Dad's Army

Radio Times review

Captain Mainwaring is clearly enjoying being in charge of his Local Defence Volunteers, but pressure is mounting on him at their lack of weapons. Then Colonel Square (Geoffrey Lumsden) pays a first visit, offering rifles on the condition that he takes over command. It's a well-scripted dilemma introducing a nice note of drama, and leads to an untypically emotional outcome.

It's also a noteworthy episode for Jones, who cries, faints and makes a surprising confession. The usual sloppy drill and ineffectual training are geed up by some amusing horseplay (look out for the film being reversed). And it's helpful for the purpose of one punchline to know that Odol was a toothpaste!

Radio Times review

The appropriately titled Museum Piece, from August 1968, sees Walmington-on-Sea LDV - still without uniform or any sense of cohesion - trying to take arms against the sea of troubles. Typically, however, the volunteers are outwitted by an 88-year-old man (the father of Lance Corporal Jones, no less!). What's needed is a dash of cunning, not to mention a few slugs from a bottle of whisky - and that's just by Private Frazer.

A quaint feature of these early outings, a Pathé-style catch-up with the platoon, gives us plenty of knockabout silliness. A temperamental Chinese rocket gun and a recalcitrant horse add to the fun.

Meet Frank Williams: the great survivor of Dad's Army

He is the man whose face probably first comes to mind if one is asked to think of a fictional television vicar. Actor Frank Williams first put on his dog collar to play the part of the Reverend Timothy Farthing in Dad's Army 46 years ago. Now 83, he's still going strong, appearing in the new film of Dad's Army, released early next year and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. He is touring the UK in a show in which he recalls his long career. Along with Ian Lavender, who played Private Pike, Frank is the only surviving regular cast member from the original series.

Radio Times review

A chance to discover how it all began, as BBC Two repeats the show's black-and-white curtain raiser. If you've never seen it before, check out the amazing prologue - the only time Dad's Army was set in the present day (1968).

"Alderman" George Mainwaring is guest of honour at Walmington's "I'm Backing Britain" campaign launch, and addresses older versions of his former platoon members. They include Godfrey (with glasses), Pike (smoking, with 'tache), Walker (without 'tache) and Frazer (ancient, like George Bernard Shaw). We won't quibble about how old some of these characters would have to be - although we don't see Jones, sadly.

Then we hurtle back to the war years, when a comparatively polite Mainwaring first galvanised the men of the town into a defence force ("Ah, thank you, Mr Wilson"!).

It won't be the sitcom you're used to (Frazer introduces himself as the owner of a philatelist's shop; Godfrey is the only volunteer to possess a gun...) and yet it's a superb scene-setter, raring to burst out of the blocks and full of rousing speeches about unbreakable spirit and bulldog tenacity.

It's formative and fascinating.

Archive: review of Dad's Army debut episode from 1968

Dad's Army attracted an audience of nearly 20 million in its heyday but the Telegraph's 1968 review of the much-loved sitcom's first-ever episode was only lukewarm. This review was published on August 1, 1968. It was written by the-then Telegraph TV critic Sean Day-Lewis, half-brother of Oscar-winner Daniel.

Radio Times review

It's funny to think that what was unpopular back in 1977, when this episode was first broadcast, remains unpopular today. When Private Frazer rounds on Mainwaring with the words "I don't trust banks, I don't trust bankers and I don't trust you!" he gets a warm round of applause from the studio audience. You see, the captain has been dropping unsubtle hints when he learns that the wily Scot keeps his savings in the form of a stash of gold sovereigns.

It's a not-so-familar episode that gives plenty of airtime to the manic gibberings of John Laurie (who plays Frazer), but there are other delights, too: the rare spectacle of a tiddly Sergeant Wilson, a scene set in Hodges' greengrocer's, Fulton Mackay in his second (different) guest role for the show and Jones blowing accidental raspberries during a gas-mask drill.

Radio Times review

"He's used to being unpopular... he's a bank manager." A nice gag; funny then, topical now. It opens this 1977 episode, a surprising little rite-of-passage tale in which a proud-as-punch Mainwaring gets a staff car, and Pike borrows it for his date with Hodges' flirty niece Sylvia.

It's a chance to see other sides of Walmington (a café serving brightly coloured pop) and its characters (Pike with a girlfriend; Wilson giving him a men-of-the-world chat). It's heady stuff for dear old Dad's Army, but comfort yourself with more traditional fare, such as Mainwaring being needled by Wilson's public-school ways (sadly, John Le Mesurier looks noticeably gaunt) and some prolonged, panto-style musical chairs in the staff car.

Radio Times review

Some Home Guard admin elicits the expected peevishness from Mainwaring in this late-era episode. The Captain reveals his written character assessment of his sergeant to the man himself: "Your general bearing is very slack." Wilson's disparaging laughter at all the red-tape nonsense sounds so genuine that you wonder whether something tickled John Le Mesurier during recording.

It leads to a platoon recruitment drive that requires a face to go on the accompanying poster, but whose should it be? "We should all vote in a secret ballet," suggests Jones. Among other delights are Godfrey's mortified expression at the suggestion that he's being rude, and some top-drawer doddering from Harold Bennett as Mr Blewitt.

Radio Times review

The show goes a bit Swallows and Amazons this week (Arthur Lowe meets Arthur Ransome, if you will) in a largely lake-based adventure. The platoon's fieldcraft training is capsized by the arrival of the Vicar, Verger and Hodges with the sea scouts and, later, three Germans who have bailed out of their aircraft and float helplessly in a dinghy.

If the story is all a bit loose and lacking urgency, there's still pleasure in predicting what's going to happen when (a certain someone ending up in the water, for example), and listen out for Wilson's somewhat out-of-character spikiness to Captain Mainwaring: "I don't think even you can walk on the water."

Note the day-for-night filming, and the mismatch between videotaped studio recordings and the filmed location scenes, both of which root it firmly in the 70s. And the cast must have loved the outdoor shoots, because it was always sunny!

This week's "who knew?" is Hodges' ability to speak German, having been a guard in a prisoner of war camp during the previous conflict.

Radio Times review

This episode's mini-drama serves as a neat mission statement for the show, when the tussle over Godrey's home becomes a metaphor for the struggle against Germany. "This cottage stands for England," says the loyal, smiley private, as his comrades dither over telling him his house will have to be demolished to make way for a new aerodrome.

Mainwaring and Wilson visit the picture-postcard property, only to be sidetracked by tea and upside down cake. How nice to see Godfrey's sister Cissy (Kathleen Saintsbury) as well as the more often mentioned Dolly, there's plenty of comic business with a paper door and Jones takes Frazer down a peg or two: "How dare you interfere with my offal queue!"