated his 80th
birthday during the stage show's West End run, but he still
joined the cast on the subsequent national tour,
a bonding experience for all concerned.
Put a lot of actors together and you really do get to know them...
Yeah. ..in a way that you don't when you're just doing
a television series.
JEFFREY: I got very close to John Le Mesurier over the couple of years
that we were doing the show.
He was a wonderful man, in lots of ways.
Very calming and a wonderful, sort of, calming nature and lovely to
be with and talk to. I enjoyed his company very much.
# The streets of town
# They're paved with stars
# It was such
# A romantic affair
# And as we kissed and said goodnight
# A nightingale sang
# In Berkeley Square. #
The stage show was a happy experience, not only for its stars,
but also for their families.
There were some really great days out where we went to Longleat
and Beaulieu and we had an open-topped bus at some point
and all the people were waving and so, you now, special memories.
I now look back and think, well,
what a lucky kid to be amongst
all this and have these great times.
Though, for all the fun of touring, one member of the cast
stressed that the show must come first.
We were in Richmond, and my home was in Coventry, and I got a phone
call just before the finale of the matinee from my mother-in-law
to tell me that my wife had gone into labour.
So as soon as the curtain fell, I just legged it.
I legged it and was by her bedside when the baby was born.
When I got back to the theatre on the following day,
there was a note in my pigeon-hole waiting for me.
Erm,
"Mr Holland, Mr Lowe would like to see you in his dressing room
when you arrive, please."
So, I thought, hello, I'm in trouble.
He never looked at me,
he wouldn't look at me, and he said, "What you did last night was
very unprofessional." And he still wasn't looking at me.
He was doing his eyebrows and his moustache.
He said, "You should have been here, you should have been here.
"The show comes first, babies are born all the time."
Needless to say, the first flowers to arrive at the wife and
baby's bedside were from the Lowes.
The Dad's Army stage show was seen in London and Manchester,
Blackpool and Bath, Bournemouth, Birmingham and beyond, and
gave those involved some memories to treasure.
It was one of the happiest years I've ever spent in my life.
It was wonderful, the stage show.
I mean, we had a wonderful time.
One highlight being an appearance at the 1975 Royal Variety Performance.
# We thought we could hear the curious tone
# Of the cornett, clarinet and big trombone
# Fiddle, cello, big bass drum,
# Bassoon, a flute and euphonium
# Each one making the most of his chance
# All together in the Floral Dance
# Dancing here, prancing there
# Jigging, jogging everywhere
# Up and down and around the town
#Hurr-a-a-h for the
# Co-o-orni-i-ish
# Flo-o-oral
# Da-a-ance. #
APPLAUSE
Coming up in part three,
Dad's Army reaches the end of the road.
David and Jimmy were sensible enough to want to go out when we were still on the top.
Hello again.
It's time to go back to the autumn of 1977.
Dad's Army was still pulling in millions of viewers, but as
the ninth series reached the air, it seemed that the men of
B Company No 1 Platoon were about to be demobbed.
The platoon had certainly forsaken their uniforms...
Platoon halt! ..in the first episode of the series.
Look, this is no good, Wilson.
We don't look suspicious or furtive enough.
The episode I did was called Wake-Up Walmington.
Halt!
You silly old fool, I nearly ran you over!
What do you want?
FAUX GERMAN ACCENT: I want to know, where is the aerodrome?
What aerodrome?
Er...
..well, any aerodrome.
The premise of it was that Mainwaring and Hodges had got their
heads together and decided that Walmington-on-Sea was becoming very
complacent about the war and nobody was taking it seriously enough.
We'll shake this town out of its complacency.
Oh, thank you, Napoleon.
You and me together, we'll give them a fright they'll never forget.
So they decided that they would dress up as what were then
known as fifth columnists and shake the town up a bit.
You know, look suspicious and behave suspiciously.
The most ridiculous costumes you've ever seen.
