The legacy of Dad's Army

There is surely no better programme to cheer the nation in the event of a technical problem with live television than Dad’s Army ; the BBC apparently keeps a reel on standby. The first episode of the much-loved sitcom — The Man and the Hour — was broadcast on July 31, 1968, with the theme tune Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Hitler? sung by Bud Flanagan. The series, written by David Croft (1922–2011) and Jimmy Perry (1923–2016), also responsible for It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum and Hi-de-Hi!, ran for 80 episodes and nine years, attracted audiences of 20 million and is still repeated most weeks.

Perry had himself been a teenage member of the Home Guard and based the unworldly mummy’s boy Pte Pike on himself; ‘You stupid boy!’ was a catchphrase of his father’s. He started writing Dad’s Army (original title The Fighting Tigers) when his acting career stalled, initially intending to play the wideboy Pte Walker himself, and teamed up with Croft, a producer.

Much of their genius lies in the subtle in-jokes — laconic Sgt Wilson’s affair with Pike’s mother (Pike innocently called him ‘Uncle Arthur’), Capt Mainwaring’s domineering yet never-seen wife, Elizabeth, and his chippy irritation at Wilson’s ‘public-school habits’, the camp vicar and the abrasive warden — and the sense that, under the buffoonery, they were genuinely prepared to die for their country.

There was also the exquisite comic timing and predictability of the characters: Cpl Jones’s combination of gung-ho bravery and hysterical panicking, elderly Pte Godfrey’s pleas to ‘be excused’ and Scottish undertaker Pte Frazer’s manic ‘We’re doomed!’.

Arthur Lowe, who won multiple awards for playing the pompous Mainwaring (the episode in which he doubles up as his drunk twin is outstanding), was in real life hopeless at learning his words and had a clause in his contract that he was never to be filmed without trousers.

Thetford's starring role

Thetford in Norfolk doubled up as Walmington-on-Sea in the filming of Dad’s Army and has a museum commemorating those days; objects include Jones’s butcher’s van. The town even has a statue of Arthur Lowe as Mainwaring, a fact so incredible that we've reproduced a picture here purely to prove it: