POPULARITY
Categories
625 episodes with Bbc1
42 episodes with Bbc1
73 episodes with Bbc1
34 episodes with Bbc1
16 episodes with Bbc1
12 episodes with Bbc1
6 episodes with Bbc1
8 episodes with Bbc1
18 episodes with Bbc1
30 episodes with Bbc1
7 episodes with Bbc1
6 episodes with Bbc1
10 episodes with Bbc1
6 episodes with Bbc1
7 episodes with Bbc1
4 episodes with Bbc1
6 episodes with Bbc1
3 episodes with Bbc1
2 episodes with Bbc1
2 episodes with Bbc1
4 episodes with Bbc1
5 episodes with Bbc1
4 episodes with Bbc1
3 episodes with Bbc1
6 episodes with Bbc1
3 episodes with Bbc1
3 episodes with Bbc1
3 episodes with Bbc1
2 episodes with Bbc1
2 episodes with Bbc1
3 episodes with Bbc1
2 episodes with Bbc1
2 episodes with Bbc1
4 episodes with Bbc1
2 episodes with Bbc1
39 episodes with Bbc1
The Grand Knockout Tournament (also known as It's a Royal Knockout) was a one-off charity event first shown on BBC1 on 19th June 1987, to an audience of 18 million gobsmacked viewers. The brainchild of the then 23 year old Prince Edward, the slapstick spectacle featured the Princess Royal and the Duke and Duchess of York captaining rival teams in a series of preposterous rounds involving celebrities including Rowan Atkinson, Tom Jones, Cliff Richard, John Travolta and Les Dawson. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly recall Fergie's feelings of shame, blame and betrayal; discover the extraordinary cast of characters gathered at this bizarre occasion; and explain why Meat Loaf and Prince Andrew did not see eye-to-eye… Further Reading: • ‘Remembering The TV Disaster That Was It's A Royal Knockout' (Grazia, 2020): https://graziadaily.co.uk/celebrity/news/royal-knockout-anne-edward-andrew/ • ‘It's a royal cock-up' (The Guardian, 2002): https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/mar/05/themonarchy.broadcasting • ‘The Grand Knockout Tournament' (BBC, 1987): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwkv0-QlbZY This episode first aired in 2021 Love the show? Support us! Join
In this episode, we sit down with Tinuke Oyediran, an extraordinary adventure presenter and thrill-seeking daredevil who's breaking barriers in the world of extreme adventure. You may recognise Tinuke from her recent stint on Survivor UK on BBC1, but her journey goes far beyond reality TV. Tinuke is on a mission to show that anyone, regardless of background, can embrace life's greatest adventures and that the most rewarding experiences often come from stepping out of your comfort zone. From sleeping on the side of a mountain and walking the wing of an aeroplane to climbing glaciers, surviving alone in the wilderness, and achieving three Guinness World Records as a professional roller skater, Tinuke's fearlessness knows no bounds. She's dedicated to representing diverse audiences in extreme adventure TV, proving that anyone can push boundaries and live life to its fullest. In this inspiring conversation, Tinuke shares her journey, her passion for adventure, and her dedication to showing the world that exploration is for everyone. Tune in to hear how she's challenging perceptions and proving that adventure truly has no limits. New episodes of the Tough Girl Podcast drop every Tuesday at 7 AM (UK time)! Make sure to subscribe so you never miss the inspiring journeys and incredible stories of tough women pushing boundaries. Do you want to support the Tough Girl Mission to increase the amount of female role models in the media in the world of adventure and physical challenges? Support via Patreon! Join me in making a difference by signing up here: www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast. Your support makes a difference. Thank you x Show notes Who is Tinuke Professional Adventurer Being based in London, but spending time trying to get away from London Born and bread London Girl No 1 daredevil Lover of outdoor sports Adrenaline junkie by nature Getting out of her comfort zone is her favourite place to be Her early years growing up Being encouraged to spend time outdoors Remembering a trip she did with her mum when she was 8 years old Being an adventure presenter and filming adventure vlogs Working as a professional roller skater Getting a couple of Guinness world records Dealing with a lot of personal tragedy Going into a dark hole for a couple of years Starting adventuring and getting outdoors Adventure healing Getting through trauma Applying for Survivor (TV show UK 2023) What Survivor was like and why it was one of the most brutal things she's done Training for Survivor? The 6 month audition process Psychological training - reading books on body language, interrogation techniques Competitive?! Loving healthy competition Being a very adaptable person Coming out a tougher person Why the show is the show Planning and preparing for the future Manifesting Having clear goals of what she wants to achieve in a short space of time Working on short term goals, so they happen within 6 months Having tunnel vision focus Taking time out to vision board and really focus on what the next 6 months will look like Needing reward Why short term goals work for her Wanting to climb Kilimanjaro Working with Intrepid Travel Spending time in Belize Working with the Noma Collective Writing a series of children's adventure books The Grand Canyon Dealing with the cold - mind over matter Iceland Adventure in 2025 The Golden Circle in Iceland Advice for people to step outside their comfort zone Why the comfort zone is not your friend Why you do just need to start You have to do it! Dealing with failure and setbacks Not allowing herself to dwell to wallow Being inspired by Ness Knight DM Tinuke Adventure! How to connect with Tinuke The meaning behind her name Spending time in Nigeria Words of advice Start small Life is too short not to take the scenic route. Life is for living The only thing you are going to regret is not giving things ago Social Media Instagram @tinuke_oyediran
Kay is still on holiday this week, but that's okay because standing in for her is true crime maven Steph Seelan, plus Cynthia Nixon — although she's less a Kay stand-in and more a guest, here to talk about the new season of And Just Like That (1:02:13-1:16:13). On this week's show we have a trio of half hour wonders, specifically Channel 4's Beth (1:33:57), ITV's The Consultant (1:25:25), and BBC1's St Denis Medical (1:42:43). What's more, we take the opportunity not only to get the latest true crime recommendations from Steph, but to grill her on the genre's appeal as a whole and try to discover why James wasn't invited to her wedding. (Episode 340)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 17 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+!
Matthew Goode is on this week, chatting all things Dept Q on Netflix (41:02-57:30). Plus, we take up our 9 irons for a spot of golf with Owen Wilson in Stick on Apple TV+ (1:09:52), explore the boundaries of sibling rivalry with Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks in The Better Sister on Prime (1:01:15), and hut for missing bullion with Hugh Bonneville in series 2 of The Gold on BBC1 (1:17:43). All that, and for the maths geeks among you, a special treat as James breaks down the finances of epic fantasy series in a painful attempt to explain why The Wheel Of Time didn't deserve to be cancelled. (Episode 339)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 17 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+!
We're all off to Scribbly Gum Island this week for BBC1's adaptation of Liane Moriarty's The Last Anniversary (58:20), solving crimes with Timothy Spall in Death Valley, also on the Beeb (1:07:31), and pushing the boundaries of sisterly love alongside Meghann Fahy and Millie Alcock in Sirens on Netflix (1:00:04). (Episode 338)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 17 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+!
Jessica Daley (Evita / I Should Be So Lucky) co-hosts The West End Frame Show!Andrew and Jessica discuss the latest news about Jessie J turning down the role of Sally Bowles, Remember Monday, casting for Here and Now, Rob Houchen and Anna Jane Casey doing Sweeney Todd and lots more.They also talk about the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre's report with analysis on the current state of theatre in the UK.Fifteen years ago, Jessica was a finalist on Over The Rainbow, BBC1's search for Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Her theatre credits include: Ali in Mamma Mia! (West End), Maria in The Sound of Music (UK Tour), cover Fantine in Les Miserables (International Tour), Frenchy in Grease (Dubai), Lynette in An Officer and a Gentleman (Curve Leicester), Eva Person in Evita (International Tour), Billy's Mum in Billy Elliot (Leicester Curve) and Betty Haynes in White Christmas (UK Tour)More recently Jessica was in The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium covering the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda, she toured as Britney in I Should Be So Lucky and played Daisy in Lady Be Good in Sicily. She's also a podcaster in her won right, having hosted Park & Bark which is available wherever you get your podcasts.Follow Jessica on Instagram: @jessicacaca7This podcast is hosted by Andrew Tomlins. @AndrewTomlins32 Thanks for listening!Email: andrew@westendframe.co.ukVisit westendframe.co.uk for more info about our podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We're back on the wellness beat with Nicole Kidman in Nine Perfect Strangers season 2 on Prime (1:16:15), Facing off against a machine with chess wizard Gary Kasparov in Rematch on Disney+ (1:26:03), and re-examining the Lockerbie disaster with The Bombing Of Pan Am 103 on BBC1 (1:06:32). Plus Rian Johnson drops by to discuss Poker Face (36:44-53:00) and we even manage to slip some Star Wars questions in there as well. (Episode 337)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 17 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+!
Jacob Fowler (The Addams Family / Heathers) returns to co-host The West End Frame Show!Andrew and Jacob discuss Parlour Song (Greenwich Theatre) as well as the latest news about speedy boarding at theatres, Heathers off-Broadway, Ragtime, Adam Lambert, I'm Every Woman and lots more. Jacob is the winner of BBC1's Little Mix: The Search and went on to support Little Mix on their Confetti Arena Tour with his band Since September.Jacob played JD in the London and touring productions of Heathers. His other theatre credits include: Prince Topher in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (Hope Mill Theatre), Bobby in Dreamboats and Petticoats (UK Tour), Ben in Before After (Southwark Playhouse), Hunter in Title Of Show (Southwark Playhouse), Mohr in Vanara: The Legend (Hackmey Empire), Hunter in In Pieces (Turbine Theatre) and Kings Of Broadway (Palace Theatre). Next up, Jacob is playing Lucas in the UK tour of The Addams Family from July.Follow Jacob on Instagram: @thejacobfowlerThis podcast is hosted by Andrew Tomlins. @AndrewTomlins32 Thanks for listening!Email: andrew@westendframe.co.ukVisit westendframe.co.uk for more info about our podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On this week's show we take a look back at the transition from black and white to color and compare it to the transition to HDTV. We also read your emails and take a look at the week's news. News: Roku's smart home strategy is making its streaming devices harder to ignore Sonos Strikes a Surprising Deal with Yamaha Masimo to Sell Consumer Audio Business to HARMAN International Other: Robert's Forever Home Theater Has the Best Universal Remote Got Better? - Remote 3 Google AI Reimagines Wizard of Oz for the Las Vegas Sphere!
Type 40 • A Doctor Who Podcast Episode 153: Survivors Type 40's long running Doctor Who podcast commemorating another historic date and time in the history of the Whoniverse. On the 6th December 1989 the classic series was vanquished from the schedules of BBC1 after a 4 year battle against the odds... Survivors of that fateful period Simon and Dan get together with Sarah to revisit that strangely silent Winter's night. Don't worry: there are still plenty of great memories and stupid jokes! Does time heal? Find Type 40 • A Doctor Who Podcast feed here at: • type40.podbean.com Listen to Type 40 on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, iHeart Radio, Tune In and the Podbean App. • Or as part of FPNet Master Feed @Fpnet.podbean.com • Simon on Facebook in Doctor Who: The Whonatics • Dan on Twitter and Instagram @The_spacebook • Subscribe to Type 40 YouTube channel! For extended versions and exclusive show Type 40 videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh8T... If you would like to contact us directly you can: • Email: type40doctorwho@outlook.com • Twitter: @type40doctorwho • Instagram: @type40doctorwho • Join the Facebook group Type 40 • A Doctor Who Fan Group: http://bit.ly/type40_fbgroup • Subscribe to the Type 40 Doctor Who YouTube channel: There you'll find exclusive video companion show Type 40 EXTRA. And our livestream news & magazine show Type 40 LIVE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh8T5-mFYWblZo6lnakCSCw TeePublic Store: Help support the Fandom Podcast Network and wear some of their fantastic original designs and logos on t-shirts, mugs, hats and more from Tee Public Go to: https://www.teepublic.com/user/fandompodcastnetwork or just search Fandom Podcast Network to find our storefront. Please listen to our other formidable podcasts on the Fandom Podcast Network: Master Feed: https://fpnet.podbean.com/
The Apprentice candidate Jonny Cleaver talks with Lois Miller about her experiences on the BBC1 show
Matthew Bannister on The Hollywood actor Val Kilmer, best known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors. Jane Reed, the media executive who made Woman's Own magazine a powerful voice for its readers at a time of changing roles for women in society. Sir Torquil Norman, who used the proceeds from the sale of his successful toy business to restore the fortunes of the Roundhouse Arts Centre in London. Dr Marika Sherwood, the Hungarian-born academic who wrote groundbreaking books on the history of black people in Britain.Producer: Ed PrendevilleArchive: Desert Island Discs – Sir Torquil Norman, 12/12/2010; Marika Sherwood, interviewed by Tayo Aluko, Dec 2023; Woman's Hour, BBC, 25/02/2015; Top Gun, Paramount Pictures presents, A Tony Scott Film, A Don Simpson / Jerry Bruckheimer Production,1986; The Heaven and Earth Show, BBC 1, 16/01/2005; Top Secret!, Paramount Pictures, Kingsmere Properties, 1984; Batman Forever, Warner Bros. presents, A Tim Burton Production, A Joel Schumacher Film, Polygram Filmed Entertainment (PolyGram Pictures, produced in association with, 1995; Authors Series: Marika Sherwood, YouTube Upload by UCLA Bunch Center, 17/08/2016; Dr Marika Sherwood at Discover Black History: Beyond the Windrush, Daily Motion Upload by King Cipher Jewels, 31/08/2012; WORKING LUNCH, BC2, 11/07/2006; The Roundhouse - The People's Palace, BBC 4, 23/10/2016; The Editors, 09/07/1978; THE PERSUADERS: WOMEN'S OWN WEEKLIES, 07/01/1969; RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN ON THE THORN BIRDS, BBC1, 01/01/1984
Tom Hardy is with us this week (18:08), going full gangster for MobLand, and Kaitlin Olson also stops by to chat High Potential and Hacks (59:37). Elsewhere, we accompany Michelle Williams on a voyage of sexual discovery in Dying For Sex on Disney+ (1:26:37), head Down Under with Sally Philips and Ben Miller in Austin on BBC1 (1:10:30), and embark on a mission for Satan with Kevin Bacon in The Bondsman on Paramount+ (1:17:56). (Episode 330)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 17 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+!
Send us a text To celebrate 20 years since the broadcast of Rose, Ben and Mark hosted a live YouTube stream featuring commentaries on A New Dimension, Rose and Doctor Who Confidential. This podcast is the audio commentary for the "primer" documentary, Doctor Who: A New Dimension, which aired at 17:25 on BBC1 on 26th March 2005, narrated by up and coming star David Tennant. Support the showFollow us on TwitterLike us on FacebookBuy us a pint
The Apprentice candidate Melica Moshiri talks with Lois Miller about her experiences on the BBC1 show
We are blessed by Canadian comedy royalty this week as Seth Rogen and Catherine O'Hara join us on the podcast to talk all about The Studio on Apple TV+ (30:06), which we also review on this week's show (54:27). Plus, we discuss the finer points of tree surgery (don't watch and chop, kids) as well as take a look at Mythic Quest anthology spin-off Side Quest (1:05:38), as well as Liverpudlian crime drama This City Is Ours with Sean Bean on BBC1 (1:12:50).(Episode 329)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 17 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+!
Lois Miller talks with BBC1's The Apprentice candidate Anisa Khan about life on the Apprentice and about her business.
Matthew Bannister on: Group Captain John Allman ‘Paddy' Hemingway DFC , the last surviving pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain during the second world war.Dame Julie Kenny, the successful businesswoman from Rotherham who led the regeneration of one of Britain's largest stately homes.Tuppy Owens, who campaigned for greater openness about sex – and set up charities to help disabled people enjoy fulfilling relationships.Dick McTaggart, the only Scottish boxer to win an Olympic gold medal. Described as a “legend” in the world of boxing.Interviewee: Brian Hemingway Interviewee: Sarah McLeod Interviewee: Professor Claire De Than Interviewee: Ray CaulfieldProducer: Catherine Powell Assistant Producer: Ribika MoktanArchive used: Over the Edge, BBC2, 15th October 1996, Outsiders: Disabled and Looking for Love, BBC3 30th March 2006, Victoria Derbyshire Show, BBC 19th February 2016. BBC News 15th September 2020. BBC News Northern Ireland 9th November 2023. “The Battle of Britain, with Ewan and Colin McGregor” BBC Two 11th July 2015. Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill 20th August 1940. “Hitler's Luftwaffe vs The RAF In The Battle Of Britain, Blitz Spirit” BBC Select YouTube Channel, Uploaded 20th September 2021. “Remembering the Battle of Britain” Reuters, 23rd June 2010. Jamie Veitch, Sheffield Live FM radio, 27th September 2019. Dame Julie Kenny, from the Wentworth Woodhouse Trust. BBC Radio Scotland, The Scottish Olympians, 8th August 2004. Tales of Gold: Jack Beresford, Dick McTaggart and Don Thompson, BBC1, 29/05/1992/
The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1995 to 1996. The show is about a police station in the fictional English town of Gasforth. The series stars Rowan Atkinson as Inspector Raymond Fowler, a by-the-book officer who often clashes with Detective Inspector Derek Grim (played by David Haig). The two represent opposing views on policing, traditional vs modern. Despite The Thin Blue Line's short run of two series, the show remains a memorable part of British television, blending sharp wit with classic sitcom tropes. Will this one land with the S1E1 boys? Listen as they deep dive the show's pilot episode, "The Queen's Birthday Present". Starring: Rowan Atkinson, James Dreyfus, Mina Anwar, Rudolph Walker, Serena Evans, David Haig, Kevin Allen, & Stephen Moore www.S1E1POD.com Instagram & X (Twitter): @S1E1POD
The Apprentice candidate Keir Shave in the current series on BBC1 on Thursday nights talks to Lois Miller about what it is like being on the show, his business and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Next week Lois talks to candidate Anisa Khan.