Do you think that fits the bill?
I think it looks absurd.
And they walk face-to-face with these guys who were dressed
identically to them.
Show us your papers.
Show us YOUR papers.
Oh, I've had enough of this.
In the name of the King, I demand to see your papers.
The episode ends with the fifth columnists under attack from
Captain Square and the Eastgate platoon.
Even in its ninth series, Dad's Army was still capable of
providing action, laughter and surprises.
And the show broke new ground in the very next episode,
when Mr Hodges' niece... Cheers. Oh, cheers. ..takes a shine to Private Pike.
You've got smashing eyebrows.
AUDIENCE TITTER
You've got smashing eyebrows.
I loved that line.
I said you've got smashing eyebrows.
Have I?
She's the one who really drives the, er...
..the assignation.
"Drive" being the key word there, as the script sees Jean's
character unofficially borrowing Captain Mainwaring's new staff car.
No harm in just sitting in it.
Jean had been cast as army driver Sylvia, despite not owning a
driving licence.
That hadn't been a problem for location shots like this,
filmed on private land, but became a major issue when the car had
to exit the studio set.
You can tell me the way to get there. What're you doing?
They said, "Well, don't worry,
we'll pull you off and we'll add the engine noises afterwards."
So I said, "Well, fine."
Look, we'll get into trouble.
Relax, we're going to the pictures.
We'll get into trouble. You'll get me really into trouble!
Not being an experienced driver, I thought, "I don't have to do
anything," so I just sat there and we did the scene and they started
pulling us off and I thought, "Why are they pulling me into the camera?"
We were headed straight for the camera.
But I'd forgotten the one thing I still had to do,
which was steer,
and the look on the cameraman's face...
Sylvia's date with Private Pike is a bit of a letdown, but for the
actress playing her, the role provided a wealth of warm
memories of Ian Lavender and the cast.
It was a real pleasure, honour and treat to work with Ian and to
work with the whole cast, actually.
Ian couldn't have been nicer and he was so in the skin of who he was
that it made it very easy just to play off him.
What're we going to do?
Let's find a haystack and spend the night beneath the stars
in each other's arms.
Get off!
I hadn't imagined it would still be so popular,
but I'm delighted that it was. And I can see why it is,
because, erm, they were all such wonderful, seasoned performers
and they all had such strong individual characters and they were funny.
This is Sergeant Wilson.
How do you do, Sergeant Wilson?
So I really feel honoured, and grateful, and happy that I was
given this wonderful opportunity. And it was the first time I'd
been to a rehearsal where nobody wore jeans.
Right, give me your leg. That's it.
The viewers tuning into Dad's Army in their millions in 1977
were treated to a feast of brilliant comedy business, along with
Captain Mainwaring's endless irritation with Sergeant Wilson.
Why have you brought that stupid-looking dog?
Well, the knights always used to have them, sir.
Why must you give yourself airs all the time?
Why don't you behave normally, like me?
LAUGHTER
But just a day after the filming of Walmington's Wings For Victory Pageant,
the press reported that Dad's Army was coming to an end.
Dad's Army ended in 1977,
and it was a parting of the ways for
a troupe that had become very close
to each other, and I think that was probably quite painful.
Well, I suppose
David and Jimmy were sensible enough to want
to go out when we were still on the top, and we were. Yeah.
I mean, it was still really, really popular.
It was really an inevitable decision.
The cast, all the cast were getting older.
Many of them had health problems.
They were perhaps glad to be freed to go and do other work and
pursue other interests, but, yeah, it was never quite the same again.
There was still, sort of, a bit of thought that possibly they'd
do some more and then, of course, Teddy Sinclair,
who played the verger, died and I think it was at Teddy's
funeral that Arthur Lowe said, "Well, that's it.
"There won't be any more Dad's Army."
And I think it was a right decision... Yes.
..because you don't want to limp on... No, no, that's true. ..not being as good as you had been.
The final episode of Dad's Army was transmitted on Sunday
the 13th of November, 1977.
Titled Never Too Old, it saw Lance Corporal Jones finally marry
Mrs Fox, the woman of his dreams.
I see her face everywhere I go.
I see it in the trees and the hills.
I even saw it yesterday on the gasworks.
However, an invasion scare interrupts the wedding celebrations,
and the happy couple spend their first night as newlyweds
with Mr Jones on guard duty.
When this is all over, Jack,
can we go and live in a little cottage?
Yes.
With roses round the door.
Oh, yes.
And a big fridge in the kitchen.
What do we want a big fridge for?
To keep all the big joints of meat in.
Well, after the war? Oh, yes, after the war.
Not that we won't have a joint or two before then, of course.
The series ended quietly, with the members of the platoon
gathered together on Walmington Pier and, in truth, at the time,
the end of Dad's Army didn't provoke a massive amount of comment...
..though a national tabloid did lay on a farewell dinner, where Arthur
Lowe announced he wouldn't want such a rubbishy newspaper in his home.
I don't usually sit at the rear of the stalls.
I usually sit in the grand circle or the two and threepennies. Yes.
Well, of course, you just have to take what seats
you can, you know, in wartime. Oh, yes.
This war seems to be an excuse for anything. You can't even go to the cinema
without it becoming a bacchanalian orgy.
Really...
I could watch those episodes again and again and not fail to laugh,
and it's like seeing family and I'm very lucky in that
respect that he's kind of immortalised for me.
Characters from Dad's Army were brought back by Michael Knowles
and Harold Snoad for the radio comedy It Sticks Out Half A Mile.
Then, in the early '90s,
Saturday teatime repeats on BBC One brought Dad's Army to a new
generation of viewers, and its popularity has not waned since.
I once went to do a talk at a church and the vicar greeted me and
he said, "I want you to meet your youngest fan," and I said, "Oh?"
And he said, "Yes, it's my three-year-old granddaughter."
So I thought that... There you are.
And they'd just showed an episode where Mainwaring and I had
had a bit of an argy-bargy about the office.
Good evening. What are you doing at my desk, vicar?
May I remind you, Captain Mainwaring, that this is my office
and my desk and it is only through my good intentions
in this hour of our country's need that I allow you to share it.
But I have a lot of work to do.
Well, the vicar's got a lot of work to do as well.
You keep out of this, Wilson.
And suddenly this three-year-old looked up at me, and she said,
"Tell me, that desk, is it yours or is it Captain Mainwaring's?"
And I thought, "She's even following the plot!"
It's amazing.
Coming up in part four...
The other foot is in the boat.
..just what is it that makes Dad's Army so great?
FAUX SCOTS ACCENT: Did I ever tell you the story
of the old, empty barn...?
Welcome back to Saluting Dad's Army.
It's decades since Captain Mainwaring and his men
recorded their last adventure, but of course, Dad's Army
continues to delight its millions of fans.
Why is that? Just why do we love it so very much?
Now, don't start any of that public school cheating with me.
I watched it all as a kid and just thought it was funny,
and then, as you get older, you see the class thing between
Mainwaring and Wilson, which is really... I never noticed that
that as a child, and that becomes more and more absorbing and fascinating.
Perhaps you'd care to explain.
Yes, well, you see, one of my uncles died without leaving any
children, so that meant that my side of the family moved up one
place, so to speak, and so, therefore, I am now the Honourable.
Bless my soul. Yes.
Well, I don't really see why it should make any difference
to you and me.
You can bet your bottom dollar it won't make any difference to you and me.
The thing that fuels the comedy in the relationship between
Mainwaring and Wilson is, I think,
that kind of simmering anger in Mainwaring that this isn't fair.
You never fought for anything in your life.
Brought up by a nanny. Father, something in the City.
All you've had to do is just sit back and let everything come to you.
It is the longing in Mainwaring
to, sort of, be accepted,
which you know he will never, ever achieve.
