Don't Panic! - Dad's Army comes to the Stage
A Hereford-based theatre company is to revive the classic sitcom Dad's Army for the stage.
The production will consist of three shows, with their scripts adapted for the stage. Two of them are shows that are missing, presumed wiped by the BBC. One is 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Walker', which sees spiv Private Walker being called up, and the platoon trying their best to stop him going.
The second is 'A Stripe for Frazer'. Here, the pessimistic Scot is promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal, with Mainwaring planning to promote wither him or Jones to a full corporal, but the power goes to Frazer's head.
The final show played is 'The Deadly Attachment', possibly the most famous episode, where the Home Guard capture a German U-Boat crew.
The cast will include Leslie Grantham, most famous as Dirty Den from EastEnders, as Walker and Peter Martin (Joe Carroll in The Royle Family and Len Reynolds in Emmerdale) as Captain Mainwaring.
The stage shows will even play 1940s music during the intervals, as was done in the original television version.
This is not the first time Dad's Army has been taken to the stage. Apart from several amateur revivals, there was a stage version of the show featuring the main cast in 1975-76, although at this point James Beck (Walker) had passed away.
Ed O'Driscoll, the producer, told the Media Guardian, "These episodes have not been done by a professional company since they were filmed for the BBC in the 1960s and we are delighted to be able to showcase them for people who were almost certainly only able to read the scripts before. They will be able to see them done professionally and in the spirit in which they were intended."
Writer Jimmy Perry has welcomed the production saying, "I am delighted that these missing episodes will be made available to such a wide audience and that the popularity of the show is still strong."
The show is still popular. It was voted forth in the British Best Sitcom poll on the BBC, seventh in Channel 4's The Ultimate Sitcom poll (voted by comedy experts), 13th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes created by the BFI, and Captain Mainwaring was came 29th in The World's Greatest Comedy Characters poll last Saturday.
The theatre company's tour begins in the first week of September and is likely to run until late spring next year. It will be taking in venues including Stevenage, Northampton, Dartford, Southend, Cardiff, Wycombe and Manchester's Lowry Centre.