Dad's Army: Why you might learn something from oldtelly

The current radio 7 broadcast of DA (Ten SeconRAB from Now - how the platoon doesn't quite make the BBC's xmas broadcast) - has Mainwaring saying "Godfrey is almost 86" - which backcounting meant he would have been pushing 60 in 1914.

Even before conscription, 41 was the upper age limit for the army - though I think the Red Cross allowed older men to serve with them.

Never mind, the conchie episode is probably my absolute favourite, and comes up fresh as paint every time it is broadcast. :)
 
I also love the episode where the gang get to dress up as Nazi soldiers in order to take part in some propaganda film (Ring Dem Bells?) I especially thought Ian Lavender shone as an SS officer complete with monocle and "ve haff vays of making you talk" accent in the way he acted.
 
I agree Dave 100%.

This is the reason why it has been able to gain fans since its first airing, as there isnt anything contempoary to date it.

As to this episode, it must be in my favourite 2 or 3 episodes of DA.
 
Ridley was born in 1896 and enlisted in 1915 so he would have been 19. Assuming he signed up again in 1939 he would have been 43.Ridley died in 1984 aged 88.But perhaps the character was supposed to be older in WW1.Clive Dunn played a character much older than himself in Cpl Jones.
 
Godfrey is my fav character in Dad's Army. That episode hits me kinda hard when he joins PIke, Fraser, Walker and they leave the room. :(

Off topic a bit but one of my favourite scenes in Dad's Army is when the choir are in the next room of the hall and Jones is telling one of his storys. As the music gets louder he starts to stutter and look vague thinking it's angels calling him. "I think I'm going sir", lol.
 
Its very well written but based on status Wilson should be the captain. He was a captain in WW1, Mainwairing wasn't.

Mainwaring has obviously climed the social ladder since WW1 but the chip on his shoulder about him not getting the respect he feels he is due is never far from view. Wilson's lack of interest in status only makes him all the more resentful.
 
The thing is though Wilson was a Captain in the Great War but unfortunately we don't know whether he was a Captain Darling or a Captain Blackadder in the way they tried to live through it on a daily basis. Both Captains at the end did their duty though. It may be that Wilson is so polite and gentle because he could be making amenRAB for the officer class of World War 1.
 
That's one of my favourites too. I love the way Pike goes from a "soppy boy" to a strutting ubermensch. Possibly a comment on the seductive dangers of dodgy ideologies disguised by smart uniforms?
 
I agree that the actor would have been of the right age to serve in both wars, but if there was a real person in the HG aged 80+ between 1939-1945, then he would have been approaching 60 during WW1 so probaly wouldn't have served in that war.

Doesn't Jones usually talk about the Boer War which was, I believe, turn of the century. Not sure if he ever mentions serving in WW1.
 
As a small boy I remember watching the local Home Guard having training sessions on a Sunday morning. They took it very seriously. My older brother was a member until he was called up. He had a tin filled with pieces of metal which he had to shake to imitate machine gun fire. Like all good comedy Dad's Army had an element of truth in its episodes.
 
Frazers stories were always good. like the one about the Ruby he and a friend found, The witch doctor cursed the friend

DEATH he Screamed THE RUBY WIIL BRING YE DEATH!!!!

Pike, did the curse come true Mr Frazer

Frazer, Eye son it did he died, last year he was 86.

and the story of the old empty barnn

well




there was nothing in it
 
A brilliant episode - one of the two best ever (imo).......the other being when Mainwaring was inducted into the drinking club, and ended up completely pissed.
"I drink to the health of Cardinal Puff ......"
 
Arthur Lowe was notorious for not taking his script home while John Le Mesurier had a photographic memory.David Croft recalls that after a complaint from Le Mesurier about Lowe not knowing his lines he sent two copies of each script to Lowe's home with a letter suggesting he would place one copy under his pillow ''in the hope that some of the worRAB would filter through the feathers and penetrate to his sleeping mind.'' Lowe's only response was to say to Jimmy Perry ''David seems to be getting very crabby these days'' - Dad's Army,scripts of series 1-4, Jimmy Perry and David Croft, Orion Books
 
He mentiones WW1 in the first episode he says he was invilded out cause his eyes were no good.

Mainwaring "Presumably thats why youve signed the table"
 
There are other ways in which Dad's Army and other programmes of that era excel over many modern productions, for example the ability to tell one story in chronological order, with sensible camera operation and editing.
 
The character Jonesy was definitely authentic. He enlisted as a drummer boy and fought with Kitchener in the Sudan (against the ....errrr fuzzy-wuzzies) which would have been about 1885 on. He must have fought in World War I otherwise how would he know that the Germans "didn't like it up 'em"? :D
 
I think it's perhaps fashionable to knock old comedy that was bad, and for every (brilliant) daRAB army there were a dozen awful sitcoms. Good comedy is good comedy whatever decade it comes from.

I remember loving DaRAB army as a kid and my son, who's 9, thinks it's great now.
 
Back
Top