He'll never get there.
Hello, Bathurst. Golf all right?
Good.
And then there's that brilliant
moment where he's trying to describe how to get into a boat,
and he says, "it's very simple,
you just simply put one foot in the boat."
I'll observe that I keep one foot on the ladder here
and one hand on the post here.
The other foot is in the boat thus.
And then, of course, inevitably,
the boat starts to depart and he's left doing the splits.
LAUGHTER
So this kind of ridiculous clown of a character is born of this
brilliant sense of the English class system and people trying to
get above their station but never managing it, and us all loving
the fact that they can't.
You'll excuse us, Mannington. Yes, erm...
..Mainwaring, actually.
Though, as well as his vain battle to climb the social ladder,
Captain Mainwaring has another struggle on his hands,
with the unseen, terrifying Mrs Mainwaring.
FRAGILE VOICE: Hello, Elizabeth?
In a way, Mainwaring's life was a sort of attempt to impress
his own wife, which was ultimately pointless.
I might have a little surprise for you tonight.
No, no, I've...I bought...
He's clearly absolutely terrified of this woman.
There's one moment where he says,
"Oh, yes, a very happy marriage, very happy indeed."
I've had a very happy marriage.
Very happy, indeed.
And he does this extraordinary wince, which tells you 35 years
of difficulty between the two of them, but just a brilliant,
brilliant moment of description by him about his wife.
Mainwaring's pretence about his marriage falls apart amid a
doomed romance in the episode Mum's Army,
proof the series could carry real emotional punch.
Mum's Army, where Mainwaring has a sort of brief encounter with
a character played by Carmen Silvera, I mean,
I just think that is a beautifully moving moment.
What's this? What's happened.
Nothing's happened. I'm just going back to London, that's all.
For how long? I don't know.
A month or two.
Perhaps for good.
But you never mentioned it. You never even hinted at it.
I just thought it would be for the best.
But...
..but I don't want you to go.
The whole pattern of my life has changed.
I just live from one meeting to the next. I know.
And I'm just the same, but it's the only thing to do.
People are talking.
People always talk. Who cares about that?
But there's your wife.
Huh! Nobody'll talk to her.
LAUGHTER
She hasn't left the house since Munich.
The romantic drama of Mum's Army was David Croft's favourite of all
80 Dad's Army episodes.
Promise you'll write.
Very well. I promise.
Make it soon.
Goodbye, George.
Goodbye.
I think the beauty of the character writing, as well,
was that it got to a stage where, you know,
you are so involved with the characters that when they
take a risk creatively and doing it, like the episode where they discover
that Godfrey was a conscientious objector in the First World War...
I'm terribly sorry about this, Captain Mainwaring.
I've enjoyed, so much, being with you all and I only hope that my
service has given every satisfaction.
Get out.
..that carries a huge emotional charge with it as well,
because you're so invested in all those characters.
Cigarette out. No smoking in there.
The story takes a dramatic twist when the platoon practises
escaping from a smoke-filled building.
Now, Godfrey, you're not going to get out of this one.
I'm not trying to get out of it, sir.
You'd jolly well like to, wouldn't you? Off you go.
Remember, I'll be right behind you.
None of your damn conchie tricks here.
Godfrey saving Mainwaring in the fire, which is incredible,
it's like an amazing bit of drama.
It's like, what?
Mr...
..Mr Hodges!
All right, Captain Mainwaring, I'm coming.
Godfrey rescues Captain Mainwaring, and as he recovers from his
heroics, the platoon visits him at home.
Wait a minute. You're wearing the Military Medal.
Yes, that's right.
But you told us that you were a damn...
..that you were a conscientious objector. So I was.
Well, how could you win the MM?
He volunteered to join the Medical Corps,
and during the Battle of the Somme, he went out into no-man's land
under heavy fire and saved several lives.
Oh, no, it wasn't as heavy as all that, you know?
