James Beck

Dad's Army at 50: sitcom celebrates half-century

BBC's classic Second World War comedy centred around pompous Captain Mainwaring's attempts to instil strict discipline into ageing band of brothers.

Radio Times review

The sight of the Vicar and Verger in battledress is just one of many rarities in this extraordinary affair. Among the others are Mainwaring laid up in a hospital bed (with ingrowing toenails), Frazer brandishing a live white mouse on parade and Godfrey having a big speech to remember. Also, poignantly, a note on the floor where James Beck should be standing. This was the first story not to feature Walker; thereafter, bizarrely, he was never mentioned again.

Overlooking a few old-school lines that don't bear repeating, there are a handful of treasures, including Wilson's annoyance at Mainwaring treating him like a labrador, and Frazer comparing the Verger's face to a sour prune.

James Beck: the Dad's Army star cut off in his prime

James Beck, aka Dad's Army's Private Walker, died 40 years ago today.

Mainwaring has allowed Welsh journalist Mr Cheeseman (Talfryn Thomas) to join the Home Guard in order to help him write an article entitled Captain Mainwaring: Man of Action. "There's no question mark," Mainwaring quickly points out to his troops. And when Pike gets his head stuck in the park railings and a bomb explodes near Walmington, the captain's forced to live up to the headline.

The character of Cheeseman, who was brought in to fill the gap created when James Beck (Private Walker) died, was described as "irritating without being funny" by writer David Croft. However, the "bath permit" scene between Jones and Mr Bluett is one to savour.

Nostalgia at the End of the Pier

Yes, I think we all felt this was the last - the end of the raod for Dad's Army," says Bill Pertwee of It Sticks Out Half a Mile, the radio sequel to TV's enduring Home Guard comedy success. The series - which begins a repeat run on Tuesday and includes a bonus of four previously unheard episodes - was recorded early last year (1983) abd was to be the last ever completed by John Le Mesurier.

Bill - who of course, played that dirty-fingernailed greengrocer and one-time Air Raid Warden Bert Hodges - believes the whole cast knew that it would probably was the last time they would all work together, though such feelings went unspoken. "The series had originally been mainly written around Arthur Lowe and John, and when Arthur died it had to be re-jigged. John had not been well, though he was feeling better when we recorded the series, but I think we all realised that we'd had a great run - the programmes started on TV in 1968 - and we were coming to the end of it. We'd lost so many of the original cast- Arhtur, John, Laurie, Arnold Ridley, Edward Sinclair, James Beck and a few months later, John was dead too."

I asked Bill to assess the show's enduring appeal. "When it started there was a lot fo kitchen sink drama around and people were pleased to sit back and laugh at this rather gentle company of people," he says, "The younger viewers enjoyed the Mack Sennet routines - the chases and so on - while the older viewers found it extremely nostalgic."

Bill himself had come from a variety background, including playing at the Windmill, and has recently returned to farce with two big hits for the Theatre of Comedy Company in London. "The rest of the Dad's Army cast were all actors, really, so I'd never worked with any of them beofre. We were all terribly different but there was a tremendous camaraderie between us. It was very hard work, but we had wonderfully happy times. You can't help but be sad when you look back now, can you?"