HORROR WITH SIR. STURDY EPISODE 540 THE NIGHT PIPES CAME ALIVE – GHOSTWATCH
The Great Auk: Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife is the subject of Tim Birkhead's new book. This goose-sized seabird became the favoured food of hungry sailors and hunters, and the last two were killed in 1844. But then the bird became an obsession for collectors who vied for the last skins, eggs and skeletons. Victorian hunters, explorers and collectors feature strongly in the story of the Great Auk. The writer Kaliane Bradley places the 19th century polar explorer Commander Graham Gore at the heart of her time-travelling novel, The Ministry of Time. The book is being made into a television series on BBC1 – to be aired later in the Spring. Human activity has had, and continues to have, a big impact on bird populations. While several species have gone extinct, more are classified as threatened. But a joint conservation project between farmers and wildlife organisations is looking at restoring ‘zombie' ponds, in an effort to increase pockets of wildlife. The RSPB's Mark Nowers helps to organise the Lost Ponds Project and is involved in the protection of turtle doves, whose numbers are vulnerable.Producer: Katy Hickman
Good evening and a huge welcome back to the show, I hope you've had a great day and you're ready to kick back and relax with another episode of Brett's old time radio show. Hello, I'm Brett your host for this evening and welcome to my home in beautiful Lyme Bay where it's lovely December night. I hope it's just as nice where you are. You'll find all of my links at www.linktr.ee/brettsoldtimeradioshow A huge thankyou for joining me once again for our regular late night visit to those dusty studio archives of Old Time radio shows right here at my home in the united kingdom. Don't forget I have an instagram page and youtube channel both called brett's old time radio show and I'd love it if you could follow me. Feel free to send me some feedback on this and the other shows if you get a moment, brett@tourdate.co.uk #sleep #insomnia #relax #chill #night #nighttime #bed #bedtime #oldtimeradio #drama #comedy #radio #talkradio #hancock #tonyhancock #hancockshalfhour #sherlock #sherlockholmes #radiodrama #popular #viral #viralpodcast #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podtok #podcastclip #podcastclips #podcasttrailer #podcastteaser #newpodcastepisode #newpodcast #videopodcast #upcomingpodcast #audiogram #audiograms #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #truecrime #podcaster #viral #popular #viralpodcast #number1 #instagram #youtube #facebook #johnnydollar #crime #fiction #unwind #devon #texas #texasranger #beer #seaton #seaside #smuggler #colyton #devon #seaton #beer #branscombe #lymebay #lymeregis #brett #brettorchard #orchard #greatdetectives #greatdetectivesofoldtimeradio #detectives #johnnydollar #thesaint #steptoe #texasrangers Dad's Army Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally. The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title Dad's Army), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription. Most of the platoon members in Dad's Army are over military age and the series stars several older British actors, including Arnold Ridley, John Laurie, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier. Younger members of the cast included Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn (who, despite being one of the younger cast members, played the oldest guardsman, Lance Corporal Jones) and James Beck (who died suddenly during production of the sixth series in 1973). Other regular cast members included Frank Williams as the vicar, Edward Sinclair as the verger, and Bill Pertwee as the chief ARP warden. The series has influenced British popular culture, with its catchphrases and characters being widely known. The Radio Times magazine listed Captain Mainwaring's "You stupid boy!" among the 25 greatest put-downs on TV. A 2001 Channel 4 poll ranked Captain Mainwaring 21st on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2004, Dad's Army came fourth in a BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was placed 13th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, and voted for by industry professionals. A second feature film of Dad's Army with a different cast was released in 2016. In 2019, UKTV recreated three missing episodes for broadcast in August that year on its Gold channel under the title Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes. It starred Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Origins Co-writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry during a Dad's Army event at Bressingham Steam Museum, May 2011 Originally intended to be called The Fighting Tigers, Dad's Army was based partly on co-writer and creator Jimmy Perry's experiences in the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV, later known as the Home Guard) and highlighted a somewhat forgotten aspect of defence during the Second World War. Perry was only 16 when he joined the 10th Hertfordshire Battalion. His mother did not like him being out at night, and feared he might catch a cold; he partly resembled the character of Private Pike. An elderly lance corporal in the 10th Hertfordshire often referred to fighting under Kitchener against the "Fuzzy Wuzzies" (Hadendoa), and was the model for Lance Corporal Jones. Other influences included the work of comedians such as Will Hay, whose film Oh, Mr Porter! featured a pompous ass, an old man and a young man; together, this gave Perry the ideas for Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike. Film historian Jeffrey Richards has cited Lancastrian comedian Robb Wilton as a key influence; Wilton portrayed a work-shy husband who joined the Home Guard in numerous comic sketches during World War II. Perry wrote the first script and sent it to David Croft while working as a minor actor in the Croft-produced sitcom Hugh and I, originally intending the role of the spiv, later called Walker, to be his own. Croft was impressed and sent the script to Michael Mills, the BBC's head of comedy, and the series was commissioned. In his book Dad's Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show, Graham McCann explains that the show owes much to Michael Mills. It was he who renamed the show Dad's Army. He did not like Brightsea-on-Sea, so the location was changed to Walmington-on-Sea. He was happy with the names for the characters Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike, but not with other names, and he made suggestions: Private Jim Duck became James Frazer, Joe Fish became Joe Walker and Jim Jones became Jack Jones. He also suggested adding a Scot. Jimmy Perry had produced the original idea, but needed a more experienced partner to see it through, so Mills suggested David Croft and this launched the beginning of their professional association. When an episode was screened to members of the public to gauge audience reaction prior to broadcast of the first series, the majority of the audience thought it was very poor. The production team put the report containing the negative comments at the bottom of David Croft's in-tray. He only saw it several months later,[16] after the series had been broadcast and received a positive response. Situation The series is set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, located on the south coast of England, not far from Eastbourne. The exterior scenes were mostly filmed in and around the Stanford Training Area (STANTA), near Thetford, Norfolk.[19] Walmington, and its Home Guard platoon, would be on the frontline in the event of a German invasion across the English Channel. The first series has a loose narrative thread, with Captain Mainwaring's platoon being formed and equipped, initially with wooden guns and LDV armbands, later on with full army uniforms; the platoon is part of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. The first episode, "The Man and the Hour", begins with a scene set in the then-present day of 1968, in which Mainwaring addresses his old platoon as part of the contemporary '"I'm Backing Britain" campaign. The prologue opening was a condition imposed after initial concerns from Paul Fox, the BBC1 controller, that it belittled the efforts of the Home Guard. After Mainwaring relates how he had backed Britain in 1940, the episode proper begins; Dad's Army is thus told in flashback, although the final episode does not return to 1968. Later episodes are largely self-contained, albeit referring to previous events and with additional character development. As the comedy in many ways relies on the platoon's lack of participation in the Second World War, opposition to their activities must come from another quarter, and this is generally provided by Chief Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Warden Hodges, and sometimes by the verger of the local church (St Aldhelm's) or by Captain Square and the neighbouring Eastgate Home Guard platoon. The group, however, does have some encounters related to the enemy, such as downed German planes, a Luftwaffe pilot who parachutes into the town's clock tower, a U-boat crew and discarded parachutes that may have been German; a Viennese ornithologist appears in "Man Hunt" and an IRA suspect appears in "Absent Friends". The humour ranges from the subtle (especially the class-reversed relationship between grammar school-educated Mainwaring, the local bank manager, and public school-educated Wilson, his deputy at the bank) to the slapstick (the antics of the elderly Jones being a prime example). Jones had several catchphrases, including "Don't panic!" (while panicking himself), "They don't like it up 'em!", "Permission to speak, sir?", "Handy-hock!" and his tales about the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies". Mainwaring's catchphrase to Pike is "You stupid boy", which he uses in many episodes. Other cast members used catchphrases, including Sergeant Wilson, who regularly asked, "Do you think that's wise, sir?" when Captain Mainwaring made a suggestion. The early series occasionally included darker humour, reflecting that, especially early in the war, the Home Guard was woefully under-equipped but was still willing to resist the Wehrmacht. For instance, in the episode "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", the platoon believes the enemy has invaded Britain. Mainwaring, Godfrey, Frazer and Jones (along with Godfrey's sisters, who are completely unaware of the invasion) decide to stay at the cottage to delay the German advance, buying the regular army time to arrive with reinforcements; "It'll probably be the end of us, but we're ready for that, aren't we, men?" says Mainwaring. "Of course," replies Frazer. Characters Private Pike (Ian Lavender) ARP Warden Hodges (Bill Pertwee) Private Frazer (John Laurie) Private Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) Private Walker (James Beck) Lance Corporal Jones (Clive Dunn) Sergeant Wilson (John Le Mesurier) Main characters Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), the pompous, if essentially brave and unerringly patriotic local bank manager. Mainwaring appointed himself leader of his town's contingent of Local Defence Volunteers. He had been a lieutenant in the First World War but is embarrassed by the fact that he never saw combat, only being sent to France in 1919 after the Armistice as part of the Army of Occupation in Germany. The character, along with Wilson, also appeared in the original pilot episode of the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier), a diffident, upper-middle-class chief bank clerk who often quietly questions Mainwaring's judgement ("Do you think that's wise, sir?"). Wilson had actually served as a captain during the First World War, but he only reveals this in the final episode. He does not live with the Pike family, but is implied to be in a relationship with the widowed Mrs Pike. Wilson also appears in the later radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Lance Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn), the local butcher, born in 1870. Jones is an old campaigner who enlisted as a drummer boy at the age of 14 and participated, as a boy soldier, in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884–85 and, as an adult, in Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan in 1896–98. Jones also served during the Boer War and the Great War. He often suffers from the effects of malaria caught during one of his campaigns and has to be calmed during his "shudders". Often seen as fastidious and a worrier, he has a number of catchphrases, including "They don't like it up 'em!" and "Don't panic, don't panic!", which he says whilst panicking. Dunn was considerably younger than his character, being only 46 when the series began. This meant he often performed the physical comedy of the show, which some of the older cast members were no longer capable of. Private James Frazer (John Laurie), a dour Scottish former chief petty officer on HMS Defiant in the Royal Navy. He served at the Battle of Jutland as a ship's cook and also has a medal for having served on Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. He grew up on the Isle of Barra and is prone to theatrical poetry. In episode one, he states that he owns a philately shop, but subsequently his profession is changed to an undertaker. His catchphrase is "We're doomed. Doomed!" Private Joe Walker (James Beck), a black market spiv, Walker is one of only two able-bodied men of military age among the main characters (the other one being Private Pike). In the first episode, Walker claims he was not called up to the regular army because he was in a reserved occupation as a wholesale supplier. In one of the missing episodes, it is revealed that he was not called up because of an allergy to corned beef. Although always on the lookout to make money, Walker is also seen to support local charities, including a children's home. Following James Beck's death in 1973, Walker was written out of the series. Private Charles Godfrey (Arnold Ridley), a retired shop assistant who had worked at the Army & Navy store in London. He lives in Walmington with his elderly sisters and serves as the platoon's medical orderly. He has a weak bladder and often needs to "be excused". A conscientious objector during the First World War, he was nevertheless awarded the Military Medal for heroic actions as a combat medic during the Battle of the Somme. He also demonstrates bravery during his Home Guard service, particularly during the "Branded" episode in which Mainwaring, unconscious in a smoke-filled room, is rescued by Godfrey. Private Frank Pike (Ian Lavender), the youngest of the platoon. He is a cosseted, somewhat immature mother's boy, often wearing a thick scarf over his uniform to prevent illness and a frequent target for Mainwaring's derision ("You stupid boy!"). Pike is not called up to the regular army due to his rare blood group (in series eight, he is excused for this reason). He works in his day job as an assistant bank clerk for Mainwaring. He frequently addresses Sergeant Wilson as "Uncle Arthur". However, on the last day of filming, David Croft confirmed to Lavender that Wilson was in fact Pike's father. Pike would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Supporting characters Chief ARP Warden William Hodges (Bill Pertwee), the platoon's major rival and nemesis. He calls Mainwaring "Napoleon". Mainwaring looks down on him as the local greengrocer and dislikes that Hodges saw active service in the First World War. As an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden, he is always demanding that people "Put that light out!". He often calls the platoon "Ruddy hooligans!". The character of Hodges would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Reverend Timothy Farthing (Frank Williams), the effete, petulant vicar of St Aldhelm's Church. He reluctantly shares his church hall and office with the platoon. In several episodes of the series, it was implied that the character was a non-active closet gay. Maurice Yeatman (Edward Sinclair), the verger at St Aldhelm's Church and Scoutmaster of the local Sea Scout troop. He is often hostile to the platoon while frequently sycophantic towards the vicar, who often struggles to tolerate him and frequently employs the catchphrase "Oh do be quiet, Mr Yeatman!". He often sides with Hodges to undermine the platoon's activities. Mrs Mavis Pike (Janet Davies), Pike's overbearing widowed mother, who is often implied to be in a relationship with Sergeant Wilson. Liz Frazer replaced Janet Davies in the 1971 film version. Mrs Fox (Pamela Cundell), a glamorous widow. There is a mutual attraction with Corporal Jones and the couple marry in the last episode. Illicit little "extras" are passed across the counter on her regular visits to Jones's butcher's shop and she helps the platoon with official functions. In the episode "Mum's Army", she gives her first name as Marcia, but by the final episode she is addressed as Mildred. Colonel Pritchard (Robert Raglan), Captain Mainwaring's superior officer. A stern, serious man, he unexpectedly appeared to admire Mainwaring, frequently commenting on his successes and warning people not to underestimate him. Private Sponge (Colin Bean), a sheep farmer. He leads the members of the platoon's second section (the first section being led by Corporal Jones) and thus had only occasional speaking parts, although he became more prominent in later series. He appeared in 76 of the 80 episodes. Mr Claude Gordon (Eric Longworth), the Walmington town clerk often involved when the platoon is taking part in local parades and displays. Although generally civil with Captain Mainwaring and his men, he is an officious and somewhat pompous individual, and Hodges tends to use him to try and interfere with the platoon's activities. Private Cheeseman (Talfryn Thomas), a Welshman who works for the town newspaper. He joined the Walmington-on-Sea platoon during the seventh series only after the sudden death of James Beck, who played Private Walker. Captain Square (Geoffrey Lumsden), the pompous commanding officer of the rival Eastgate platoon, and a former regular soldier who served with Lawrence of Arabia during the First World War. He is frequently at loggerheads with Mainwaring (whose name he persists in mispronouncing as spelt, "Main-wearing", instead of the correct "Mannering") and has the catchphrase "You blithering idiot!". Mrs Yeatman (Olive Mercer), the somewhat tyrannical wife of Maurice Yeatman, the verger. Over the course of the series, her first name is given as either Beryl, Anthea or Tracey. Mr Sidney Bluett (Harold Bennett), an elderly local man who is occasionally involved with the antics of both the platoon and Hodges. He and Mrs Yeatman are implied to be having an affair. Miss Janet King (Caroline Dowdeswell), a clerk at Swallow Bank who works with Mainwaring, Wilson and Pike in the first series. Edith Parish (Wendy Richard), also called Shirley, a cinema usherette and girlfriend of Private Walker. Dolly (Amy Dalby and Joan Cooper) and Cissy Godfrey (Nan Braunton and Kathleen Saintsbury), Private Godfrey's spinster sisters, who reside with him at their cottage. Elizabeth Mainwaring (unseen character), George Mainwaring's reclusive, paranoid and domineering wife who is never seen onscreen in the TV series. (In the episode "A Soldier's Farewell" her "shape" is seen sleeping in the bunk above the captain while in their Anderson Shelter.) Her marriage to George is not a happy one and he does his best to avoid her at any opportunity. They have no children. Mrs Mainwaring had a significant on screen role in the 2016 film. Other actors who appeared in small roles include Timothy Carlton, Don Estelle, Nigel Hawthorne, Geoffrey Hughes, Michael Knowles, John Ringham, Fulton Mackay, Anthony Sagar, Anthony Sharp, Carmen Silvera and Barbara Windsor. Larry Martyn appeared as an unnamed private in four episodes, and later took over the part of Walker in the radio series following the death of James Beck. The former cricketer Fred Trueman appeared in "The Test". Opening and closing credits The show's opening titles were originally intended to feature footage of refugees and Nazi troops, to illustrate the threat faced by the Home Guard. Despite opposition from the BBC's head of comedy Michael Mills, Paul Fox, the controller of BBC1, ordered that these be removed on the grounds that they were offensive. The replacement titles featured the animated sequence of swastika-headed arrows approaching Britain.[25] Originally in black and white, the opening titles were updated twice; firstly in series three, adding colour and improved animation, and once again in series six, which made further improvements to the animation. There were two different versions of the closing credits used in the show. The first version, used in series one and two, simply showed footage of the main cast superimposed over a still photograph, with the crew credits rolling over a black background. The better-known closing credits, introduced in series three, were a homage to the end credits of The Way Ahead (1944), a film which had covered the training of a platoon during the Second World War. In both instances, each character is shown as they walk across a smoke-filled battlefield. One of the actors in Dad's Army, John Laurie, also appeared in that film, and his performance in the end credits of The Way Ahead appears to be copied in the sitcom. Coincidentally, the film's lead character (played by David Niven) is named Lieutenant Jim Perry. Following this sequence, the end credits roll, and the platoon is shown in a wide angle shot as, armed, they run towards the camera, while bombs explode behind them. As the credits come to an end, the platoon run past the camera and the all clear siren rings, before the screen fades to black. Music The show's theme tune, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?" was Jimmy Perry's idea, written especially for the show and intended as a gentle pastiche of wartime songs. The other songs were authentic 1940s music recordings. Perry wrote the lyrics and composed the music with Derek Taverner. Perry persuaded one of his childhood idols, wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan, to sing the theme for 100 guineas (equivalent to £2,400 in 2023). Flanagan died less than a year after the recording. At the time it was widely believed to be a wartime song. The music over the opening credits was recorded at Riverside Studios, Flanagan being accompanied by the Orchestra of the Band of the Coldstream Guards. The version played over the opening credits differs slightly from the full version recorded by Flanagan; an edit removes, for timing reasons, two lines of lyric with the "middle eight" tune: "So watch out Mr Hitler, you have met your match in us/If you think you can crush us, we're afraid you've missed the bus." (The latter lyric is a reference to a speech by Neville Chamberlain.) Bud Flanagan's full version appears as an Easter egg on the first series DVD release and on the authorised soundtrack CD issued by CD41. Arthur Lowe also recorded a full version of the theme. The closing credits feature an instrumental march version of the song played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards conducted by Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Trevor L. Sharpe, ending with the air-raid warning siren sounding all-clear. It is accompanied by a style of credits that became a trademark of David Croft: the caption "You have been watching", followed by vignettes of the main cast. The series also contains genuine wartime and period songs between scenes, usually brief quotations that have some reference to the theme of the episode or the scene. Many appear on the CD soundtrack issued by CD41, being the same versions used in the series. Episodes List of Dad's Army episodes The television programme lasted nine series and was broadcast over nine years, with 80 episodes in total, including three Christmas specials and an hour-long special. At its peak, the programme regularly gained audiences of 18.5 million.[35] There were also four short specials broadcast as part of Christmas Night with the Stars in 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1972; one of which was also restaged as part of the Royal Variety Performance 1975. Missing episodes Main article: Dad's Army missing episodes The first two series were recorded and screened in black-and-white, while series three to nine were recorded and screened in colour. Even so, one episode in series three, "Room at the Bottom", formerly survived only as a 16mm black-and-white film telerecording, made for overseas sales to countries not yet broadcasting in colour; and remains on the official DVD releases in this form. This episode has benefited from colour recovery technology, using a buried colour signal (chroma dots) in the black-and-white film print to restore the episode to colour and was transmitted on 13 December 2008 on BBC Two. The newly restored colour version of "Room at the Bottom" was eventually made commercially available in 2023, when it appeared as an extra on the DVD release Dad's Army: The Missing Episodes, with a specially filmed introduction by Ian Lavender. Dad's Army was less affected than most from the wiping of videotape, but three second-series episodes remain missing: episode nine "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", episode eleven "A Stripe for Frazer" and episode 12 "Under Fire". (All three missing episodes were among those remade for BBC Radio with most of the original cast, adapted from the original TV scripts. Audio recordings of all three were included as bonus features on The Complete Series DVD Collection.) Two further series two episodes, "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", were thought lost until 2001.[8] Two of the three missing episodes have since been performed as part of the latest stage show. In 2008, soundtracks of the missing episode "A Stripe for Frazer" and the 1968 Christmas Night with the Stars segment "Present Arms" were recovered. The soundtrack of "A Stripe for Frazer" has been mixed with animation to replace the missing images.[36] The audio soundtrack for the "Cornish Floral Dance" sketch, from the 1970 episode of Christmas Night with the Stars, has also been recovered. Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes (2019) In 2018, UKTV announced plans to recreate the three missing episodes for broadcast on its Gold channel. Mercury Productions, the company responsible for Saluting Dad's Army, Gold's 50th anniversary tribute series, produced the episodes, which were directed by Ben Kellett. The recreations were broadcast in August 2019, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of their original broadcast by the BBC.[37] Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson, with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey. The full cast was announced in January 2019, with McNally, Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon, Mathew Horne, David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal. However, Bernard Cribbins subsequently withdrew from the project, and was replaced as Godfrey by Timothy West. Cast Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson Kevin Eldon as Lance Corporal Jones David Hayman as Private Frazer Mathew Horne as Private Walker Timothy West as Private Godfrey Tom Rosenthal as Private Pike Tracy-Ann Oberman as Mrs Pike Simon Ludders as ARP Warden Hodges David Horovitch as Corporal-Colonel Square John Biggins as the Verger Films 1971 film Main article: Dad's Army (1971 film) In common with many British sitcoms of that era, Dad's Army was spun-off as a feature film which was released in 1971. Backers Columbia Pictures imposed arbitrary changes, such as recasting Liz Fraser as Mavis Pike and filming locations in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, rather than Thetford in Norfolk, which made the cast unhappy. The director, Norman Cohen, whose idea it was to make the film, was nearly sacked by the studio.: 168 Jimmy Perry and David Croft wrote the original screenplay. This was expanded by Cohen to try to make it more cinematic; Columbia executives made more changes to plot and pacing. As finally realised, two-thirds of the film consists of the creation of the platoon; this was the contribution of Perry and Croft, and differs in a number of ways from the formation of the platoon as seen in the first series of the television version. The final third shows the platoon in action, rescuing hostages from the church hall where they had been held captive by the crewmen of a downed German aircraft. Neither the cast nor Perry and Croft were happy with the result. Perry argued for changes to try to reproduce the style of the television series, but with mixed results. Filming took place from 10 August to 25 September 1970 at Shepperton Studios and on location. After shooting the film, the cast returned to working on the fourth television series. The film's UK première was on 12 March 1971 at the Columbia Theatre, London. Critical reviews were mixed, but it performed well at the UK box-office. Discussions were held about a possible sequel, to be called Dad's Army and the Secret U-Boat Base, but the project never came to fruition. Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey (2014) 2016 film Main article: Dad's Army (2016 film) A second film, written by Hamish McColl and directed by Oliver Parker, was released in 2016. The cast included Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtenay as Lance Corporal Jones, Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey, Blake Harrison as Private Pike, Daniel Mays as Private Walker and Bill Paterson as Private Frazer. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sarah Lancashire and Mark Gatiss also featured. The film was primarily shot on location in Yorkshire. Filming took place on the beach at North Landing, Flamborough Head, Yorkshire and at nearby Bridlington. It opened in February 2016 to mainly negative reviews. Stage show Main article: Dad's Army (stage show) A poster advertising the stage show In 1975, Dad's Army transferred to the stage as a revue, with songs, familiar scenes from the show and individual "turns" for cast members. It was created by Roger Redfarn, who shared the same agent as the series' writers. Most of the principal cast transferred with it, with the exception of John Laurie, who was replaced by Hamish Roughead.[8] Following James Beck's death two years earlier, Walker was played by John Bardon.[8] Dad's Army: A Nostalgic Music and Laughter Show of Britain's Finest Hour opened at Billingham in Teesside on 4 September 1975 for a two-week tryout. After cuts and revisions, the show transferred to London's West End and opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 2 October 1975. On the opening night there was a surprise appearance by Chesney Allen, singing the old Flanagan and Allen song Hometown with Arthur Lowe. The show ran in the West End until 21 February 1976, disrupted twice by bomb scares and then toured the country until 4 September 1976. Clive Dunn was replaced for half the tour by Jack Haig (David Croft's original first choice for the role of Corporal Jones on television). Jeffrey Holland, who went on to star in several later Croft sitcoms, also had a number of roles in the production. The stage show, billed as Dad's Army—The Musical, was staged in Australia and toured New Zealand in 2004–2005, starring Jon English. Several sections of this stage show were filmed and have subsequently been included as extras on the final Dad's Army DVD. In April 2007, a new stage show was announced with cast members including Leslie Grantham as Private Walker and Emmerdale actor Peter Martin as Captain Mainwaring. The production contained the episodes "A Stripe for Frazer", "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", "Room at the Bottom" and "The Deadly Attachment". In August 2017, a new two-man stage show titled, Dad's Army Radio Hour, opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe It starred David Benson and Jack Lane. Between them, the pair voiced the entire cast of Dad's Army, including incidental characters. The episodes adapted from the original radio scripts were "The Deadly Attachment", "The Day the Balloon Went Up", "Brain Versus Brawn", "My British Buddy", "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel" and "Mum's Army". The production featured three episodes not adapted for the radio series "When You've Got to Go", "My Brother and I" and "Never Too Old". The show was well received by critics and the David Croft estate for its respectful and uncanny performances. In 2019, the production changed its name to Dad's Army Radio Show and continued to tour nationally throughout the UK until the end of 2021. Radio series List of Dad's Army radio episodes The majority of the television scripts were adapted for BBC Radio 4 with the original cast, although other actors played Walker after James Beck's death (which took place soon after recording and before transmission of the first radio series). Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles were responsible for the adaptation,[8] while wartime BBC announcer John Snagge set the scene for each episode. Different actors were used for some of the minor parts: for example Mollie Sugden played the role of Mrs Fox, and Pearl Hackney played Mrs Pike. The first episode was based on the revised version of events seen in the opening of the film version, rather than on the television pilot. The series ran for three series and 67 episodes from 1974-76.[8] The entire radio series has been released on CD. Knowles and Snoad developed a radio series, It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which followed Sergeant Wilson, Private Pike and Warden Hodges's attempts to renovate a pier in the fictional town of Frambourne-on-Sea following the end of the war. It was originally intended to star Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier, but Lowe died after recording the pilot episode in 1981. In consequence, Bill Pertwee and Ian Lavender were brought in to replace him. In the event the revised cast recorded a 13-episode series. John Le Mesurier died in November 1983, making another series impossible. The last radio recording of Dad's Army occurred in 1995, when Jimmy Perry wrote a radio sketch entitled The Boy Who Saved England for the "Full Steam A-Hudd" evening broadcast on BBC Radio 2, transmitted on 3 June 1995 on the occasion of the closure of the BBC's Paris studios in Lower Regent Street. It featured Ian Lavender as Pike, Bill Pertwee as Hodges, Frank Williams as the Vicar and Jimmy Perry as General Haverlock-Seabag. American adaptation A pilot episode for an American remake called The Rear Guard, adapted for American viewers by Arthur Julian, was produced by the ABC and broadcast on 10 August 1976, based on the Dad's Army episode "The Deadly Attachment".[8] Set in Long Island, the pilot starred Cliff Norton as Captain Rosatti, Lou Jacobi as Sergeant Raskin and Eddie Foy Jr. as Lance Corporal Wagner. The pilot was considered a failure, so the original tapes were wiped. However, director Hal Cooper kept a copy of the pilot, which was returned to several collectors in 1998. Though further storylines were planned, the series failed to make it past the pilot stage. Other appearances Lowe, Le Mesurier, Laurie, Beck, Ridley and Lavender (wearing Pike's signature scarf) appeared as guests in the 22 April 1971 edition of The Morecambe & Wise Show on BBC2 in the "Monty on the Bonty" sketch, with Lowe as Captain Bligh and the others as crewmen on HMS Bounty. Lowe, Le Mesurier and Laurie again made a cameo appearance as their Dad's Army characters in the 1977 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special. While Elton John is following incomprehensible instructions to find the BBC studios, he encounters them in a steam room. On leaving, Mainwaring calls him a "stupid boy". Arthur Lowe twice appeared on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The first time, in 1973, was with John Le Mesurier, in which the two appeared in costume and in character as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Together they viewed and discussed a mural painted by schoolchildren, featuring the characters from the show at a Christmas party, among whom was Mainwaring's unseen wife Elizabeth – or rather, what the children thought she looked like (Mainwaring remarks "Good grief. What a remarkable likeness!"). Arthur Lowe made a second appearance as Captain Mainwaring on Blue Peter with the Dad's Army van, which would appear in the forthcoming London-Brighton run, and showed presenter John Noakes the vehicle's hidden anti-Nazi defences.[29][59] Later that year, Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender and Pertwee, along with Jones's van, appeared in character at the finish of the 1974 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. The cast appeared in a 1974 public information film, in character but set in the modern day, in which the platoon demonstrated how to cross the road safely at Pelican crossings. Lowe and Le Mesurier made a final appearance as their Dad's Army characters for a 1982 television commercial advertising Wispa chocolate bars. Clive Dunn made occasional appearances as Lance Corporal Jones at 1940s themed events in the 1980s and 1990s and on television on the BBC Saturday night entertainment show Noel's House Party on 27 November 1993. Awards During its original television run, Dad's Army was nominated for multiple British Academy Television Awards, although only won "Best Light Entertainment Programme" in 1971. It was nominated as "Best Situation Comedy" in 1973, 1974 and 1975. In addition, Arthur Lowe was frequently nominated for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" in 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1978. In 2000, the show was voted 13th in a British Film Institute poll of industry professionals of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. In 2004, championed by Phill Jupitus, it came fourth in the BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom with 174,138 votes. Legacy Statue of Captain Mainwaring, erected in Thetford in June 2010 In June 2010, a statue of Captain Mainwaring was erected in the Norfolk town of Thetford where most of the exteriors for the TV series were filmed. The statue features Captain Mainwaring sitting to attention on a simple bench in Home Guard uniform, with his swagger stick across his knees. The statue is mounted at the end of a winding brick pathway with a Union Flag patterned arrowhead to reflect the opening credits of the TV series and the sculpture has been designed so that members of the public can sit beside Captain Mainwaring and have their photograph taken. The statue was vandalised not long after the unveiling by a 10-year-old boy, who kicked it for ten minutes and broke off the statue's glasses, throwing them into a nearby river. The statue has since been fixed. Several references to Dad's Army have been made in other television series. In a 1995 episode of Bottom, titled "Hole", Richie shouts Lance Corporal Jones's catchphrase while stuck up a Ferris wheel set to be demolished the following day. The British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart paid tribute to Dad's Army in episode one of its second series in 1995, "Don't Get Around Much Any More". Here, lead character Gary Sparrow (Nicholas Lyndhurst) – a time-traveller from the 1990s – goes into a bank in 1941 and meets a bank manager named Mainwaring (Alec Linstead) and his chief clerk, Wilson (Terrence Hardiman), both of whom are in the Home Guard. When he hears the names Mainwaring and Wilson, Gary begins singing the Dad's Army theme song.[72] In addition, a brief visual tribute to Dad's Army is made at the start of the episode "Rag Week" from Ben Elton's 1990s sitcom The Thin Blue Line: a shopfront bears the name "Mainwaring's". In June 2018 the Royal Mail issued a set of eight stamps, featuring the main characters and their catchphrases, to mark the comedy's 50th anniversary. In 2020, Niles Schilder, for the Dad's Army Appreciation Society, wrote four short scripts which detailed how the characters from the series would have, in the author's opinion, dealt with the events of that year. Titles of the scripts included Dad's Army Negotiates Brexit and An Unauthorised Gathering. Cultural influence A pub in Shoeburyness named (albeit incorrectly) after Arthur Lowe's character The characters of Dad's Army and their catchphrases are well known in the UK due to the popularity of the series when originally shown and the frequency of repeats. Jimmy Perry recalls that before writing the sitcom, the Home Guard was a largely forgotten aspect of Britain's defence in the Second World War, something which the series rectified. In a 1972 Radio Times interview, Arthur Lowe expressed surprise at the programme's success: We expected the show to have limited appeal, to the age group that lived through the war and the Home Guard. We didn't expect what has happened – that children from the age of five upwards would enjoy it too. By focusing on the comic aspects of the Home Guard in a cosy south coast setting, the television series distorted the popular perception of the organisation. Its characters represented the older volunteers within the Home Guard, but largely ignored the large numbers of teenagers and factory workers who also served. Accounts from Home Guard members and their regimental publications inspired Norman Longmate's history The Real Dad's Army (1974). Media releases Main articles: List of Dad's Army books and memorabilia and List of Dad's Army audio releases The first DVD releases of Dad's Army were two "best of" collections, released by the BBC and distributed by 2 Entertain, in October 2001 and September 2002. The first series and the surviving episodes of the second series, along with the documentary Dad's Army: Missing Presumed Wiped, were released in September 2004,[80] while the final series was released in May 2007.[81] In November 2007, the final episodes, the three specials "Battle of the Giants!", "My Brother and I" and "The Love of Three Oranges", were released, along with Dad's Army: The Passing Years documentary, several Christmas Night with the Stars sketches, and excerpts from the 1975-76 stage show.[82] From the third series DVD, We Are the Boys..., a short individual biographical documentary about the main actors and the characters they portrayed on the programme, was included as a special feature. The Columbia film adaptation is separately available; as this is not a BBC production, it is not included in the box set. In 1973 the series was adapted into a comic strip, drawn by Bill Titcombe, which was published in daily newspapers in the UK. These cartoon strips were subsequently collected together and published in book form, by Piccolo Books, in paperback. sleep insomnia relax chill night nightime bed bedtime oldtimeradio drama comedy radio talkradio hancock tonyhancock hancockshalfhour sherlock sherlockholmes radiodrama popular viral viralpodcast podcast brett brettorchard orchard east devon seaton beer lyme regis village condado de alhama spain murcia #dadsarmy The Golden Age of Radio Also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows. Radio was the first broadcast medium, and during this period people regularly tuned in to their favourite radio programs, and families gathered to listen to the home radio in the evening. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. A variety of new entertainment formats and genres were created for the new medium, many of which later migrated to television: radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, talent shows, daytime and evening variety hours, situation comedies, play-by-play sports, children's shows, cooking shows, and more. In the 1950s, television surpassed radio as the most popular broadcast medium, and commercial radio programming shifted to narrower formats of news, talk, sports and music. Religious broadcasters, listener-supported public radio and college stations provide their own distinctive formats. Origins A family listening to the first broadcasts around 1920 with a crystal radio. The crystal radio, a legacy from the pre-broadcast era, could not power a loudspeaker so the family must share earphones During the first three decades of radio, from 1887 to about 1920, the technology of transmitting sound was undeveloped; the information-carrying ability of radio waves was the same as a telegraph; the radio signal could be either on or off. Radio communication was by wireless telegraphy; at the sending end, an operator tapped on a switch which caused the radio transmitter to produce a series of pulses of radio waves which spelled out text messages in Morse code. At the receiver these sounded like beeps, requiring an operator who knew Morse code to translate them back to text. This type of radio was used exclusively for person-to-person text communication for commercial, diplomatic and military purposes and hobbyists; broadcasting did not exist. The broadcasts of live drama, comedy, music and news that characterize the Golden Age of Radio had a precedent in the Théâtrophone, commercially introduced in Paris in 1890 and available as late as 1932. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live stage performances and hear news reports by means of a network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept. Between 1900 and 1920 the first technology for transmitting sound by radio was developed, AM (amplitude modulation), and AM broadcasting sprang up around 1920. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said to have broadcast the first radio program, consisting of some violin playing and passages from the Bible. While Fessenden's role as an inventor and early radio experimenter is not in dispute, several contemporary radio researchers have questioned whether the Christmas Eve broadcast took place, or whether the date was, in fact, several weeks earlier. The first apparent published reference to the event was made in 1928 by H. P. Davis, Vice President of Westinghouse, in a lecture given at Harvard University. In 1932 Fessenden cited the Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S. M. Kinter of Westinghouse. Fessenden's wife Helen recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (1940), eight years after Fessenden's death. The issue of whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually happened is discussed in Donna Halper's article "In Search of the Truth About Fessenden"[2] and also in James O'Neal's essays.[3][4] An annotated argument supporting Fessenden as the world's first radio broadcaster was offered in 2006 by Dr. John S. Belrose, Radioscientist Emeritus at the Communications Research Centre Canada, in his essay "Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast." It was not until after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912 that radio for mass communication came into vogue, inspired first by the work of amateur ("ham") radio operators. Radio was especially important during World War I as it was vital for air and naval operations. World War I brought about major developments in radio, superseding the Morse code of the wireless telegraph with the vocal communication of the wireless telephone, through advancements in vacuum tube technology and the introduction of the transceiver. After the war, numerous radio stations were born in the United States and set the standard for later radio programs. The first radio news program was broadcast on August 31, 1920, on the station 8MK in Detroit; owned by The Detroit News, the station covered local election results. This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA, being established in Pittsburgh. The first regular entertainment programs were broadcast in 1922, and on March 10, Variety carried the front-page headline: "Radio Sweeping Country: 1,000,000 Sets in Use." A highlight of this time was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1, 1923, on the Los Angeles station KHJ. Growth of radio Broadcast radio in the United States underwent a period of rapid change through the decade of the 1920s. Technology advances, better regulation, rapid consumer adoption, and the creation of broadcast networks transformed radio from a consumer curiosity into the mass media powerhouse that defined the Golden Age of Radio. Consumer adoption Through the decade of the 1920s, the purchase of radios by United States homes continued, and accelerated. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) released figures in 1925 stating that 19% of United States homes owned a radio. The triode and regenerative circuit made amplified, vacuum tube radios widely available to consumers by the second half of the 1920s. The advantage was obvious: several people at once in a home could now easily listen to their radio at the same time. In 1930, 40% of the nation's households owned a radio,[8] a figure that was much higher in suburban and large metropolitan areas. The superheterodyne receiver and other inventions refined radios even further in the next decade; even as the Great Depression ravaged the country in the 1930s, radio would stay at the centre of American life. 83% of American homes would own a radio by 1940. Government regulation Although radio was well established with United States consumers by the mid-1920s, regulation of the broadcast medium presented its own challenges. Until 1926, broadcast radio power and frequency use was regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, until a legal challenge rendered the agency powerless to do so. Congress responded by enacting the Radio Act of 1927, which included the formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). One of the FRC's most important early actions was the adoption of General Order 40, which divided stations on the AM band into three power level categories, which became known as Local, Regional, and Clear Channel, and reorganized station assignments. Based on this plan, effective 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on November 11, 1928, most of the country's stations were assigned to new transmitting frequencies. Broadcast networks The final element needed to make the Golden Age of Radio possible focused on the question of distribution: the ability for multiple radio stations to simultaneously broadcast the same content, and this would be solved with the concept of a radio network. The earliest radio programs of the 1920s were largely unsponsored; radio stations were a service designed to sell radio receivers. In early 1922, American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting on its owned stations, and plans for the development of the first radio network using its telephone lines to transmit the content. In July 1926, AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to a group headed by RCA, which used the assets to form the National Broadcasting Company. Four radio networks had formed by 1934. These were: National Broadcasting Company Red Network (NBC Red), launched November 15, 1926. Originally founded as the National Broadcasting Company in late 1926, the company was almost immediately forced to split under antitrust laws to form NBC Red and NBC Blue. When, in 1942, NBC Blue was sold and renamed the Blue Network, this network would go back to calling itself simply the National Broadcasting Company Radio Network (NBC). National Broadcasting Company Blue Network (NBC Blue); launched January 10, 1927, split from NBC Red. NBC Blue was sold in 1942 and became the Blue Network, and it in turn transferred its assets to a new company, the American Broadcasting Company on June 15, 1945. That network identified itself as the American Broadcasting Company Radio Network (ABC). Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), launched September 18, 1927. After an initially struggling attempt to compete with the NBC networks, CBS gained new momentum when William S. Paley was installed as company president. Mutual Broadcasting System (Mutual), launched September 29, 1934. Mutual was initially run as a cooperative in which the flagship stations owned the network, not the other way around as was the case with the other three radio networks. Programming In the period before and after the advent of the broadcast network, new forms of entertainment needed to be created to fill the time of a station's broadcast day. Many of the formats born in this era continued into the television and digital eras. In the beginning of the Golden Age, network programs were almost exclusively broadcast live, as the national networks prohibited the airing of recorded programs until the late 1940s because of the inferior sound quality of phonograph discs, the only practical recording medium at that time. As a result, network prime-time shows would be performed twice, once for each coast. Rehearsal for the World War II radio show You Can't Do Business with Hitler with John Flynn and Virginia Moore. This series of programs, broadcast at least once weekly by more than 790 radio stations in the United States, was written and produced by the radio section of the Office of War Information (OWI). Live events Coverage of live events included musical concerts and play-by-play sports broadcasts. News The capability of the new medium to get information to people created the format of modern radio news: headlines, remote reporting, sidewalk interviews (such as Vox Pop), panel discussions, weather reports, and farm reports. The entry of radio into the realm of news triggered a feud between the radio and newspaper industries in the mid-1930s, eventually culminating in newspapers trumping up exaggerated [citation needed] reports of a mass hysteria from the (entirely fictional) radio presentation of The War of the Worlds, which had been presented as a faux newscast. Musical features The sponsored musical feature soon became one of the most popular program formats. Most early radio sponsorship came in the form of selling the naming rights to the program, as evidenced by such programs as The A&P Gypsies, Champion Spark Plug Hour, The Clicquot Club Eskimos, and King Biscuit Time; commercials, as they are known in the modern era, were still relatively uncommon and considered intrusive. During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes, and NBC's Monitor continued such remotes well into the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America. Singers such as Harriet Lee and Wendell Hall became popular fixtures on network radio beginning in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Local stations often had staff organists such as Jesse Crawford playing popular tunes. Classical music programs on the air included The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour. Texaco sponsored the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts; the broadcasts, now sponsored by the Toll Brothers, continue to this day around the world, and are one of the few examples of live classical music still broadcast on radio. One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been created especially for him. At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro. Popular songwriters such as George Gershwin were also featured on radio. (Gershwin, in addition to frequent appearances as a guest, had his own program in 1934.) The New York Philharmonic also had weekly concerts on radio. There was no dedicated classical music radio station like NPR at that time, so classical music programs had to share the network they were broadcast on with more popular ones, much as in the days of television before the creation of NET and PBS. Country music also enjoyed popularity. National Barn Dance, begun on Chicago's WLS in 1924, was picked up by NBC Radio in 1933. In 1925, WSM Barn Dance went on the air from Nashville. It was renamed the Grand Ole Opry in 1927 and NBC carried portions from 1944 to 1956. NBC also aired The Red Foley Show from 1951 to 1961, and ABC Radio carried Ozark Jubilee from 1953 to 1961. Comedy Radio attracted top comedy talents from vaudeville and Hollywood for many years: Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Bob Burns, Judy Canova, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Burns and Allen, Phil Harris, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Jean Shepherd, Red Skelton and Ed Wynn. Situational comedies also gained popularity, such as Amos 'n' Andy, Easy Aces, Ethel and Albert, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Goldbergs, The Great Gildersleeve, The Halls of Ivy (which featured screen star Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume), Meet Corliss Archer, Meet Millie, and Our Miss Brooks. Radio comedy ran the gamut from the small town humor of Lum and Abner, Herb Shriner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan. Gags galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You Top This?,[18] panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant, and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones, Stoopnagle and Budd, Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray. British comedy reached American shores in a major assault when NBC carried The Goon Show in the mid-1950s. Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-running The Aldrich Family (1939–1953) with the familiar catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!," followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!" Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It with You (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan. Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, The Gumps, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye the Sailor, Red Ryder, Reg'lar Fellers, Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler. Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from 1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941–1942 comedy based on cartoonist H. T. Webster's famed Caspar Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s. Conversely, some radio shows gave rise to spinoff comic strips, such as My Friend Irma starring Marie Wilson. Soap operas The first program generally considered to be a daytime serial drama by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams, which premiered on WGN on October 20, 1930. The first networked daytime serial is Clara, Lu, 'n Em, which started in a daytime time slot on February 15, 1932. As daytime serials became popular in the early 1930s, they became known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. On November 25, 1960, the last four daytime radio dramas—Young Dr. Malone, Right to Happiness, The Second Mrs. Burton and Ma Perkins, all broadcast on the CBS Radio Network—were brought to an end. Children's programming The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, The Cisco Kid, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Captain Midnight, and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Badges, rings, decoding devices and other radio premiums offered on these adventure shows were often allied with a sponsor's product, requiring the young listeners to mail in a boxtop from a breakfast cereal or other proof of purchase. Radio plays Radio plays were presented on such programs as 26 by Corwin, NBC Short Story, Arch Oboler's Plays, Quiet, Please, and CBS Radio Workshop. Orson Welles's The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse were considered by many critics to be the finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as Margaret Sullavan or Helen Hayes, in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as Liliom, Oliver Twist (a title now feared lost), A Tale of Two Cities, Lost Horizon, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was on Mercury Theatre that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, formatted to sound like a breaking news program. Theatre Guild on the Air presented adaptations of classical and Broadway plays. Their Shakespeare adaptations included a one-hour Macbeth starring Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson, and a 90-minute Hamlet, starring John Gielgud.[22] Recordings of many of these programs survive. During the 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in films, repeated their characterizations on radio on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which featured both original stories and episodes directly adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became the only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as "The Speckled Band". There were also many dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce. During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor John Barrymore starred in a radio program, Streamlined Shakespeare, which featured him in a series of one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as Twelfth Night (in which he played both Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch), and Macbeth. Lux Radio Theatre and The Screen Guild Theater presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. Suspense, Escape, The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum Mystery were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin, Carlton E. Morse, David Goodis, Archibald MacLeish, Arthur Miller, Arch Oboler, Wyllis Cooper, Rod Serling, Jay Bennett, and Irwin Shaw. Game shows Game shows saw their beginnings in radio. One of the first was Information Please in 1938, and one of the first major successes was Dr. I.Q. in 1939. Winner Take All, which premiered in 1946, was the first to use lockout devices and feature returning champions. A relative of the game show, which would be called the giveaway show in contemporary media, typically involved giving sponsored products to studio audience members, people randomly called by telephone, or both. An early example of this show was the 1939 show Pot o' Gold, but the breakout hit of this type was ABC's Stop the Music in 1948. Winning a prize generally required knowledge of what was being aired on the show at that moment, which led to criticism of the giveaway show as a form of "buying an audience". Giveaway shows were extremely popular through 1948 and 1949. They were often panned as low-brow, and an unsuccessful attempt was even made by the FCC to ban them (as an illegal lottery) in August 1949.[23] Broadcast production methods The RCA Type 44-BX microphone had two live faces and two dead ones. Thus actors could face each other and react. An actor could give the effect of leaving the room by simply moving their head toward the dead face of the microphone. The scripts were paper-clipped together. It has been disputed whether or not actors and actresses would drop finished pages to the carpeted floor after use. Radio stations Despite a general ban on use of recordings on broadcasts by radio networks through the late 1940s, "reference recordings" on phonograph disc were made of many programs as they were being broadcast, for review by the sponsor and for the network's own archival purposes. With the development of high-fidelity magnetic wire and tape recording in the years following World War II, the networks became more open to airing recorded programs and the prerecording of shows became more common. Local stations, however, had always been free to use recordings and sometimes made substantial use of pre-recorded syndicated programs distributed on pressed (as opposed to individually recorded) transcription discs. Recording was done using a cutting lathe and acetate discs. Programs were normally recorded at 331⁄3 rpm on 16 inch discs, the standard format used for such "electrical transcriptions" from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Sometimes, the groove was cut starting at the inside of the disc and running to the outside. This was useful when the program to be recorded was longer than 15 minutes so required more than one disc side. By recording the first side outside in, the second inside out, and so on, the sound quality at the disc change-over points would match and result in a more seamless playback. An inside start also had the advantage that the thread of material cut from the disc's surface, which had to be kept out of the path of the cutting stylus, was naturally thrown toward the centre of the disc so was automatically out of the way. When cutting an outside start disc, a brush could be used to keep it out of the way by sweeping it toward the middle of the disc. Well-equipped recording lathes used the vacuum from a water aspirator to pick it up as it was cut and deposit it in a water-filled bottle. In addition to convenience, this served a safety purpose, as the cellulose nitrate thread was highly flammable and a loose accumulation of it combusted violently if ignited. Most recordings of radio broadcasts were made at a radio network's studios, or at the facilities of a network-owned or affil
Good evening and a huge welcome back to the show, I hope you've had a great day and you're ready to kick back and relax with another episode of Brett's old time radio show. Hello, I'm Brett your host for this evening and welcome to my home in beautiful Lyme Bay where it's lovely December night. I hope it's just as nice where you are. You'll find all of my links at www.linktr.ee/brettsoldtimeradioshow A huge thankyou for joining me once again for our regular late night visit to those dusty studio archives of Old Time radio shows right here at my home in the united kingdom. Don't forget I have an instagram page and youtube channel both called brett's old time radio show and I'd love it if you could follow me. Feel free to send me some feedback on this and the other shows if you get a moment, brett@tourdate.co.uk #sleep #insomnia #relax #chill #night #nighttime #bed #bedtime #oldtimeradio #drama #comedy #radio #talkradio #hancock #tonyhancock #hancockshalfhour #sherlock #sherlockholmes #radiodrama #popular #viral #viralpodcast #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podtok #podcastclip #podcastclips #podcasttrailer #podcastteaser #newpodcastepisode #newpodcast #videopodcast #upcomingpodcast #audiogram #audiograms #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #truecrime #podcaster #viral #popular #viralpodcast #number1 #instagram #youtube #facebook #johnnydollar #crime #fiction #unwind #devon #texas #texasranger #beer #seaton #seaside #smuggler #colyton #devon #seaton #beer #branscombe #lymebay #lymeregis #brett #brettorchard #orchard #greatdetectives #greatdetectivesofoldtimeradio #detectives #johnnydollar #thesaint #steptoe #texasrangers Dad's Army Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally. The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title Dad's Army), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription. Most of the platoon members in Dad's Army are over military age and the series stars several older British actors, including Arnold Ridley, John Laurie, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier. Younger members of the cast included Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn (who, despite being one of the younger cast members, played the oldest guardsman, Lance Corporal Jones) and James Beck (who died suddenly during production of the sixth series in 1973). Other regular cast members included Frank Williams as the vicar, Edward Sinclair as the verger, and Bill Pertwee as the chief ARP warden. The series has influenced British popular culture, with its catchphrases and characters being widely known. The Radio Times magazine listed Captain Mainwaring's "You stupid boy!" among the 25 greatest put-downs on TV. A 2001 Channel 4 poll ranked Captain Mainwaring 21st on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2004, Dad's Army came fourth in a BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was placed 13th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, and voted for by industry professionals. A second feature film of Dad's Army with a different cast was released in 2016. In 2019, UKTV recreated three missing episodes for broadcast in August that year on its Gold channel under the title Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes. It starred Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Origins Co-writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry during a Dad's Army event at Bressingham Steam Museum, May 2011 Originally intended to be called The Fighting Tigers, Dad's Army was based partly on co-writer and creator Jimmy Perry's experiences in the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV, later known as the Home Guard) and highlighted a somewhat forgotten aspect of defence during the Second World War. Perry was only 16 when he joined the 10th Hertfordshire Battalion. His mother did not like him being out at night, and feared he might catch a cold; he partly resembled the character of Private Pike. An elderly lance corporal in the 10th Hertfordshire often referred to fighting under Kitchener against the "Fuzzy Wuzzies" (Hadendoa), and was the model for Lance Corporal Jones. Other influences included the work of comedians such as Will Hay, whose film Oh, Mr Porter! featured a pompous ass, an old man and a young man; together, this gave Perry the ideas for Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike. Film historian Jeffrey Richards has cited Lancastrian comedian Robb Wilton as a key influence; Wilton portrayed a work-shy husband who joined the Home Guard in numerous comic sketches during World War II. Perry wrote the first script and sent it to David Croft while working as a minor actor in the Croft-produced sitcom Hugh and I, originally intending the role of the spiv, later called Walker, to be his own. Croft was impressed and sent the script to Michael Mills, the BBC's head of comedy, and the series was commissioned. In his book Dad's Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show, Graham McCann explains that the show owes much to Michael Mills. It was he who renamed the show Dad's Army. He did not like Brightsea-on-Sea, so the location was changed to Walmington-on-Sea. He was happy with the names for the characters Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike, but not with other names, and he made suggestions: Private Jim Duck became James Frazer, Joe Fish became Joe Walker and Jim Jones became Jack Jones. He also suggested adding a Scot. Jimmy Perry had produced the original idea, but needed a more experienced partner to see it through, so Mills suggested David Croft and this launched the beginning of their professional association. When an episode was screened to members of the public to gauge audience reaction prior to broadcast of the first series, the majority of the audience thought it was very poor. The production team put the report containing the negative comments at the bottom of David Croft's in-tray. He only saw it several months later,[16] after the series had been broadcast and received a positive response. Situation The series is set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, located on the south coast of England, not far from Eastbourne. The exterior scenes were mostly filmed in and around the Stanford Training Area (STANTA), near Thetford, Norfolk.[19] Walmington, and its Home Guard platoon, would be on the frontline in the event of a German invasion across the English Channel. The first series has a loose narrative thread, with Captain Mainwaring's platoon being formed and equipped, initially with wooden guns and LDV armbands, later on with full army uniforms; the platoon is part of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. The first episode, "The Man and the Hour", begins with a scene set in the then-present day of 1968, in which Mainwaring addresses his old platoon as part of the contemporary '"I'm Backing Britain" campaign. The prologue opening was a condition imposed after initial concerns from Paul Fox, the BBC1 controller, that it belittled the efforts of the Home Guard. After Mainwaring relates how he had backed Britain in 1940, the episode proper begins; Dad's Army is thus told in flashback, although the final episode does not return to 1968. Later episodes are largely self-contained, albeit referring to previous events and with additional character development. As the comedy in many ways relies on the platoon's lack of participation in the Second World War, opposition to their activities must come from another quarter, and this is generally provided by Chief Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Warden Hodges, and sometimes by the verger of the local church (St Aldhelm's) or by Captain Square and the neighbouring Eastgate Home Guard platoon. The group, however, does have some encounters related to the enemy, such as downed German planes, a Luftwaffe pilot who parachutes into the town's clock tower, a U-boat crew and discarded parachutes that may have been German; a Viennese ornithologist appears in "Man Hunt" and an IRA suspect appears in "Absent Friends". The humour ranges from the subtle (especially the class-reversed relationship between grammar school-educated Mainwaring, the local bank manager, and public school-educated Wilson, his deputy at the bank) to the slapstick (the antics of the elderly Jones being a prime example). Jones had several catchphrases, including "Don't panic!" (while panicking himself), "They don't like it up 'em!", "Permission to speak, sir?", "Handy-hock!" and his tales about the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies". Mainwaring's catchphrase to Pike is "You stupid boy", which he uses in many episodes. Other cast members used catchphrases, including Sergeant Wilson, who regularly asked, "Do you think that's wise, sir?" when Captain Mainwaring made a suggestion. The early series occasionally included darker humour, reflecting that, especially early in the war, the Home Guard was woefully under-equipped but was still willing to resist the Wehrmacht. For instance, in the episode "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", the platoon believes the enemy has invaded Britain. Mainwaring, Godfrey, Frazer and Jones (along with Godfrey's sisters, who are completely unaware of the invasion) decide to stay at the cottage to delay the German advance, buying the regular army time to arrive with reinforcements; "It'll probably be the end of us, but we're ready for that, aren't we, men?" says Mainwaring. "Of course," replies Frazer. Characters Private Pike (Ian Lavender) ARP Warden Hodges (Bill Pertwee) Private Frazer (John Laurie) Private Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) Private Walker (James Beck) Lance Corporal Jones (Clive Dunn) Sergeant Wilson (John Le Mesurier) Main characters Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), the pompous, if essentially brave and unerringly patriotic local bank manager. Mainwaring appointed himself leader of his town's contingent of Local Defence Volunteers. He had been a lieutenant in the First World War but is embarrassed by the fact that he never saw combat, only being sent to France in 1919 after the Armistice as part of the Army of Occupation in Germany. The character, along with Wilson, also appeared in the original pilot episode of the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier), a diffident, upper-middle-class chief bank clerk who often quietly questions Mainwaring's judgement ("Do you think that's wise, sir?"). Wilson had actually served as a captain during the First World War, but he only reveals this in the final episode. He does not live with the Pike family, but is implied to be in a relationship with the widowed Mrs Pike. Wilson also appears in the later radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Lance Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn), the local butcher, born in 1870. Jones is an old campaigner who enlisted as a drummer boy at the age of 14 and participated, as a boy soldier, in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884–85 and, as an adult, in Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan in 1896–98. Jones also served during the Boer War and the Great War. He often suffers from the effects of malaria caught during one of his campaigns and has to be calmed during his "shudders". Often seen as fastidious and a worrier, he has a number of catchphrases, including "They don't like it up 'em!" and "Don't panic, don't panic!", which he says whilst panicking. Dunn was considerably younger than his character, being only 46 when the series began. This meant he often performed the physical comedy of the show, which some of the older cast members were no longer capable of. Private James Frazer (John Laurie), a dour Scottish former chief petty officer on HMS Defiant in the Royal Navy. He served at the Battle of Jutland as a ship's cook and also has a medal for having served on Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. He grew up on the Isle of Barra and is prone to theatrical poetry. In episode one, he states that he owns a philately shop, but subsequently his profession is changed to an undertaker. His catchphrase is "We're doomed. Doomed!" Private Joe Walker (James Beck), a black market spiv, Walker is one of only two able-bodied men of military age among the main characters (the other one being Private Pike). In the first episode, Walker claims he was not called up to the regular army because he was in a reserved occupation as a wholesale supplier. In one of the missing episodes, it is revealed that he was not called up because of an allergy to corned beef. Although always on the lookout to make money, Walker is also seen to support local charities, including a children's home. Following James Beck's death in 1973, Walker was written out of the series. Private Charles Godfrey (Arnold Ridley), a retired shop assistant who had worked at the Army & Navy store in London. He lives in Walmington with his elderly sisters and serves as the platoon's medical orderly. He has a weak bladder and often needs to "be excused". A conscientious objector during the First World War, he was nevertheless awarded the Military Medal for heroic actions as a combat medic during the Battle of the Somme. He also demonstrates bravery during his Home Guard service, particularly during the "Branded" episode in which Mainwaring, unconscious in a smoke-filled room, is rescued by Godfrey. Private Frank Pike (Ian Lavender), the youngest of the platoon. He is a cosseted, somewhat immature mother's boy, often wearing a thick scarf over his uniform to prevent illness and a frequent target for Mainwaring's derision ("You stupid boy!"). Pike is not called up to the regular army due to his rare blood group (in series eight, he is excused for this reason). He works in his day job as an assistant bank clerk for Mainwaring. He frequently addresses Sergeant Wilson as "Uncle Arthur". However, on the last day of filming, David Croft confirmed to Lavender that Wilson was in fact Pike's father. Pike would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Supporting characters Chief ARP Warden William Hodges (Bill Pertwee), the platoon's major rival and nemesis. He calls Mainwaring "Napoleon". Mainwaring looks down on him as the local greengrocer and dislikes that Hodges saw active service in the First World War. As an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden, he is always demanding that people "Put that light out!". He often calls the platoon "Ruddy hooligans!". The character of Hodges would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Reverend Timothy Farthing (Frank Williams), the effete, petulant vicar of St Aldhelm's Church. He reluctantly shares his church hall and office with the platoon. In several episodes of the series, it was implied that the character was a non-active closet gay. Maurice Yeatman (Edward Sinclair), the verger at St Aldhelm's Church and Scoutmaster of the local Sea Scout troop. He is often hostile to the platoon while frequently sycophantic towards the vicar, who often struggles to tolerate him and frequently employs the catchphrase "Oh do be quiet, Mr Yeatman!". He often sides with Hodges to undermine the platoon's activities. Mrs Mavis Pike (Janet Davies), Pike's overbearing widowed mother, who is often implied to be in a relationship with Sergeant Wilson. Liz Frazer replaced Janet Davies in the 1971 film version. Mrs Fox (Pamela Cundell), a glamorous widow. There is a mutual attraction with Corporal Jones and the couple marry in the last episode. Illicit little "extras" are passed across the counter on her regular visits to Jones's butcher's shop and she helps the platoon with official functions. In the episode "Mum's Army", she gives her first name as Marcia, but by the final episode she is addressed as Mildred. Colonel Pritchard (Robert Raglan), Captain Mainwaring's superior officer. A stern, serious man, he unexpectedly appeared to admire Mainwaring, frequently commenting on his successes and warning people not to underestimate him. Private Sponge (Colin Bean), a sheep farmer. He leads the members of the platoon's second section (the first section being led by Corporal Jones) and thus had only occasional speaking parts, although he became more prominent in later series. He appeared in 76 of the 80 episodes. Mr Claude Gordon (Eric Longworth), the Walmington town clerk often involved when the platoon is taking part in local parades and displays. Although generally civil with Captain Mainwaring and his men, he is an officious and somewhat pompous individual, and Hodges tends to use him to try and interfere with the platoon's activities. Private Cheeseman (Talfryn Thomas), a Welshman who works for the town newspaper. He joined the Walmington-on-Sea platoon during the seventh series only after the sudden death of James Beck, who played Private Walker. Captain Square (Geoffrey Lumsden), the pompous commanding officer of the rival Eastgate platoon, and a former regular soldier who served with Lawrence of Arabia during the First World War. He is frequently at loggerheads with Mainwaring (whose name he persists in mispronouncing as spelt, "Main-wearing", instead of the correct "Mannering") and has the catchphrase "You blithering idiot!". Mrs Yeatman (Olive Mercer), the somewhat tyrannical wife of Maurice Yeatman, the verger. Over the course of the series, her first name is given as either Beryl, Anthea or Tracey. Mr Sidney Bluett (Harold Bennett), an elderly local man who is occasionally involved with the antics of both the platoon and Hodges. He and Mrs Yeatman are implied to be having an affair. Miss Janet King (Caroline Dowdeswell), a clerk at Swallow Bank who works with Mainwaring, Wilson and Pike in the first series. Edith Parish (Wendy Richard), also called Shirley, a cinema usherette and girlfriend of Private Walker. Dolly (Amy Dalby and Joan Cooper) and Cissy Godfrey (Nan Braunton and Kathleen Saintsbury), Private Godfrey's spinster sisters, who reside with him at their cottage. Elizabeth Mainwaring (unseen character), George Mainwaring's reclusive, paranoid and domineering wife who is never seen onscreen in the TV series. (In the episode "A Soldier's Farewell" her "shape" is seen sleeping in the bunk above the captain while in their Anderson Shelter.) Her marriage to George is not a happy one and he does his best to avoid her at any opportunity. They have no children. Mrs Mainwaring had a significant on screen role in the 2016 film. Other actors who appeared in small roles include Timothy Carlton, Don Estelle, Nigel Hawthorne, Geoffrey Hughes, Michael Knowles, John Ringham, Fulton Mackay, Anthony Sagar, Anthony Sharp, Carmen Silvera and Barbara Windsor. Larry Martyn appeared as an unnamed private in four episodes, and later took over the part of Walker in the radio series following the death of James Beck. The former cricketer Fred Trueman appeared in "The Test". Opening and closing credits The show's opening titles were originally intended to feature footage of refugees and Nazi troops, to illustrate the threat faced by the Home Guard. Despite opposition from the BBC's head of comedy Michael Mills, Paul Fox, the controller of BBC1, ordered that these be removed on the grounds that they were offensive. The replacement titles featured the animated sequence of swastika-headed arrows approaching Britain.[25] Originally in black and white, the opening titles were updated twice; firstly in series three, adding colour and improved animation, and once again in series six, which made further improvements to the animation. There were two different versions of the closing credits used in the show. The first version, used in series one and two, simply showed footage of the main cast superimposed over a still photograph, with the crew credits rolling over a black background. The better-known closing credits, introduced in series three, were a homage to the end credits of The Way Ahead (1944), a film which had covered the training of a platoon during the Second World War. In both instances, each character is shown as they walk across a smoke-filled battlefield. One of the actors in Dad's Army, John Laurie, also appeared in that film, and his performance in the end credits of The Way Ahead appears to be copied in the sitcom. Coincidentally, the film's lead character (played by David Niven) is named Lieutenant Jim Perry. Following this sequence, the end credits roll, and the platoon is shown in a wide angle shot as, armed, they run towards the camera, while bombs explode behind them. As the credits come to an end, the platoon run past the camera and the all clear siren rings, before the screen fades to black. Music The show's theme tune, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?" was Jimmy Perry's idea, written especially for the show and intended as a gentle pastiche of wartime songs. The other songs were authentic 1940s music recordings. Perry wrote the lyrics and composed the music with Derek Taverner. Perry persuaded one of his childhood idols, wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan, to sing the theme for 100 guineas (equivalent to £2,400 in 2023). Flanagan died less than a year after the recording. At the time it was widely believed to be a wartime song. The music over the opening credits was recorded at Riverside Studios, Flanagan being accompanied by the Orchestra of the Band of the Coldstream Guards. The version played over the opening credits differs slightly from the full version recorded by Flanagan; an edit removes, for timing reasons, two lines of lyric with the "middle eight" tune: "So watch out Mr Hitler, you have met your match in us/If you think you can crush us, we're afraid you've missed the bus." (The latter lyric is a reference to a speech by Neville Chamberlain.) Bud Flanagan's full version appears as an Easter egg on the first series DVD release and on the authorised soundtrack CD issued by CD41. Arthur Lowe also recorded a full version of the theme. The closing credits feature an instrumental march version of the song played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards conducted by Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Trevor L. Sharpe, ending with the air-raid warning siren sounding all-clear. It is accompanied by a style of credits that became a trademark of David Croft: the caption "You have been watching", followed by vignettes of the main cast. The series also contains genuine wartime and period songs between scenes, usually brief quotations that have some reference to the theme of the episode or the scene. Many appear on the CD soundtrack issued by CD41, being the same versions used in the series. Episodes List of Dad's Army episodes The television programme lasted nine series and was broadcast over nine years, with 80 episodes in total, including three Christmas specials and an hour-long special. At its peak, the programme regularly gained audiences of 18.5 million.