They realised how wrong their judgment had been. Mm-hm.
And I think the fact that Jimmy and David could do things like
that was pretty brilliant.
In Dad's Army, you are seeing a lot of catchphrases coming through,
but they were never looking for catchphrases.
This was just what emerged from the characters once they'd formed.
"Do you think that's wise, sir?" just sums up Sergeant Wilson.
"Don't panic! They don't like it up 'em!" is the defiance of Corporal Jones.
Very early on, when Steve Punt and I had a kind of, you know, sort of
double act on the cabaret circuit, Frazer used to come into it a lot.
I used to spend a lot of time going, "Oh, we're doomed!"
You know, and all that.
We're doomed! Doomed!
There's one very memorable bit which I kept on saying over and over,
probably wrongly, but where he goes, "Did I ever tell you the
story of the old empty barn...?"
The story of the old empty barn.
Well...
"..there was nothing in it." It's just...
I don't know why, it just tickled me at the time.
Report to the church hall at six o'clock.
And here's another reason why we love Dad's Army.
There's a lot of it to love -
80 episodes,
a rare feat in British television history.
It's a huge achievement that Perry and Croft kept up that
quality over all that time.
I think it just comes from them knowing those characters so well.
You know, Wilson, over the years that I've come to know the members
of this platoon, I've grown quite fond of them.
But I can't help feeling sometimes that I'm in charge of a bunch of idiots.
If you make something rock solid,
which has real soul and meaning and incredibly well-acted and
just hilarious, people will always like it, you know?
Some of the most precious times I spent with my dad were watching
an episode of Dad's Army together, and this was when he was 90, 91, 92.
And him just smiling and appreciating and you can stand back
and you just think, "Isn't this wonderful?"
And there's not many shows that can do that.
Mr Mainwaring? Mm.
Warden wasn't right, was he, when he said the Nazis would walk
straight through us?
Of course he wasn't right.
I know one thing, they're not walking straight through me.
Nor me.
I'll be beside you, Jonesy.
We'll all be beside you, Jonesy.
We'll stick together, you can rely on that.
Anybody who tries to take our homes or our freedom away from us,
they'll find out what we can do.
We'll fight.
There's a brilliant moment at the end where they all raise
their tin mugs and they propose a toast to the Home Guard.
And we're not alone.
There are thousands of us all over England.
And Scotland. And Scotland.
All over Great Britain, in fact. Men who'll stand together when their country needs them.
Excuse me, sir, don't you think it might be a nice idea if we
were to pay our tribute to them?
For once, Wilson, I agree with you.
To Britain's Home Guard.
ALL: To Britain's Home Guard.
That seems just perfect and extraordinary and brilliant
and really moving as a definition of what this thing was.
The relationships have a kind of timeless quality about them
and a sort of timeless observation of what it is to be British.
And what I hope we'll continue to preserve is that sense of,
you know, being together,
of having things in common,
of keeping perspective and knowing what's important in life
that makes that show a show that I hope will go on forever.
But remember, men, we have one invaluable weapon on our side.
We have an unbreakable spirit to win.
A bulldog tenacity that will help us to hang on while there's
breath left in our bodies.
You don't get that with Gestapos and jackboots.
You get that by being British.
So, come on, Adolf! We're ready for you.
ALL: Hooray!
Well, that's about it.
It's been my huge pleasure to explore the story of
Dad's Army and to hear from so many people involved in the
making of this magical piece of television history.
But, let's be honest, you don't want to hear all that from me.
You want to see this.
I am making notes, Captain,
and your name will go on the list.
And when we win the war, you will be brought to account.
You write what you like. You're not going to win this war.
Oh, yes, we are. Oh, no, you're not. Oh, yes, we are.
# Whistle while you work
# Hitler is a twerp
# He's half barmy, so's his army
# Whistle while you... #
Your name will also go on the list.
What is it?
Don't tell him, Pike!
Pike.