[35] There were also four short specials broadcast as part of Christmas Night with the Stars in 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1972; one of which was also restaged as part of the Royal Variety Performance 1975. Missing episodes Main article: Dad's Army missing episodes The first two series were recorded and screened in black-and-white, while series three to nine were recorded and screened in colour. Even so, one episode in series three, "Room at the Bottom", formerly survived only as a 16mm black-and-white film telerecording, made for overseas sales to countries not yet broadcasting in colour; and remains on the official DVD releases in this form. This episode has benefited from colour recovery technology, using a buried colour signal (chroma dots) in the black-and-white film print to restore the episode to colour and was transmitted on 13 December 2008 on BBC Two. The newly restored colour version of "Room at the Bottom" was eventually made commercially available in 2023, when it appeared as an extra on the DVD release Dad's Army: The Missing Episodes, with a specially filmed introduction by Ian Lavender. Dad's Army was less affected than most from the wiping of videotape, but three second-series episodes remain missing: episode nine "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", episode eleven "A Stripe for Frazer" and episode 12 "Under Fire". (All three missing episodes were among those remade for BBC Radio with most of the original cast, adapted from the original TV scripts. Audio recordings of all three were included as bonus features on The Complete Series DVD Collection.) Two further series two episodes, "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", were thought lost until 2001.[8] Two of the three missing episodes have since been performed as part of the latest stage show. In 2008, soundtracks of the missing episode "A Stripe for Frazer" and the 1968 Christmas Night with the Stars segment "Present Arms" were recovered. The soundtrack of "A Stripe for Frazer" has been mixed with animation to replace the missing images.[36] The audio soundtrack for the "Cornish Floral Dance" sketch, from the 1970 episode of Christmas Night with the Stars, has also been recovered. Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes (2019) In 2018, UKTV announced plans to recreate the three missing episodes for broadcast on its Gold channel. Mercury Productions, the company responsible for Saluting Dad's Army, Gold's 50th anniversary tribute series, produced the episodes, which were directed by Ben Kellett. The recreations were broadcast in August 2019, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of their original broadcast by the BBC.[37] Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson, with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey. The full cast was announced in January 2019, with McNally, Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon, Mathew Horne, David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal. However, Bernard Cribbins subsequently withdrew from the project, and was replaced as Godfrey by Timothy West. Cast Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson Kevin Eldon as Lance Corporal Jones David Hayman as Private Frazer Mathew Horne as Private Walker Timothy West as Private Godfrey Tom Rosenthal as Private Pike Tracy-Ann Oberman as Mrs Pike Simon Ludders as ARP Warden Hodges David Horovitch as Corporal-Colonel Square John Biggins as the Verger Films 1971 film Main article: Dad's Army (1971 film) In common with many British sitcoms of that era, Dad's Army was spun-off as a feature film which was released in 1971. Backers Columbia Pictures imposed arbitrary changes, such as recasting Liz Fraser as Mavis Pike and filming locations in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, rather than Thetford in Norfolk, which made the cast unhappy. The director, Norman Cohen, whose idea it was to make the film, was nearly sacked by the studio.: 168 Jimmy Perry and David Croft wrote the original screenplay. This was expanded by Cohen to try to make it more cinematic; Columbia executives made more changes to plot and pacing. As finally realised, two-thirds of the film consists of the creation of the platoon; this was the contribution of Perry and Croft, and differs in a number of ways from the formation of the platoon as seen in the first series of the television version. The final third shows the platoon in action, rescuing hostages from the church hall where they had been held captive by the crewmen of a downed German aircraft. Neither the cast nor Perry and Croft were happy with the result. Perry argued for changes to try to reproduce the style of the television series, but with mixed results. Filming took place from 10 August to 25 September 1970 at Shepperton Studios and on location. After shooting the film, the cast returned to working on the fourth television series. The film's UK première was on 12 March 1971 at the Columbia Theatre, London. Critical reviews were mixed, but it performed well at the UK box-office. Discussions were held about a possible sequel, to be called Dad's Army and the Secret U-Boat Base, but the project never came to fruition. Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey (2014) 2016 film Main article: Dad's Army (2016 film) A second film, written by Hamish McColl and directed by Oliver Parker, was released in 2016. The cast included Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtenay as Lance Corporal Jones, Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey, Blake Harrison as Private Pike, Daniel Mays as Private Walker and Bill Paterson as Private Frazer. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sarah Lancashire and Mark Gatiss also featured. The film was primarily shot on location in Yorkshire. Filming took place on the beach at North Landing, Flamborough Head, Yorkshire and at nearby Bridlington. It opened in February 2016 to mainly negative reviews. Stage show Main article: Dad's Army (stage show) A poster advertising the stage show In 1975, Dad's Army transferred to the stage as a revue, with songs, familiar scenes from the show and individual "turns" for cast members. It was created by Roger Redfarn, who shared the same agent as the series' writers. Most of the principal cast transferred with it, with the exception of John Laurie, who was replaced by Hamish Roughead.[8] Following James Beck's death two years earlier, Walker was played by John Bardon.[8] Dad's Army: A Nostalgic Music and Laughter Show of Britain's Finest Hour opened at Billingham in Teesside on 4 September 1975 for a two-week tryout. After cuts and revisions, the show transferred to London's West End and opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 2 October 1975. On the opening night there was a surprise appearance by Chesney Allen, singing the old Flanagan and Allen song Hometown with Arthur Lowe. The show ran in the West End until 21 February 1976, disrupted twice by bomb scares and then toured the country until 4 September 1976. Clive Dunn was replaced for half the tour by Jack Haig (David Croft's original first choice for the role of Corporal Jones on television). Jeffrey Holland, who went on to star in several later Croft sitcoms, also had a number of roles in the production. The stage show, billed as Dad's Army—The Musical, was staged in Australia and toured New Zealand in 2004–2005, starring Jon English. Several sections of this stage show were filmed and have subsequently been included as extras on the final Dad's Army DVD. In April 2007, a new stage show was announced with cast members including Leslie Grantham as Private Walker and Emmerdale actor Peter Martin as Captain Mainwaring. The production contained the episodes "A Stripe for Frazer", "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", "Room at the Bottom" and "The Deadly Attachment". In August 2017, a new two-man stage show titled, Dad's Army Radio Hour, opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe It starred David Benson and Jack Lane. Between them, the pair voiced the entire cast of Dad's Army, including incidental characters. The episodes adapted from the original radio scripts were "The Deadly Attachment", "The Day the Balloon Went Up", "Brain Versus Brawn", "My British Buddy", "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel" and "Mum's Army". The production featured three episodes not adapted for the radio series "When You've Got to Go", "My Brother and I" and "Never Too Old". The show was well received by critics and the David Croft estate for its respectful and uncanny performances. In 2019, the production changed its name to Dad's Army Radio Show and continued to tour nationally throughout the UK until the end of 2021. Radio series List of Dad's Army radio episodes The majority of the television scripts were adapted for BBC Radio 4 with the original cast, although other actors played Walker after James Beck's death (which took place soon after recording and before transmission of the first radio series). Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles were responsible for the adaptation,[8] while wartime BBC announcer John Snagge set the scene for each episode. Different actors were used for some of the minor parts: for example Mollie Sugden played the role of Mrs Fox, and Pearl Hackney played Mrs Pike. The first episode was based on the revised version of events seen in the opening of the film version, rather than on the television pilot. The series ran for three series and 67 episodes from 1974-76.[8] The entire radio series has been released on CD. Knowles and Snoad developed a radio series, It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which followed Sergeant Wilson, Private Pike and Warden Hodges's attempts to renovate a pier in the fictional town of Frambourne-on-Sea following the end of the war. It was originally intended to star Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier, but Lowe died after recording the pilot episode in 1981. In consequence, Bill Pertwee and Ian Lavender were brought in to replace him. In the event the revised cast recorded a 13-episode series. John Le Mesurier died in November 1983, making another series impossible. The last radio recording of Dad's Army occurred in 1995, when Jimmy Perry wrote a radio sketch entitled The Boy Who Saved England for the "Full Steam A-Hudd" evening broadcast on BBC Radio 2, transmitted on 3 June 1995 on the occasion of the closure of the BBC's Paris studios in Lower Regent Street. It featured Ian Lavender as Pike, Bill Pertwee as Hodges, Frank Williams as the Vicar and Jimmy Perry as General Haverlock-Seabag. American adaptation A pilot episode for an American remake called The Rear Guard, adapted for American viewers by Arthur Julian, was produced by the ABC and broadcast on 10 August 1976, based on the Dad's Army episode "The Deadly Attachment".[8] Set in Long Island, the pilot starred Cliff Norton as Captain Rosatti, Lou Jacobi as Sergeant Raskin and Eddie Foy Jr. as Lance Corporal Wagner. The pilot was considered a failure, so the original tapes were wiped. However, director Hal Cooper kept a copy of the pilot, which was returned to several collectors in 1998. Though further storylines were planned, the series failed to make it past the pilot stage. Other appearances Lowe, Le Mesurier, Laurie, Beck, Ridley and Lavender (wearing Pike's signature scarf) appeared as guests in the 22 April 1971 edition of The Morecambe & Wise Show on BBC2 in the "Monty on the Bonty" sketch, with Lowe as Captain Bligh and the others as crewmen on HMS Bounty. Lowe, Le Mesurier and Laurie again made a cameo appearance as their Dad's Army characters in the 1977 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special. While Elton John is following incomprehensible instructions to find the BBC studios, he encounters them in a steam room. On leaving, Mainwaring calls him a "stupid boy". Arthur Lowe twice appeared on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The first time, in 1973, was with John Le Mesurier, in which the two appeared in costume and in character as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Together they viewed and discussed a mural painted by schoolchildren, featuring the characters from the show at a Christmas party, among whom was Mainwaring's unseen wife Elizabeth – or rather, what the children thought she looked like (Mainwaring remarks "Good grief. What a remarkable likeness!"). Arthur Lowe made a second appearance as Captain Mainwaring on Blue Peter with the Dad's Army van, which would appear in the forthcoming London-Brighton run, and showed presenter John Noakes the vehicle's hidden anti-Nazi defences.[29][59] Later that year, Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender and Pertwee, along with Jones's van, appeared in character at the finish of the 1974 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. The cast appeared in a 1974 public information film, in character but set in the modern day, in which the platoon demonstrated how to cross the road safely at Pelican crossings. Lowe and Le Mesurier made a final appearance as their Dad's Army characters for a 1982 television commercial advertising Wispa chocolate bars. Clive Dunn made occasional appearances as Lance Corporal Jones at 1940s themed events in the 1980s and 1990s and on television on the BBC Saturday night entertainment show Noel's House Party on 27 November 1993. Awards During its original television run, Dad's Army was nominated for multiple British Academy Television Awards, although only won "Best Light Entertainment Programme" in 1971. It was nominated as "Best Situation Comedy" in 1973, 1974 and 1975. In addition, Arthur Lowe was frequently nominated for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" in 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1978. In 2000, the show was voted 13th in a British Film Institute poll of industry professionals of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. In 2004, championed by Phill Jupitus, it came fourth in the BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom with 174,138 votes. Legacy Statue of Captain Mainwaring, erected in Thetford in June 2010 In June 2010, a statue of Captain Mainwaring was erected in the Norfolk town of Thetford where most of the exteriors for the TV series were filmed. The statue features Captain Mainwaring sitting to attention on a simple bench in Home Guard uniform, with his swagger stick across his knees. The statue is mounted at the end of a winding brick pathway with a Union Flag patterned arrowhead to reflect the opening credits of the TV series and the sculpture has been designed so that members of the public can sit beside Captain Mainwaring and have their photograph taken. The statue was vandalised not long after the unveiling by a 10-year-old boy, who kicked it for ten minutes and broke off the statue's glasses, throwing them into a nearby river. The statue has since been fixed. Several references to Dad's Army have been made in other television series. In a 1995 episode of Bottom, titled "Hole", Richie shouts Lance Corporal Jones's catchphrase while stuck up a Ferris wheel set to be demolished the following day. The British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart paid tribute to Dad's Army in episode one of its second series in 1995, "Don't Get Around Much Any More". Here, lead character Gary Sparrow (Nicholas Lyndhurst) – a time-traveller from the 1990s – goes into a bank in 1941 and meets a bank manager named Mainwaring (Alec Linstead) and his chief clerk, Wilson (Terrence Hardiman), both of whom are in the Home Guard. When he hears the names Mainwaring and Wilson, Gary begins singing the Dad's Army theme song.[72] In addition, a brief visual tribute to Dad's Army is made at the start of the episode "Rag Week" from Ben Elton's 1990s sitcom The Thin Blue Line: a shopfront bears the name "Mainwaring's". In June 2018 the Royal Mail issued a set of eight stamps, featuring the main characters and their catchphrases, to mark the comedy's 50th anniversary. In 2020, Niles Schilder, for the Dad's Army Appreciation Society, wrote four short scripts which detailed how the characters from the series would have, in the author's opinion, dealt with the events of that year. Titles of the scripts included Dad's Army Negotiates Brexit and An Unauthorised Gathering. Cultural influence A pub in Shoeburyness named (albeit incorrectly) after Arthur Lowe's character The characters of Dad's Army and their catchphrases are well known in the UK due to the popularity of the series when originally shown and the frequency of repeats. Jimmy Perry recalls that before writing the sitcom, the Home Guard was a largely forgotten aspect of Britain's defence in the Second World War, something which the series rectified. In a 1972 Radio Times interview, Arthur Lowe expressed surprise at the programme's success: We expected the show to have limited appeal, to the age group that lived through the war and the Home Guard. We didn't expect what has happened – that children from the age of five upwards would enjoy it too. By focusing on the comic aspects of the Home Guard in a cosy south coast setting, the television series distorted the popular perception of the organisation. Its characters represented the older volunteers within the Home Guard, but largely ignored the large numbers of teenagers and factory workers who also served. Accounts from Home Guard members and their regimental publications inspired Norman Longmate's history The Real Dad's Army (1974). Media releases Main articles: List of Dad's Army books and memorabilia and List of Dad's Army audio releases The first DVD releases of Dad's Army were two "best of" collections, released by the BBC and distributed by 2 Entertain, in October 2001 and September 2002. The first series and the surviving episodes of the second series, along with the documentary Dad's Army: Missing Presumed Wiped, were released in September 2004,[80] while the final series was released in May 2007.[81] In November 2007, the final episodes, the three specials "Battle of the Giants!", "My Brother and I" and "The Love of Three Oranges", were released, along with Dad's Army: The Passing Years documentary, several Christmas Night with the Stars sketches, and excerpts from the 1975-76 stage show.[82] From the third series DVD, We Are the Boys..., a short individual biographical documentary about the main actors and the characters they portrayed on the programme, was included as a special feature. The Columbia film adaptation is separately available; as this is not a BBC production, it is not included in the box set. In 1973 the series was adapted into a comic strip, drawn by Bill Titcombe, which was published in daily newspapers in the UK. These cartoon strips were subsequently collected together and published in book form, by Piccolo Books, in paperback. sleep insomnia relax chill night nightime bed bedtime oldtimeradio drama comedy radio talkradio hancock tonyhancock hancockshalfhour sherlock sherlockholmes radiodrama popular viral viralpodcast podcast brett brettorchard orchard east devon seaton beer lyme regis village condado de alhama spain murcia #dadsarmy The Golden Age of Radio Also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows. Radio was the first broadcast medium, and during this period people regularly tuned in to their favourite radio programs, and families gathered to listen to the home radio in the evening. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. A variety of new entertainment formats and genres were created for the new medium, many of which later migrated to television: radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, talent shows, daytime and evening variety hours, situation comedies, play-by-play sports, children's shows, cooking shows, and more. In the 1950s, television surpassed radio as the most popular broadcast medium, and commercial radio programming shifted to narrower formats of news, talk, sports and music. Religious broadcasters, listener-supported public radio and college stations provide their own distinctive formats. Origins A family listening to the first broadcasts around 1920 with a crystal radio. The crystal radio, a legacy from the pre-broadcast era, could not power a loudspeaker so the family must share earphones During the first three decades of radio, from 1887 to about 1920, the technology of transmitting sound was undeveloped; the information-carrying ability of radio waves was the same as a telegraph; the radio signal could be either on or off. Radio communication was by wireless telegraphy; at the sending end, an operator tapped on a switch which caused the radio transmitter to produce a series of pulses of radio waves which spelled out text messages in Morse code. At the receiver these sounded like beeps, requiring an operator who knew Morse code to translate them back to text. This type of radio was used exclusively for person-to-person text communication for commercial, diplomatic and military purposes and hobbyists; broadcasting did not exist. The broadcasts of live drama, comedy, music and news that characterize the Golden Age of Radio had a precedent in the Théâtrophone, commercially introduced in Paris in 1890 and available as late as 1932. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live stage performances and hear news reports by means of a network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept. Between 1900 and 1920 the first technology for transmitting sound by radio was developed, AM (amplitude modulation), and AM broadcasting sprang up around 1920. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said to have broadcast the first radio program, consisting of some violin playing and passages from the Bible. While Fessenden's role as an inventor and early radio experimenter is not in dispute, several contemporary radio researchers have questioned whether the Christmas Eve broadcast took place, or whether the date was, in fact, several weeks earlier. The first apparent published reference to the event was made in 1928 by H. P. Davis, Vice President of Westinghouse, in a lecture given at Harvard University. In 1932 Fessenden cited the Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S. M. Kinter of Westinghouse. Fessenden's wife Helen recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (1940), eight years after Fessenden's death. The issue of whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually happened is discussed in Donna Halper's article "In Search of the Truth About Fessenden"[2] and also in James O'Neal's essays.[3][4] An annotated argument supporting Fessenden as the world's first radio broadcaster was offered in 2006 by Dr. John S. Belrose, Radioscientist Emeritus at the Communications Research Centre Canada, in his essay "Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast." It was not until after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912 that radio for mass communication came into vogue, inspired first by the work of amateur ("ham") radio operators. Radio was especially important during World War I as it was vital for air and naval operations. World War I brought about major developments in radio, superseding the Morse code of the wireless telegraph with the vocal communication of the wireless telephone, through advancements in vacuum tube technology and the introduction of the transceiver. After the war, numerous radio stations were born in the United States and set the standard for later radio programs. The first radio news program was broadcast on August 31, 1920, on the station 8MK in Detroit; owned by The Detroit News, the station covered local election results. This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA, being established in Pittsburgh. The first regular entertainment programs were broadcast in 1922, and on March 10, Variety carried the front-page headline: "Radio Sweeping Country: 1,000,000 Sets in Use." A highlight of this time was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1, 1923, on the Los Angeles station KHJ. Growth of radio Broadcast radio in the United States underwent a period of rapid change through the decade of the 1920s. Technology advances, better regulation, rapid consumer adoption, and the creation of broadcast networks transformed radio from a consumer curiosity into the mass media powerhouse that defined the Golden Age of Radio. Consumer adoption Through the decade of the 1920s, the purchase of radios by United States homes continued, and accelerated. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) released figures in 1925 stating that 19% of United States homes owned a radio. The triode and regenerative circuit made amplified, vacuum tube radios widely available to consumers by the second half of the 1920s. The advantage was obvious: several people at once in a home could now easily listen to their radio at the same time. In 1930, 40% of the nation's households owned a radio,[8] a figure that was much higher in suburban and large metropolitan areas. The superheterodyne receiver and other inventions refined radios even further in the next decade; even as the Great Depression ravaged the country in the 1930s, radio would stay at the centre of American life. 83% of American homes would own a radio by 1940. Government regulation Although radio was well established with United States consumers by the mid-1920s, regulation of the broadcast medium presented its own challenges. Until 1926, broadcast radio power and frequency use was regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, until a legal challenge rendered the agency powerless to do so. Congress responded by enacting the Radio Act of 1927, which included the formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). One of the FRC's most important early actions was the adoption of General Order 40, which divided stations on the AM band into three power level categories, which became known as Local, Regional, and Clear Channel, and reorganized station assignments. Based on this plan, effective 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on November 11, 1928, most of the country's stations were assigned to new transmitting frequencies. Broadcast networks The final element needed to make the Golden Age of Radio possible focused on the question of distribution: the ability for multiple radio stations to simultaneously broadcast the same content, and this would be solved with the concept of a radio network. The earliest radio programs of the 1920s were largely unsponsored; radio stations were a service designed to sell radio receivers. In early 1922, American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting on its owned stations, and plans for the development of the first radio network using its telephone lines to transmit the content. In July 1926, AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to a group headed by RCA, which used the assets to form the National Broadcasting Company. Four radio networks had formed by 1934. These were: National Broadcasting Company Red Network (NBC Red), launched November 15, 1926. Originally founded as the National Broadcasting Company in late 1926, the company was almost immediately forced to split under antitrust laws to form NBC Red and NBC Blue. When, in 1942, NBC Blue was sold and renamed the Blue Network, this network would go back to calling itself simply the National Broadcasting Company Radio Network (NBC). National Broadcasting Company Blue Network (NBC Blue); launched January 10, 1927, split from NBC Red. NBC Blue was sold in 1942 and became the Blue Network, and it in turn transferred its assets to a new company, the American Broadcasting Company on June 15, 1945. That network identified itself as the American Broadcasting Company Radio Network (ABC). Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), launched September 18, 1927. After an initially struggling attempt to compete with the NBC networks, CBS gained new momentum when William S. Paley was installed as company president. Mutual Broadcasting System (Mutual), launched September 29, 1934. Mutual was initially run as a cooperative in which the flagship stations owned the network, not the other way around as was the case with the other three radio networks. Programming In the period before and after the advent of the broadcast network, new forms of entertainment needed to be created to fill the time of a station's broadcast day. Many of the formats born in this era continued into the television and digital eras. In the beginning of the Golden Age, network programs were almost exclusively broadcast live, as the national networks prohibited the airing of recorded programs until the late 1940s because of the inferior sound quality of phonograph discs, the only practical recording medium at that time. As a result, network prime-time shows would be performed twice, once for each coast. Rehearsal for the World War II radio show You Can't Do Business with Hitler with John Flynn and Virginia Moore. This series of programs, broadcast at least once weekly by more than 790 radio stations in the United States, was written and produced by the radio section of the Office of War Information (OWI). Live events Coverage of live events included musical concerts and play-by-play sports broadcasts. News The capability of the new medium to get information to people created the format of modern radio news: headlines, remote reporting, sidewalk interviews (such as Vox Pop), panel discussions, weather reports, and farm reports. The entry of radio into the realm of news triggered a feud between the radio and newspaper industries in the mid-1930s, eventually culminating in newspapers trumping up exaggerated [citation needed] reports of a mass hysteria from the (entirely fictional) radio presentation of The War of the Worlds, which had been presented as a faux newscast. Musical features The sponsored musical feature soon became one of the most popular program formats. Most early radio sponsorship came in the form of selling the naming rights to the program, as evidenced by such programs as The A&P Gypsies, Champion Spark Plug Hour, The Clicquot Club Eskimos, and King Biscuit Time; commercials, as they are known in the modern era, were still relatively uncommon and considered intrusive. During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes, and NBC's Monitor continued such remotes well into the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America. Singers such as Harriet Lee and Wendell Hall became popular fixtures on network radio beginning in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Local stations often had staff organists such as Jesse Crawford playing popular tunes. Classical music programs on the air included The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour. Texaco sponsored the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts; the broadcasts, now sponsored by the Toll Brothers, continue to this day around the world, and are one of the few examples of live classical music still broadcast on radio. One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been created especially for him. At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro. Popular songwriters such as George Gershwin were also featured on radio. (Gershwin, in addition to frequent appearances as a guest, had his own program in 1934.) The New York Philharmonic also had weekly concerts on radio. There was no dedicated classical music radio station like NPR at that time, so classical music programs had to share the network they were broadcast on with more popular ones, much as in the days of television before the creation of NET and PBS. Country music also enjoyed popularity. National Barn Dance, begun on Chicago's WLS in 1924, was picked up by NBC Radio in 1933. In 1925, WSM Barn Dance went on the air from Nashville. It was renamed the Grand Ole Opry in 1927 and NBC carried portions from 1944 to 1956. NBC also aired The Red Foley Show from 1951 to 1961, and ABC Radio carried Ozark Jubilee from 1953 to 1961. Comedy Radio attracted top comedy talents from vaudeville and Hollywood for many years: Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Bob Burns, Judy Canova, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Burns and Allen, Phil Harris, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Jean Shepherd, Red Skelton and Ed Wynn. Situational comedies also gained popularity, such as Amos 'n' Andy, Easy Aces, Ethel and Albert, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Goldbergs, The Great Gildersleeve, The Halls of Ivy (which featured screen star Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume), Meet Corliss Archer, Meet Millie, and Our Miss Brooks. Radio comedy ran the gamut from the small town humor of Lum and Abner, Herb Shriner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan. Gags galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You Top This?,[18] panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant, and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones, Stoopnagle and Budd, Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray. British comedy reached American shores in a major assault when NBC carried The Goon Show in the mid-1950s. Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-running The Aldrich Family (1939–1953) with the familiar catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!," followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!" Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It with You (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan. Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, The Gumps, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye the Sailor, Red Ryder, Reg'lar Fellers, Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler. Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from 1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941–1942 comedy based on cartoonist H. T. Webster's famed Caspar Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s. Conversely, some radio shows gave rise to spinoff comic strips, such as My Friend Irma starring Marie Wilson. Soap operas The first program generally considered to be a daytime serial drama by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams, which premiered on WGN on October 20, 1930. The first networked daytime serial is Clara, Lu, 'n Em, which started in a daytime time slot on February 15, 1932. As daytime serials became popular in the early 1930s, they became known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. On November 25, 1960, the last four daytime radio dramas—Young Dr. Malone, Right to Happiness, The Second Mrs. Burton and Ma Perkins, all broadcast on the CBS Radio Network—were brought to an end. Children's programming The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, The Cisco Kid, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Captain Midnight, and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Badges, rings, decoding devices and other radio premiums offered on these adventure shows were often allied with a sponsor's product, requiring the young listeners to mail in a boxtop from a breakfast cereal or other proof of purchase. Radio plays Radio plays were presented on such programs as 26 by Corwin, NBC Short Story, Arch Oboler's Plays, Quiet, Please, and CBS Radio Workshop. Orson Welles's The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse were considered by many critics to be the finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as Margaret Sullavan or Helen Hayes, in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as Liliom, Oliver Twist (a title now feared lost), A Tale of Two Cities, Lost Horizon, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was on Mercury Theatre that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, formatted to sound like a breaking news program. Theatre Guild on the Air presented adaptations of classical and Broadway plays. Their Shakespeare adaptations included a one-hour Macbeth starring Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson, and a 90-minute Hamlet, starring John Gielgud.[22] Recordings of many of these programs survive. During the 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in films, repeated their characterizations on radio on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which featured both original stories and episodes directly adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became the only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as "The Speckled Band". There were also many dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce. During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor John Barrymore starred in a radio program, Streamlined Shakespeare, which featured him in a series of one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as Twelfth Night (in which he played both Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch), and Macbeth. Lux Radio Theatre and The Screen Guild Theater presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. Suspense, Escape, The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum Mystery were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin, Carlton E. Morse, David Goodis, Archibald MacLeish, Arthur Miller, Arch Oboler, Wyllis Cooper, Rod Serling, Jay Bennett, and Irwin Shaw. Game shows Game shows saw their beginnings in radio. One of the first was Information Please in 1938, and one of the first major successes was Dr. I.Q. in 1939. Winner Take All, which premiered in 1946, was the first to use lockout devices and feature returning champions. A relative of the game show, which would be called the giveaway show in contemporary media, typically involved giving sponsored products to studio audience members, people randomly called by telephone, or both. An early example of this show was the 1939 show Pot o' Gold, but the breakout hit of this type was ABC's Stop the Music in 1948. Winning a prize generally required knowledge of what was being aired on the show at that moment, which led to criticism of the giveaway show as a form of "buying an audience". Giveaway shows were extremely popular through 1948 and 1949. They were often panned as low-brow, and an unsuccessful attempt was even made by the FCC to ban them (as an illegal lottery) in August 1949.[23] Broadcast production methods The RCA Type 44-BX microphone had two live faces and two dead ones. Thus actors could face each other and react. An actor could give the effect of leaving the room by simply moving their head toward the dead face of the microphone. The scripts were paper-clipped together. It has been disputed whether or not actors and actresses would drop finished pages to the carpeted floor after use. Radio stations Despite a general ban on use of recordings on broadcasts by radio networks through the late 1940s, "reference recordings" on phonograph disc were made of many programs as they were being broadcast, for review by the sponsor and for the network's own archival purposes. With the development of high-fidelity magnetic wire and tape recording in the years following World War II, the networks became more open to airing recorded programs and the prerecording of shows became more common. Local stations, however, had always been free to use recordings and sometimes made substantial use of pre-recorded syndicated programs distributed on pressed (as opposed to individually recorded) transcription discs. Recording was done using a cutting lathe and acetate discs. Programs were normally recorded at 331⁄3 rpm on 16 inch discs, the standard format used for such "electrical transcriptions" from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Sometimes, the groove was cut starting at the inside of the disc and running to the outside. This was useful when the program to be recorded was longer than 15 minutes so required more than one disc side. By recording the first side outside in, the second inside out, and so on, the sound quality at the disc change-over points would match and result in a more seamless playback. An inside start also had the advantage that the thread of material cut from the disc's surface, which had to be kept out of the path of the cutting stylus, was naturally thrown toward the centre of the disc so was automatically out of the way. When cutting an outside start disc, a brush could be used to keep it out of the way by sweeping it toward the middle of the disc. Well-equipped recording lathes used the vacuum from a water aspirator to pick it up as it was cut and deposit it in a water-filled bottle. In addition to convenience, this served a safety purpose, as the cellulose nitrate thread was highly flammable and a loose accumulation of it combusted violently if ignited. Most recordings of radio broadcasts were made at a radio network's studios, or at the facilities of a network-owned or affil
Nico Tatarowicz is an award-winning writer who was a head writer on three series of the BAFTA winning Murder In Successville. He broke into TV in the mid 2000's going on to write on all three BBC1 series of BAFTA winning The Armstrong and Miller Show, Channel 4's Very Important People and Spitting Image. He wrote for four series of the award-winning Crackanory on Dave, seeing his words brought to life by Paul Whitehouse, Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves, Sheridan Smith and Carrie Fisher. His latest book The Centrist Dad Handbook, co written by Jason Hazeley, is available now.Nico Tatarowicz is our guest in episode 465 of My Time Capsule and chats to Michael Fenton Stevens about the five things he'd like to put in a time capsule; four he'd like to preserve and one he'd like to bury and never have to think about again .Buy The Centrist Dad Handbook, here - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-centrist-dad-handbook/jason-hazeley/nico-tatarowicz/9781526681997For everything else Nico Tatarowicz, visit - https://www.nicotatarowicz.meFollow Nico Tatarowicz on Instagram: @stupidheartsclub .Follow My Time Capsule on Instagram: @mytimecapsulepodcast & Twitter/X & Facebook: @MyTCpod .Follow Michael Fenton Stevens on Twitter/X: @fentonstevens & Instagram @mikefentonstevens .Produced and edited by John Fenton-Stevens for Cast Off Productions .Music by Pass The Peas Music .Artwork by matthewboxall.com .This podcast is proud to be associated with the charity Viva! Providing theatrical opportunities for hundreds of young people . Get bonus episodes and ad-free listening by becoming a team member with Acast+! Your support will help us to keep making My Time Capsule. Join our team now! https://plus.acast.com/s/mytimecapsule. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Caroline Frost chats to Shem Law about the best things coming up on the box this week You can get in touch with our hosts via email (podcast@radiotimes.com) and Spotify users can write in directly using the Q&A box at the bottom of the episode. SHOW NOTES: TV: Paradise, Disney+ The White Lotus, Sky Atlantic Luther: Never Too Much, NowTV OUR READERS SAY... It would be great to have the restorative powers of a character in Casualty! and Linda agrees with Caroline about Brian and Maggie FROST BITE: Inside the Oval Office - What makes a good screen President? THE ARCHIVE: EastEnders' 40th Anniversary, BBC1 . . . Happy Viewing! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Good evening and a huge welcome back to the show, I hope you've had a great day and you're ready to kick back and relax with another episode of Brett's old time radio show. Hello, I'm Brett your host for this evening and welcome to my home in beautiful Lyme Bay where it's lovely December night. I hope it's just as nice where you are. You'll find all of my links at www.linktr.ee/brettsoldtimeradioshow A huge thankyou for joining me once again for our regular late night visit to those dusty studio archives of Old Time radio shows right here at my home in the united kingdom. Don't forget I have an instagram page and youtube channel both called brett's old time radio show and I'd love it if you could follow me. Feel free to send me some feedback on this and the other shows if you get a moment, brett@tourdate.co.uk #sleep #insomnia #relax #chill #night #nighttime #bed #bedtime #oldtimeradio #drama #comedy #radio #talkradio #hancock #tonyhancock #hancockshalfhour #sherlock #sherlockholmes #radiodrama #popular #viral #viralpodcast #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podtok #podcastclip #podcastclips #podcasttrailer #podcastteaser #newpodcastepisode #newpodcast #videopodcast #upcomingpodcast #audiogram #audiograms #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #truecrime #podcaster #viral #popular #viralpodcast #number1 #instagram #youtube #facebook #johnnydollar #crime #fiction #unwind #devon #texas #texasranger #beer #seaton #seaside #smuggler #colyton #devon #seaton #beer #branscombe #lymebay #lymeregis #brett #brettorchard #orchard #greatdetectives #greatdetectivesofoldtimeradio #detectives #johnnydollar #thesaint #steptoe #texasrangers Dad's Army Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally. The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title Dad's Army), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription. Most of the platoon members in Dad's Army are over military age and the series stars several older British actors, including Arnold Ridley, John Laurie, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier. Younger members of the cast included Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn (who, despite being one of the younger cast members, played the oldest guardsman, Lance Corporal Jones) and James Beck (who died suddenly during production of the sixth series in 1973). Other regular cast members included Frank Williams as the vicar, Edward Sinclair as the verger, and Bill Pertwee as the chief ARP warden. The series has influenced British popular culture, with its catchphrases and characters being widely known. The Radio Times magazine listed Captain Mainwaring's "You stupid boy!" among the 25 greatest put-downs on TV. A 2001 Channel 4 poll ranked Captain Mainwaring 21st on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2004, Dad's Army came fourth in a BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was placed 13th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, and voted for by industry professionals. A second feature film of Dad's Army with a different cast was released in 2016. In 2019, UKTV recreated three missing episodes for broadcast in August that year on its Gold channel under the title Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes. It starred Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Origins Co-writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry during a Dad's Army event at Bressingham Steam Museum, May 2011 Originally intended to be called The Fighting Tigers, Dad's Army was based partly on co-writer and creator Jimmy Perry's experiences in the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV, later known as the Home Guard) and highlighted a somewhat forgotten aspect of defence during the Second World War. Perry was only 16 when he joined the 10th Hertfordshire Battalion. His mother did not like him being out at night, and feared he might catch a cold; he partly resembled the character of Private Pike. An elderly lance corporal in the 10th Hertfordshire often referred to fighting under Kitchener against the "Fuzzy Wuzzies" (Hadendoa), and was the model for Lance Corporal Jones. Other influences included the work of comedians such as Will Hay, whose film Oh, Mr Porter! featured a pompous ass, an old man and a young man; together, this gave Perry the ideas for Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike. Film historian Jeffrey Richards has cited Lancastrian comedian Robb Wilton as a key influence; Wilton portrayed a work-shy husband who joined the Home Guard in numerous comic sketches during World War II. Perry wrote the first script and sent it to David Croft while working as a minor actor in the Croft-produced sitcom Hugh and I, originally intending the role of the spiv, later called Walker, to be his own. Croft was impressed and sent the script to Michael Mills, the BBC's head of comedy, and the series was commissioned. In his book Dad's Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show, Graham McCann explains that the show owes much to Michael Mills. It was he who renamed the show Dad's Army. He did not like Brightsea-on-Sea, so the location was changed to Walmington-on-Sea. He was happy with the names for the characters Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike, but not with other names, and he made suggestions: Private Jim Duck became James Frazer, Joe Fish became Joe Walker and Jim Jones became Jack Jones. He also suggested adding a Scot. Jimmy Perry had produced the original idea, but needed a more experienced partner to see it through, so Mills suggested David Croft and this launched the beginning of their professional association. When an episode was screened to members of the public to gauge audience reaction prior to broadcast of the first series, the majority of the audience thought it was very poor. The production team put the report containing the negative comments at the bottom of David Croft's in-tray. He only saw it several months later,[16] after the series had been broadcast and received a positive response. Situation The series is set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, located on the south coast of England, not far from Eastbourne. The exterior scenes were mostly filmed in and around the Stanford Training Area (STANTA), near Thetford, Norfolk.[19] Walmington, and its Home Guard platoon, would be on the frontline in the event of a German invasion across the English Channel. The first series has a loose narrative thread, with Captain Mainwaring's platoon being formed and equipped, initially with wooden guns and LDV armbands, later on with full army uniforms; the platoon is part of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. The first episode, "The Man and the Hour", begins with a scene set in the then-present day of 1968, in which Mainwaring addresses his old platoon as part of the contemporary '"I'm Backing Britain" campaign. The prologue opening was a condition imposed after initial concerns from Paul Fox, the BBC1 controller, that it belittled the efforts of the Home Guard. After Mainwaring relates how he had backed Britain in 1940, the episode proper begins; Dad's Army is thus told in flashback, although the final episode does not return to 1968. Later episodes are largely self-contained, albeit referring to previous events and with additional character development. As the comedy in many ways relies on the platoon's lack of participation in the Second World War, opposition to their activities must come from another quarter, and this is generally provided by Chief Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Warden Hodges, and sometimes by the verger of the local church (St Aldhelm's) or by Captain Square and the neighbouring Eastgate Home Guard platoon. The group, however, does have some encounters related to the enemy, such as downed German planes, a Luftwaffe pilot who parachutes into the town's clock tower, a U-boat crew and discarded parachutes that may have been German; a Viennese ornithologist appears in "Man Hunt" and an IRA suspect appears in "Absent Friends". The humour ranges from the subtle (especially the class-reversed relationship between grammar school-educated Mainwaring, the local bank manager, and public school-educated Wilson, his deputy at the bank) to the slapstick (the antics of the elderly Jones being a prime example). Jones had several catchphrases, including "Don't panic!" (while panicking himself), "They don't like it up 'em!", "Permission to speak, sir?", "Handy-hock!" and his tales about the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies". Mainwaring's catchphrase to Pike is "You stupid boy", which he uses in many episodes. Other cast members used catchphrases, including Sergeant Wilson, who regularly asked, "Do you think that's wise, sir?" when Captain Mainwaring made a suggestion. The early series occasionally included darker humour, reflecting that, especially early in the war, the Home Guard was woefully under-equipped but was still willing to resist the Wehrmacht. For instance, in the episode "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", the platoon believes the enemy has invaded Britain. Mainwaring, Godfrey, Frazer and Jones (along with Godfrey's sisters, who are completely unaware of the invasion) decide to stay at the cottage to delay the German advance, buying the regular army time to arrive with reinforcements; "It'll probably be the end of us, but we're ready for that, aren't we, men?" says Mainwaring. "Of course," replies Frazer. Characters Private Pike (Ian Lavender) ARP Warden Hodges (Bill Pertwee) Private Frazer (John Laurie) Private Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) Private Walker (James Beck) Lance Corporal Jones (Clive Dunn) Sergeant Wilson (John Le Mesurier) Main characters Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), the pompous, if essentially brave and unerringly patriotic local bank manager. Mainwaring appointed himself leader of his town's contingent of Local Defence Volunteers. He had been a lieutenant in the First World War but is embarrassed by the fact that he never saw combat, only being sent to France in 1919 after the Armistice as part of the Army of Occupation in Germany. The character, along with Wilson, also appeared in the original pilot episode of the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier), a diffident, upper-middle-class chief bank clerk who often quietly questions Mainwaring's judgement ("Do you think that's wise, sir?"). Wilson had actually served as a captain during the First World War, but he only reveals this in the final episode. He does not live with the Pike family, but is implied to be in a relationship with the widowed Mrs Pike. Wilson also appears in the later radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Lance Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn), the local butcher, born in 1870. Jones is an old campaigner who enlisted as a drummer boy at the age of 14 and participated, as a boy soldier, in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884–85 and, as an adult, in Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan in 1896–98. Jones also served during the Boer War and the Great War. He often suffers from the effects of malaria caught during one of his campaigns and has to be calmed during his "shudders". Often seen as fastidious and a worrier, he has a number of catchphrases, including "They don't like it up 'em!" and "Don't panic, don't panic!", which he says whilst panicking. Dunn was considerably younger than his character, being only 46 when the series began. This meant he often performed the physical comedy of the show, which some of the older cast members were no longer capable of. Private James Frazer (John Laurie), a dour Scottish former chief petty officer on HMS Defiant in the Royal Navy. He served at the Battle of Jutland as a ship's cook and also has a medal for having served on Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. He grew up on the Isle of Barra and is prone to theatrical poetry. In episode one, he states that he owns a philately shop, but subsequently his profession is changed to an undertaker. His catchphrase is "We're doomed. Doomed!" Private Joe Walker (James Beck), a black market spiv, Walker is one of only two able-bodied men of military age among the main characters (the other one being Private Pike). In the first episode, Walker claims he was not called up to the regular army because he was in a reserved occupation as a wholesale supplier. In one of the missing episodes, it is revealed that he was not called up because of an allergy to corned beef. Although always on the lookout to make money, Walker is also seen to support local charities, including a children's home. Following James Beck's death in 1973, Walker was written out of the series. Private Charles Godfrey (Arnold Ridley), a retired shop assistant who had worked at the Army & Navy store in London. He lives in Walmington with his elderly sisters and serves as the platoon's medical orderly. He has a weak bladder and often needs to "be excused". A conscientious objector during the First World War, he was nevertheless awarded the Military Medal for heroic actions as a combat medic during the Battle of the Somme. He also demonstrates bravery during his Home Guard service, particularly during the "Branded" episode in which Mainwaring, unconscious in a smoke-filled room, is rescued by Godfrey. Private Frank Pike (Ian Lavender), the youngest of the platoon. He is a cosseted, somewhat immature mother's boy, often wearing a thick scarf over his uniform to prevent illness and a frequent target for Mainwaring's derision ("You stupid boy!"). Pike is not called up to the regular army due to his rare blood group (in series eight, he is excused for this reason). He works in his day job as an assistant bank clerk for Mainwaring. He frequently addresses Sergeant Wilson as "Uncle Arthur". However, on the last day of filming, David Croft confirmed to Lavender that Wilson was in fact Pike's father. Pike would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Supporting characters Chief ARP Warden William Hodges (Bill Pertwee), the platoon's major rival and nemesis. He calls Mainwaring "Napoleon". Mainwaring looks down on him as the local greengrocer and dislikes that Hodges saw active service in the First World War. As an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden, he is always demanding that people "Put that light out!". He often calls the platoon "Ruddy hooligans!". The character of Hodges would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Reverend Timothy Farthing (Frank Williams), the effete, petulant vicar of St Aldhelm's Church. He reluctantly shares his church hall and office with the platoon. In several episodes of the series, it was implied that the character was a non-active closet gay. Maurice Yeatman (Edward Sinclair), the verger at St Aldhelm's Church and Scoutmaster of the local Sea Scout troop. He is often hostile to the platoon while frequently sycophantic towards the vicar, who often struggles to tolerate him and frequently employs the catchphrase "Oh do be quiet, Mr Yeatman!". He often sides with Hodges to undermine the platoon's activities. Mrs Mavis Pike (Janet Davies), Pike's overbearing widowed mother, who is often implied to be in a relationship with Sergeant Wilson. Liz Frazer replaced Janet Davies in the 1971 film version. Mrs Fox (Pamela Cundell), a glamorous widow. There is a mutual attraction with Corporal Jones and the couple marry in the last episode. Illicit little "extras" are passed across the counter on her regular visits to Jones's butcher's shop and she helps the platoon with official functions. In the episode "Mum's Army", she gives her first name as Marcia, but by the final episode she is addressed as Mildred. Colonel Pritchard (Robert Raglan), Captain Mainwaring's superior officer. A stern, serious man, he unexpectedly appeared to admire Mainwaring, frequently commenting on his successes and warning people not to underestimate him. Private Sponge (Colin Bean), a sheep farmer. He leads the members of the platoon's second section (the first section being led by Corporal Jones) and thus had only occasional speaking parts, although he became more prominent in later series. He appeared in 76 of the 80 episodes. Mr Claude Gordon (Eric Longworth), the Walmington town clerk often involved when the platoon is taking part in local parades and displays. Although generally civil with Captain Mainwaring and his men, he is an officious and somewhat pompous individual, and Hodges tends to use him to try and interfere with the platoon's activities. Private Cheeseman (Talfryn Thomas), a Welshman who works for the town newspaper. He joined the Walmington-on-Sea platoon during the seventh series only after the sudden death of James Beck, who played Private Walker. Captain Square (Geoffrey Lumsden), the pompous commanding officer of the rival Eastgate platoon, and a former regular soldier who served with Lawrence of Arabia during the First World War. He is frequently at loggerheads with Mainwaring (whose name he persists in mispronouncing as spelt, "Main-wearing", instead of the correct "Mannering") and has the catchphrase "You blithering idiot!". Mrs Yeatman (Olive Mercer), the somewhat tyrannical wife of Maurice Yeatman, the verger. Over the course of the series, her first name is given as either Beryl, Anthea or Tracey. Mr Sidney Bluett (Harold Bennett), an elderly local man who is occasionally involved with the antics of both the platoon and Hodges. He and Mrs Yeatman are implied to be having an affair. Miss Janet King (Caroline Dowdeswell), a clerk at Swallow Bank who works with Mainwaring, Wilson and Pike in the first series. Edith Parish (Wendy Richard), also called Shirley, a cinema usherette and girlfriend of Private Walker. Dolly (Amy Dalby and Joan Cooper) and Cissy Godfrey (Nan Braunton and Kathleen Saintsbury), Private Godfrey's spinster sisters, who reside with him at their cottage. Elizabeth Mainwaring (unseen character), George Mainwaring's reclusive, paranoid and domineering wife who is never seen onscreen in the TV series. (In the episode "A Soldier's Farewell" her "shape" is seen sleeping in the bunk above the captain while in their Anderson Shelter.) Her marriage to George is not a happy one and he does his best to avoid her at any opportunity. They have no children. Mrs Mainwaring had a significant on screen role in the 2016 film. Other actors who appeared in small roles include Timothy Carlton, Don Estelle, Nigel Hawthorne, Geoffrey Hughes, Michael Knowles, John Ringham, Fulton Mackay, Anthony Sagar, Anthony Sharp, Carmen Silvera and Barbara Windsor. Larry Martyn appeared as an unnamed private in four episodes, and later took over the part of Walker in the radio series following the death of James Beck. The former cricketer Fred Trueman appeared in "The Test". Opening and closing credits The show's opening titles were originally intended to feature footage of refugees and Nazi troops, to illustrate the threat faced by the Home Guard. Despite opposition from the BBC's head of comedy Michael Mills, Paul Fox, the controller of BBC1, ordered that these be removed on the grounds that they were offensive. The replacement titles featured the animated sequence of swastika-headed arrows approaching Britain.[25] Originally in black and white, the opening titles were updated twice; firstly in series three, adding colour and improved animation, and once again in series six, which made further improvements to the animation. There were two different versions of the closing credits used in the show. The first version, used in series one and two, simply showed footage of the main cast superimposed over a still photograph, with the crew credits rolling over a black background. The better-known closing credits, introduced in series three, were a homage to the end credits of The Way Ahead (1944), a film which had covered the training of a platoon during the Second World War. In both instances, each character is shown as they walk across a smoke-filled battlefield. One of the actors in Dad's Army, John Laurie, also appeared in that film, and his performance in the end credits of The Way Ahead appears to be copied in the sitcom. Coincidentally, the film's lead character (played by David Niven) is named Lieutenant Jim Perry. Following this sequence, the end credits roll, and the platoon is shown in a wide angle shot as, armed, they run towards the camera, while bombs explode behind them. As the credits come to an end, the platoon run past the camera and the all clear siren rings, before the screen fades to black. Music The show's theme tune, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?" was Jimmy Perry's idea, written especially for the show and intended as a gentle pastiche of wartime songs. The other songs were authentic 1940s music recordings. Perry wrote the lyrics and composed the music with Derek Taverner. Perry persuaded one of his childhood idols, wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan, to sing the theme for 100 guineas (equivalent to £2,400 in 2023). Flanagan died less than a year after the recording. At the time it was widely believed to be a wartime song. The music over the opening credits was recorded at Riverside Studios, Flanagan being accompanied by the Orchestra of the Band of the Coldstream Guards. The version played over the opening credits differs slightly from the full version recorded by Flanagan; an edit removes, for timing reasons, two lines of lyric with the "middle eight" tune: "So watch out Mr Hitler, you have met your match in us/If you think you can crush us, we're afraid you've missed the bus." (The latter lyric is a reference to a speech by Neville Chamberlain.) Bud Flanagan's full version appears as an Easter egg on the first series DVD release and on the authorised soundtrack CD issued by CD41. Arthur Lowe also recorded a full version of the theme. The closing credits feature an instrumental march version of the song played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards conducted by Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Trevor L. Sharpe, ending with the air-raid warning siren sounding all-clear. It is accompanied by a style of credits that became a trademark of David Croft: the caption "You have been watching", followed by vignettes of the main cast. The series also contains genuine wartime and period songs between scenes, usually brief quotations that have some reference to the theme of the episode or the scene. Many appear on the CD soundtrack issued by CD41, being the same versions used in the series. Episodes List of Dad's Army episodes The television programme lasted nine series and was broadcast over nine years, with 80 episodes in total, including three Christmas specials and an hour-long special. At its peak, the programme regularly gained audiences of 18.5 million.[35] There were also four short specials broadcast as part of Christmas Night with the Stars in 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1972; one of which was also restaged as part of the Royal Variety Performance 1975. Missing episodes Main article: Dad's Army missing episodes The first two series were recorded and screened in black-and-white, while series three to nine were recorded and screened in colour. Even so, one episode in series three, "Room at the Bottom", formerly survived only as a 16mm black-and-white film telerecording, made for overseas sales to countries not yet broadcasting in colour; and remains on the official DVD releases in this form. This episode has benefited from colour recovery technology, using a buried colour signal (chroma dots) in the black-and-white film print to restore the episode to colour and was transmitted on 13 December 2008 on BBC Two. The newly restored colour version of "Room at the Bottom" was eventually made commercially available in 2023, when it appeared as an extra on the DVD release Dad's Army: The Missing Episodes, with a specially filmed introduction by Ian Lavender. Dad's Army was less affected than most from the wiping of videotape, but three second-series episodes remain missing: episode nine "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", episode eleven "A Stripe for Frazer" and episode 12 "Under Fire". (All three missing episodes were among those remade for BBC Radio with most of the original cast, adapted from the original TV scripts. Audio recordings of all three were included as bonus features on The Complete Series DVD Collection.) Two further series two episodes, "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", were thought lost until 2001.[8] Two of the three missing episodes have since been performed as part of the latest stage show. In 2008, soundtracks of the missing episode "A Stripe for Frazer" and the 1968 Christmas Night with the Stars segment "Present Arms" were recovered. The soundtrack of "A Stripe for Frazer" has been mixed with animation to replace the missing images.[36] The audio soundtrack for the "Cornish Floral Dance" sketch, from the 1970 episode of Christmas Night with the Stars, has also been recovered. Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes (2019) In 2018, UKTV announced plans to recreate the three missing episodes for broadcast on its Gold channel. Mercury Productions, the company responsible for Saluting Dad's Army, Gold's 50th anniversary tribute series, produced the episodes, which were directed by Ben Kellett. The recreations were broadcast in August 2019, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of their original broadcast by the BBC.[37] Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson, with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey. The full cast was announced in January 2019, with McNally, Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon, Mathew Horne, David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal. However, Bernard Cribbins subsequently withdrew from the project, and was replaced as Godfrey by Timothy West. Cast Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson Kevin Eldon as Lance Corporal Jones David Hayman as Private Frazer Mathew Horne as Private Walker Timothy West as Private Godfrey Tom Rosenthal as Private Pike Tracy-Ann Oberman as Mrs Pike Simon Ludders as ARP Warden Hodges David Horovitch as Corporal-Colonel Square John Biggins as the Verger Films 1971 film Main article: Dad's Army (1971 film) In common with many British sitcoms of that era, Dad's Army was spun-off as a feature film which was released in 1971. Backers Columbia Pictures imposed arbitrary changes, such as recasting Liz Fraser as Mavis Pike and filming locations in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, rather than Thetford in Norfolk, which made the cast unhappy. The director, Norman Cohen, whose idea it was to make the film, was nearly sacked by the studio.: 168 Jimmy Perry and David Croft wrote the original screenplay. This was expanded by Cohen to try to make it more cinematic; Columbia executives made more changes to plot and pacing. As finally realised, two-thirds of the film consists of the creation of the platoon; this was the contribution of Perry and Croft, and differs in a number of ways from the formation of the platoon as seen in the first series of the television version. The final third shows the platoon in action, rescuing hostages from the church hall where they had been held captive by the crewmen of a downed German aircraft. Neither the cast nor Perry and Croft were happy with the result. Perry argued for changes to try to reproduce the style of the television series, but with mixed results. Filming took place from 10 August to 25 September 1970 at Shepperton Studios and on location. After shooting the film, the cast returned to working on the fourth television series. The film's UK première was on 12 March 1971 at the Columbia Theatre, London. Critical reviews were mixed, but it performed well at the UK box-office. Discussions were held about a possible sequel, to be called Dad's Army and the Secret U-Boat Base, but the project never came to fruition. Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey (2014) 2016 film Main article: Dad's Army (2016 film) A second film, written by Hamish McColl and directed by Oliver Parker, was released in 2016. The cast included Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtenay as Lance Corporal Jones, Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey, Blake Harrison as Private Pike, Daniel Mays as Private Walker and Bill Paterson as Private Frazer. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sarah Lancashire and Mark Gatiss also featured. The film was primarily shot on location in Yorkshire. Filming took place on the beach at North Landing, Flamborough Head, Yorkshire and at nearby Bridlington. It opened in February 2016 to mainly negative reviews. Stage show Main article: Dad's Army (stage show) A poster advertising the stage show In 1975, Dad's Army transferred to the stage as a revue, with songs, familiar scenes from the show and individual "turns" for cast members. It was created by Roger Redfarn, who shared the same agent as the series' writers. Most of the principal cast transferred with it, with the exception of John Laurie, who was replaced by Hamish Roughead.[8] Following James Beck's death two years earlier, Walker was played by John Bardon.[8] Dad's Army: A Nostalgic Music and Laughter Show of Britain's Finest Hour opened at Billingham in Teesside on 4 September 1975 for a two-week tryout. After cuts and revisions, the show transferred to London's West End and opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 2 October 1975. On the opening night there was a surprise appearance by Chesney Allen, singing the old Flanagan and Allen song Hometown with Arthur Lowe. The show ran in the West End until 21 February 1976, disrupted twice by bomb scares and then toured the country until 4 September 1976. Clive Dunn was replaced for half the tour by Jack Haig (David Croft's original first choice for the role of Corporal Jones on television). Jeffrey Holland, who went on to star in several later Croft sitcoms, also had a number of roles in the production. The stage show, billed as Dad's Army—The Musical, was staged in Australia and toured New Zealand in 2004–2005, starring Jon English. Several sections of this stage show were filmed and have subsequently been included as extras on the final Dad's Army DVD. In April 2007, a new stage show was announced with cast members including Leslie Grantham as Private Walker and Emmerdale actor Peter Martin as Captain Mainwaring. The production contained the episodes "A Stripe for Frazer", "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", "Room at the Bottom" and "The Deadly Attachment". In August 2017, a new two-man stage show titled, Dad's Army Radio Hour, opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe It starred David Benson and Jack Lane. Between them, the pair voiced the entire cast of Dad's Army, including incidental characters. The episodes adapted from the original radio scripts were "The Deadly Attachment", "The Day the Balloon Went Up", "Brain Versus Brawn", "My British Buddy", "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel" and "Mum's Army". The production featured three episodes not adapted for the radio series "When You've Got to Go", "My Brother and I" and "Never Too Old". The show was well received by critics and the David Croft estate for its respectful and uncanny performances. In 2019, the production changed its name to Dad's Army Radio Show and continued to tour nationally throughout the UK until the end of 2021. Radio series List of Dad's Army radio episodes The majority of the television scripts were adapted for BBC Radio 4 with the original cast, although other actors played Walker after James Beck's death (which took place soon after recording and before transmission of the first radio series). Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles were responsible for the adaptation,[8] while wartime BBC announcer John Snagge set the scene for each episode. Different actors were used for some of the minor parts: for example Mollie Sugden played the role of Mrs Fox, and Pearl Hackney played Mrs Pike. The first episode was based on the revised version of events seen in the opening of the film version, rather than on the television pilot. The series ran for three series and 67 episodes from 1974-76.[8] The entire radio series has been released on CD. Knowles and Snoad developed a radio series, It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which followed Sergeant Wilson, Private Pike and Warden Hodges's attempts to renovate a pier in the fictional town of Frambourne-on-Sea following the end of the war. It was originally intended to star Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier, but Lowe died after recording the pilot episode in 1981. In consequence, Bill Pertwee and Ian Lavender were brought in to replace him. In the event the revised cast recorded a 13-episode series. John Le Mesurier died in November 1983, making another series impossible. The last radio recording of Dad's Army occurred in 1995, when Jimmy Perry wrote a radio sketch entitled The Boy Who Saved England for the "Full Steam A-Hudd" evening broadcast on BBC Radio 2, transmitted on 3 June 1995 on the occasion of the closure of the BBC's Paris studios in Lower Regent Street. It featured Ian Lavender as Pike, Bill Pertwee as Hodges, Frank Williams as the Vicar and Jimmy Perry as General Haverlock-Seabag. American adaptation A pilot episode for an American remake called The Rear Guard, adapted for American viewers by Arthur Julian, was produced by the ABC and broadcast on 10 August 1976, based on the Dad's Army episode "The Deadly Attachment".[8] Set in Long Island, the pilot starred Cliff Norton as Captain Rosatti, Lou Jacobi as Sergeant Raskin and Eddie Foy Jr. as Lance Corporal Wagner. The pilot was considered a failure, so the original tapes were wiped. However, director Hal Cooper kept a copy of the pilot, which was returned to several collectors in 1998. Though further storylines were planned, the series failed to make it past the pilot stage. Other appearances Lowe, Le Mesurier, Laurie, Beck, Ridley and Lavender (wearing Pike's signature scarf) appeared as guests in the 22 April 1971 edition of The Morecambe & Wise Show on BBC2 in the "Monty on the Bonty" sketch, with Lowe as Captain Bligh and the others as crewmen on HMS Bounty. Lowe, Le Mesurier and Laurie again made a cameo appearance as their Dad's Army characters in the 1977 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special. While Elton John is following incomprehensible instructions to find the BBC studios, he encounters them in a steam room. On leaving, Mainwaring calls him a "stupid boy". Arthur Lowe twice appeared on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The first time, in 1973, was with John Le Mesurier, in which the two appeared in costume and in character as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Together they viewed and discussed a mural painted by schoolchildren, featuring the characters from the show at a Christmas party, among whom was Mainwaring's unseen wife Elizabeth – or rather, what the children thought she looked like (Mainwaring remarks "Good grief. What a remarkable likeness!"). Arthur Lowe made a second appearance as Captain Mainwaring on Blue Peter with the Dad's Army van, which would appear in the forthcoming London-Brighton run, and showed presenter John Noakes the vehicle's hidden anti-Nazi defences.[29][59] Later that year, Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender and Pertwee, along with Jones's van, appeared in character at the finish of the 1974 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. The cast appeared in a 1974 public information film, in character but set in the modern day, in which the platoon demonstrated how to cross the road safely at Pelican crossings. Lowe and Le Mesurier made a final appearance as their Dad's Army characters for a 1982 television commercial advertising Wispa chocolate bars. Clive Dunn made occasional appearances as Lance Corporal Jones at 1940s themed events in the 1980s and 1990s and on television on the BBC Saturday night entertainment show Noel's House Party on 27 November 1993. Awards During its original television run, Dad's Army was nominated for multiple British Academy Television Awards, although only won "Best Light Entertainment Programme" in 1971. It was nominated as "Best Situation Comedy" in 1973, 1974 and 1975. In addition, Arthur Lowe was frequently nominated for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" in 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1978. In 2000, the show was voted 13th in a British Film Institute poll of industry professionals of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. In 2004, championed by Phill Jupitus, it came fourth in the BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom with 174,138 votes. Legacy Statue of Captain Mainwaring, erected in Thetford in June 2010 In June 2010, a statue of Captain Mainwaring was erected in the Norfolk town of Thetford where most of the exteriors for the TV series were filmed. The statue features Captain Mainwaring sitting to attention on a simple bench in Home Guard uniform, with his swagger stick across his knees. The statue is mounted at the end of a winding brick pathway with a Union Flag patterned arrowhead to reflect the opening credits of the TV series and the sculpture has been designed so that members of the public can sit beside Captain Mainwaring and have their photograph taken. The statue was vandalised not long after the unveiling by a 10-year-old boy, who kicked it for ten minutes and broke off the statue's glasses, throwing them into a nearby river. The statue has since been fixed. Several references to Dad's Army have been made in other television series. In a 1995 episode of Bottom, titled "Hole", Richie shouts Lance Corporal Jones's catchphrase while stuck up a Ferris wheel set to be demolished the following day. The British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart paid tribute to Dad's Army in episode one of its second series in 1995, "Don't Get Around Much Any More". Here, lead character Gary Sparrow (Nicholas Lyndhurst) – a time-traveller from the 1990s – goes into a bank in 1941 and meets a bank manager named Mainwaring (Alec Linstead) and his chief clerk, Wilson (Terrence Hardiman), both of whom are in the Home Guard. When he hears the names Mainwaring and Wilson, Gary begins singing the Dad's Army theme song.[72] In addition, a brief visual tribute to Dad's Army is made at the start of the episode "Rag Week" from Ben Elton's 1990s sitcom The Thin Blue Line: a shopfront bears the name "Mainwaring's". In June 2018 the Royal Mail issued a set of eight stamps, featuring the main characters and their catchphrases, to mark the comedy's 50th anniversary. In 2020, Niles Schilder, for the Dad's Army Appreciation Society, wrote four short scripts which detailed how the characters from the series would have, in the author's opinion, dealt with the events of that year. Titles of the scripts included Dad's Army Negotiates Brexit and An Unauthorised Gathering. Cultural influence A pub in Shoeburyness named (albeit incorrectly) after Arthur Lowe's character The characters of Dad's Army and their catchphrases are well known in the UK due to the popularity of the series when originally shown and the frequency of repeats. Jimmy Perry recalls that before writing the sitcom, the Home Guard was a largely forgotten aspect of Britain's defence in the Second World War, something which the series rectified. In a 1972 Radio Times interview, Arthur Lowe expressed surprise at the programme's success: We expected the show to have limited appeal, to the age group that lived through the war and the Home Guard. We didn't expect what has happened – that children from the age of five upwards would enjoy it too. By focusing on the comic aspects of the Home Guard in a cosy south coast setting, the television series distorted the popular perception of the organisation. Its characters represented the older volunteers within the Home Guard, but largely ignored the large numbers of teenagers and factory workers who also served. Accounts from Home Guard members and their regimental publications inspired Norman Longmate's history The Real Dad's Army (1974). Media releases Main articles: List of Dad's Army books and memorabilia and List of Dad's Army audio releases The first DVD releases of Dad's Army were two "best of" collections, released by the BBC and distributed by 2 Entertain, in October 2001 and September 2002. The first series and the surviving episodes of the second series, along with the documentary Dad's Army: Missing Presumed Wiped, were released in September 2004,[80] while the final series was released in May 2007.[81] In November 2007, the final episodes, the three specials "Battle of the Giants!", "My Brother and I" and "The Love of Three Oranges", were released, along with Dad's Army: The Passing Years documentary, several Christmas Night with the Stars sketches, and excerpts from the 1975-76 stage show.[82] From the third series DVD, We Are the Boys..., a short individual biographical documentary about the main actors and the characters they portrayed on the programme, was included as a special feature. The Columbia film adaptation is separately available; as this is not a BBC production, it is not included in the box set. In 1973 the series was adapted into a comic strip, drawn by Bill Titcombe, which was published in daily newspapers in the UK. These cartoon strips were subsequently collected together and published in book form, by Piccolo Books, in paperback. sleep insomnia relax chill night nightime bed bedtime oldtimeradio drama comedy radio talkradio hancock tonyhancock hancockshalfhour sherlock sherlockholmes radiodrama popular viral viralpodcast podcast brett brettorchard orchard east devon seaton beer lyme regis village condado de alhama spain murcia #dadsarmy The Golden Age of Radio Also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows. Radio was the first broadcast medium, and during this period people regularly tuned in to their favourite radio programs, and families gathered to listen to the home radio in the evening. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. A variety of new entertainment formats and genres were created for the new medium, many of which later migrated to television: radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, talent shows, daytime and evening variety hours, situation comedies, play-by-play sports, children's shows, cooking shows, and more. In the 1950s, television surpassed radio as the most popular broadcast medium, and commercial radio programming shifted to narrower formats of news, talk, sports and music. Religious broadcasters, listener-supported public radio and college stations provide their own distinctive formats. Origins A family listening to the first broadcasts around 1920 with a crystal radio. The crystal radio, a legacy from the pre-broadcast era, could not power a loudspeaker so the family must share earphones During the first three decades of radio, from 1887 to about 1920, the technology of transmitting sound was undeveloped; the information-carrying ability of radio waves was the same as a telegraph; the radio signal could be either on or off. Radio communication was by wireless telegraphy; at the sending end, an operator tapped on a switch which caused the radio transmitter to produce a series of pulses of radio waves which spelled out text messages in Morse code. At the receiver these sounded like beeps, requiring an operator who knew Morse code to translate them back to text. This type of radio was used exclusively for person-to-person text communication for commercial, diplomatic and military purposes and hobbyists; broadcasting did not exist. The broadcasts of live drama, comedy, music and news that characterize the Golden Age of Radio had a precedent in the Théâtrophone, commercially introduced in Paris in 1890 and available as late as 1932. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live stage performances and hear news reports by means of a network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept. Between 1900 and 1920 the first technology for transmitting sound by radio was developed, AM (amplitude modulation), and AM broadcasting sprang up around 1920. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said to have broadcast the first radio program, consisting of some violin playing and passages from the Bible. While Fessenden's role as an inventor and early radio experimenter is not in dispute, several contemporary radio researchers have questioned whether the Christmas Eve broadcast took place, or whether the date was, in fact, several weeks earlier. The first apparent published reference to the event was made in 1928 by H. P. Davis, Vice President of Westinghouse, in a lecture given at Harvard University. In 1932 Fessenden cited the Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S. M. Kinter of Westinghouse. Fessenden's wife Helen recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (1940), eight years after Fessenden's death. The issue of whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually happened is discussed in Donna Halper's article "In Search of the Truth About Fessenden"[2] and also in James O'Neal's essays.[3][4] An annotated argument supporting Fessenden as the world's first radio broadcaster was offered in 2006 by Dr. John S. Belrose, Radioscientist Emeritus at the Communications Research Centre Canada, in his essay "Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast." It was not until after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912 that radio for mass communication came into vogue, inspired first by the work of amateur ("ham") radio operators. Radio was especially important during World War I as it was vital for air and naval operations. World War I brought about major developments in radio, superseding the Morse code of the wireless telegraph with the vocal communication of the wireless telephone, through advancements in vacuum tube technology and the introduction of the transceiver. After the war, numerous radio stations were born in the United States and set the standard for later radio programs. The first radio news program was broadcast on August 31, 1920, on the station 8MK in Detroit; owned by The Detroit News, the station covered local election results. This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA, being established in Pittsburgh. The first regular entertainment programs were broadcast in 1922, and on March 10, Variety carried the front-page headline: "Radio Sweeping Country: 1,000,000 Sets in Use." A highlight of this time was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1, 1923, on the Los Angeles station KHJ. Growth of radio Broadcast radio in the United States underwent a period of rapid change through the decade of the 1920s. Technology advances, better regulation, rapid consumer adoption, and the creation of broadcast networks transformed radio from a consumer curiosity into the mass media powerhouse that defined the Golden Age of Radio. Consumer adoption Through the decade of the 1920s, the purchase of radios by United States homes continued, and accelerated. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) released figures in 1925 stating that 19% of United States homes owned a radio. The triode and regenerative circuit made amplified, vacuum tube radios widely available to consumers by the second half of the 1920s. The advantage was obvious: several people at once in a home could now easily listen to their radio at the same time. In 1930, 40% of the nation's households owned a radio,[8] a figure that was much higher in suburban and large metropolitan areas. The superheterodyne receiver and other inventions refined radios even further in the next decade; even as the Great Depression ravaged the country in the 1930s, radio would stay at the centre of American life. 83% of American homes would own a radio by 1940. Government regulation Although radio was well established with United States consumers by the mid-1920s, regulation of the broadcast medium presented its own challenges. Until 1926, broadcast radio power and frequency use was regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, until a legal challenge rendered the agency powerless to do so. Congress responded by enacting the Radio Act of 1927, which included the formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). One of the FRC's most important early actions was the adoption of General Order 40, which divided stations on the AM band into three power level categories, which became known as Local, Regional, and Clear Channel, and reorganized station assignments. Based on this plan, effective 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on November 11, 1928, most of the country's stations were assigned to new transmitting frequencies. Broadcast networks The final element needed to make the Golden Age of Radio possible focused on the question of distribution: the ability for multiple radio stations to simultaneously broadcast the same content, and this would be solved with the concept of a radio network. The earliest radio programs of the 1920s were largely unsponsored; radio stations were a service designed to sell radio receivers. In early 1922, American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting on its owned stations, and plans for the development of the first radio network using its telephone lines to transmit the content. In July 1926, AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to a group headed by RCA, which used the assets to form the National Broadcasting Company. Four radio networks had formed by 1934. These were: National Broadcasting Company Red Network (NBC Red), launched November 15, 1926. Originally founded as the National Broadcasting Company in late 1926, the company was almost immediately forced to split under antitrust laws to form NBC Red and NBC Blue. When, in 1942, NBC Blue was sold and renamed the Blue Network, this network would go back to calling itself simply the National Broadcasting Company Radio Network (NBC). National Broadcasting Company Blue Network (NBC Blue); launched January 10, 1927, split from NBC Red. NBC Blue was sold in 1942 and became the Blue Network, and it in turn transferred its assets to a new company, the American Broadcasting Company on June 15, 1945. That network identified itself as the American Broadcasting Company Radio Network (ABC). Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), launched September 18, 1927. After an initially struggling attempt to compete with the NBC networks, CBS gained new momentum when William S. Paley was installed as company president. Mutual Broadcasting System (Mutual), launched September 29, 1934. Mutual was initially run as a cooperative in which the flagship stations owned the network, not the other way around as was the case with the other three radio networks. Programming In the period before and after the advent of the broadcast network, new forms of entertainment needed to be created to fill the time of a station's broadcast day. Many of the formats born in this era continued into the television and digital eras. In the beginning of the Golden Age, network programs were almost exclusively broadcast live, as the national networks prohibited the airing of recorded programs until the late 1940s because of the inferior sound quality of phonograph discs, the only practical recording medium at that time. As a result, network prime-time shows would be performed twice, once for each coast. Rehearsal for the World War II radio show You Can't Do Business with Hitler with John Flynn and Virginia Moore. This series of programs, broadcast at least once weekly by more than 790 radio stations in the United States, was written and produced by the radio section of the Office of War Information (OWI). Live events Coverage of live events included musical concerts and play-by-play sports broadcasts. News The capability of the new medium to get information to people created the format of modern radio news: headlines, remote reporting, sidewalk interviews (such as Vox Pop), panel discussions, weather reports, and farm reports. The entry of radio into the realm of news triggered a feud between the radio and newspaper industries in the mid-1930s, eventually culminating in newspapers trumping up exaggerated [citation needed] reports of a mass hysteria from the (entirely fictional) radio presentation of The War of the Worlds, which had been presented as a faux newscast. Musical features The sponsored musical feature soon became one of the most popular program formats. Most early radio sponsorship came in the form of selling the naming rights to the program, as evidenced by such programs as The A&P Gypsies, Champion Spark Plug Hour, The Clicquot Club Eskimos, and King Biscuit Time; commercials, as they are known in the modern era, were still relatively uncommon and considered intrusive. During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes, and NBC's Monitor continued such remotes well into the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America. Singers such as Harriet Lee and Wendell Hall became popular fixtures on network radio beginning in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Local stations often had staff organists such as Jesse Crawford playing popular tunes. Classical music programs on the air included The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour. Texaco sponsored the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts; the broadcasts, now sponsored by the Toll Brothers, continue to this day around the world, and are one of the few examples of live classical music still broadcast on radio. One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been created especially for him. At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro. Popular songwriters such as George Gershwin were also featured on radio. (Gershwin, in addition to frequent appearances as a guest, had his own program in 1934.) The New York Philharmonic also had weekly concerts on radio. There was no dedicated classical music radio station like NPR at that time, so classical music programs had to share the network they were broadcast on with more popular ones, much as in the days of television before the creation of NET and PBS. Country music also enjoyed popularity. National Barn Dance, begun on Chicago's WLS in 1924, was picked up by NBC Radio in 1933. In 1925, WSM Barn Dance went on the air from Nashville. It was renamed the Grand Ole Opry in 1927 and NBC carried portions from 1944 to 1956. NBC also aired The Red Foley Show from 1951 to 1961, and ABC Radio carried Ozark Jubilee from 1953 to 1961. Comedy Radio attracted top comedy talents from vaudeville and Hollywood for many years: Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Bob Burns, Judy Canova, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Burns and Allen, Phil Harris, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Jean Shepherd, Red Skelton and Ed Wynn. Situational comedies also gained popularity, such as Amos 'n' Andy, Easy Aces, Ethel and Albert, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Goldbergs, The Great Gildersleeve, The Halls of Ivy (which featured screen star Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume), Meet Corliss Archer, Meet Millie, and Our Miss Brooks. Radio comedy ran the gamut from the small town humor of Lum and Abner, Herb Shriner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan. Gags galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You Top This?,[18] panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant, and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones, Stoopnagle and Budd, Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray. British comedy reached American shores in a major assault when NBC carried The Goon Show in the mid-1950s. Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-running The Aldrich Family (1939–1953) with the familiar catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!," followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!" Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It with You (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan. Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, The Gumps, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye the Sailor, Red Ryder, Reg'lar Fellers, Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler. Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from 1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941–1942 comedy based on cartoonist H. T. Webster's famed Caspar Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s. Conversely, some radio shows gave rise to spinoff comic strips, such as My Friend Irma starring Marie Wilson. Soap operas The first program generally considered to be a daytime serial drama by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams, which premiered on WGN on October 20, 1930. The first networked daytime serial is Clara, Lu, 'n Em, which started in a daytime time slot on February 15, 1932. As daytime serials became popular in the early 1930s, they became known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. On November 25, 1960, the last four daytime radio dramas—Young Dr. Malone, Right to Happiness, The Second Mrs. Burton and Ma Perkins, all broadcast on the CBS Radio Network—were brought to an end. Children's programming The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, The Cisco Kid, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Captain Midnight, and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Badges, rings, decoding devices and other radio premiums offered on these adventure shows were often allied with a sponsor's product, requiring the young listeners to mail in a boxtop from a breakfast cereal or other proof of purchase. Radio plays Radio plays were presented on such programs as 26 by Corwin, NBC Short Story, Arch Oboler's Plays, Quiet, Please, and CBS Radio Workshop. Orson Welles's The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse were considered by many critics to be the finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as Margaret Sullavan or Helen Hayes, in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as Liliom, Oliver Twist (a title now feared lost), A Tale of Two Cities, Lost Horizon, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was on Mercury Theatre that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, formatted to sound like a breaking news program. Theatre Guild on the Air presented adaptations of classical and Broadway plays. Their Shakespeare adaptations included a one-hour Macbeth starring Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson, and a 90-minute Hamlet, starring John Gielgud.[22] Recordings of many of these programs survive. During the 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in films, repeated their characterizations on radio on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which featured both original stories and episodes directly adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became the only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as "The Speckled Band". There were also many dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce. During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor John Barrymore starred in a radio program, Streamlined Shakespeare, which featured him in a series of one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as Twelfth Night (in which he played both Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch), and Macbeth. Lux Radio Theatre and The Screen Guild Theater presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. Suspense, Escape, The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum Mystery were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin, Carlton E. Morse, David Goodis, Archibald MacLeish, Arthur Miller, Arch Oboler, Wyllis Cooper, Rod Serling, Jay Bennett, and Irwin Shaw. Game shows Game shows saw their beginnings in radio. One of the first was Information Please in 1938, and one of the first major successes was Dr. I.Q. in 1939. Winner Take All, which premiered in 1946, was the first to use lockout devices and feature returning champions. A relative of the game show, which would be called the giveaway show in contemporary media, typically involved giving sponsored products to studio audience members, people randomly called by telephone, or both. An early example of this show was the 1939 show Pot o' Gold, but the breakout hit of this type was ABC's Stop the Music in 1948. Winning a prize generally required knowledge of what was being aired on the show at that moment, which led to criticism of the giveaway show as a form of "buying an audience". Giveaway shows were extremely popular through 1948 and 1949. They were often panned as low-brow, and an unsuccessful attempt was even made by the FCC to ban them (as an illegal lottery) in August 1949.[23] Broadcast production methods The RCA Type 44-BX microphone had two live faces and two dead ones. Thus actors could face each other and react. An actor could give the effect of leaving the room by simply moving their head toward the dead face of the microphone. The scripts were paper-clipped together. It has been disputed whether or not actors and actresses would drop finished pages to the carpeted floor after use. Radio stations Despite a general ban on use of recordings on broadcasts by radio networks through the late 1940s, "reference recordings" on phonograph disc were made of many programs as they were being broadcast, for review by the sponsor and for the network's own archival purposes. With the development of high-fidelity magnetic wire and tape recording in the years following World War II, the networks became more open to airing recorded programs and the prerecording of shows became more common. Local stations, however, had always been free to use recordings and sometimes made substantial use of pre-recorded syndicated programs distributed on pressed (as opposed to individually recorded) transcription discs. Recording was done using a cutting lathe and acetate discs. Programs were normally recorded at 331⁄3 rpm on 16 inch discs, the standard format used for such "electrical transcriptions" from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Sometimes, the groove was cut starting at the inside of the disc and running to the outside. This was useful when the program to be recorded was longer than 15 minutes so required more than one disc side. By recording the first side outside in, the second inside out, and so on, the sound quality at the disc change-over points would match and result in a more seamless playback. An inside start also had the advantage that the thread of material cut from the disc's surface, which had to be kept out of the path of the cutting stylus, was naturally thrown toward the centre of the disc so was automatically out of the way. When cutting an outside start disc, a brush could be used to keep it out of the way by sweeping it toward the middle of the disc. Well-equipped recording lathes used the vacuum from a water aspirator to pick it up as it was cut and deposit it in a water-filled bottle. In addition to convenience, this served a safety purpose, as the cellulose nitrate thread was highly flammable and a loose accumulation of it combusted violently if ignited. Most recordings of radio broadcasts were made at a radio network's studios, or at the facilities of a network-owned or affil
Good evening and a huge welcome back to the show, I hope you've had a great day and you're ready to kick back and relax with another episode of Brett's old time radio show. Hello, I'm Brett your host for this evening and welcome to my home in beautiful Lyme Bay where it's lovely December night. I hope it's just as nice where you are. You'll find all of my links at www.linktr.ee/brettsoldtimeradioshow A huge thankyou for joining me once again for our regular late night visit to those dusty studio archives of Old Time radio shows right here at my home in the united kingdom. Don't forget I have an instagram page and youtube channel both called brett's old time radio show and I'd love it if you could follow me. Feel free to send me some feedback on this and the other shows if you get a moment, brett@tourdate.co.uk #sleep #insomnia #relax #chill #night #nighttime #bed #bedtime #oldtimeradio #drama #comedy #radio #talkradio #hancock #tonyhancock #hancockshalfhour #sherlock #sherlockholmes #radiodrama #popular #viral #viralpodcast #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podtok #podcastclip #podcastclips #podcasttrailer #podcastteaser #newpodcastepisode #newpodcast #videopodcast #upcomingpodcast #audiogram #audiograms #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #truecrime #podcaster #viral #popular #viralpodcast #number1 #instagram #youtube #facebook #johnnydollar #crime #fiction #unwind #devon #texas #texasranger #beer #seaton #seaside #smuggler #colyton #devon #seaton #beer #branscombe #lymebay #lymeregis #brett #brettorchard #orchard #greatdetectives #greatdetectivesofoldtimeradio #detectives #johnnydollar #thesaint #steptoe #texasrangers Dad's Army Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally. The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title Dad's Army), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription. Most of the platoon members in Dad's Army are over military age and the series stars several older British actors, including Arnold Ridley, John Laurie, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier. Younger members of the cast included Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn (who, despite being one of the younger cast members, played the oldest guardsman, Lance Corporal Jones) and James Beck (who died suddenly during production of the sixth series in 1973). Other regular cast members included Frank Williams as the vicar, Edward Sinclair as the verger, and Bill Pertwee as the chief ARP warden. The series has influenced British popular culture, with its catchphrases and characters being widely known. The Radio Times magazine listed Captain Mainwaring's "You stupid boy!" among the 25 greatest put-downs on TV. A 2001 Channel 4 poll ranked Captain Mainwaring 21st on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2004, Dad's Army came fourth in a BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was placed 13th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, and voted for by industry professionals. A second feature film of Dad's Army with a different cast was released in 2016. In 2019, UKTV recreated three missing episodes for broadcast in August that year on its Gold channel under the title Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes. It starred Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Origins Co-writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry during a Dad's Army event at Bressingham Steam Museum, May 2011 Originally intended to be called The Fighting Tigers, Dad's Army was based partly on co-writer and creator Jimmy Perry's experiences in the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV, later known as the Home Guard) and highlighted a somewhat forgotten aspect of defence during the Second World War. Perry was only 16 when he joined the 10th Hertfordshire Battalion. His mother did not like him being out at night, and feared he might catch a cold; he partly resembled the character of Private Pike. An elderly lance corporal in the 10th Hertfordshire often referred to fighting under Kitchener against the "Fuzzy Wuzzies" (Hadendoa), and was the model for Lance Corporal Jones. Other influences included the work of comedians such as Will Hay, whose film Oh, Mr Porter! featured a pompous ass, an old man and a young man; together, this gave Perry the ideas for Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike. Film historian Jeffrey Richards has cited Lancastrian comedian Robb Wilton as a key influence; Wilton portrayed a work-shy husband who joined the Home Guard in numerous comic sketches during World War II. Perry wrote the first script and sent it to David Croft while working as a minor actor in the Croft-produced sitcom Hugh and I, originally intending the role of the spiv, later called Walker, to be his own. Croft was impressed and sent the script to Michael Mills, the BBC's head of comedy, and the series was commissioned. In his book Dad's Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show, Graham McCann explains that the show owes much to Michael Mills. It was he who renamed the show Dad's Army. He did not like Brightsea-on-Sea, so the location was changed to Walmington-on-Sea. He was happy with the names for the characters Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike, but not with other names, and he made suggestions: Private Jim Duck became James Frazer, Joe Fish became Joe Walker and Jim Jones became Jack Jones. He also suggested adding a Scot. Jimmy Perry had produced the original idea, but needed a more experienced partner to see it through, so Mills suggested David Croft and this launched the beginning of their professional association. When an episode was screened to members of the public to gauge audience reaction prior to broadcast of the first series, the majority of the audience thought it was very poor. The production team put the report containing the negative comments at the bottom of David Croft's in-tray. He only saw it several months later,[16] after the series had been broadcast and received a positive response. Situation The series is set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, located on the south coast of England, not far from Eastbourne. The exterior scenes were mostly filmed in and around the Stanford Training Area (STANTA), near Thetford, Norfolk.[19] Walmington, and its Home Guard platoon, would be on the frontline in the event of a German invasion across the English Channel. The first series has a loose narrative thread, with Captain Mainwaring's platoon being formed and equipped, initially with wooden guns and LDV armbands, later on with full army uniforms; the platoon is part of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. The first episode, "The Man and the Hour", begins with a scene set in the then-present day of 1968, in which Mainwaring addresses his old platoon as part of the contemporary '"I'm Backing Britain" campaign. The prologue opening was a condition imposed after initial concerns from Paul Fox, the BBC1 controller, that it belittled the efforts of the Home Guard. After Mainwaring relates how he had backed Britain in 1940, the episode proper begins; Dad's Army is thus told in flashback, although the final episode does not return to 1968. Later episodes are largely self-contained, albeit referring to previous events and with additional character development. As the comedy in many ways relies on the platoon's lack of participation in the Second World War, opposition to their activities must come from another quarter, and this is generally provided by Chief Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Warden Hodges, and sometimes by the verger of the local church (St Aldhelm's) or by Captain Square and the neighbouring Eastgate Home Guard platoon. The group, however, does have some encounters related to the enemy, such as downed German planes, a Luftwaffe pilot who parachutes into the town's clock tower, a U-boat crew and discarded parachutes that may have been German; a Viennese ornithologist appears in "Man Hunt" and an IRA suspect appears in "Absent Friends". The humour ranges from the subtle (especially the class-reversed relationship between grammar school-educated Mainwaring, the local bank manager, and public school-educated Wilson, his deputy at the bank) to the slapstick (the antics of the elderly Jones being a prime example). Jones had several catchphrases, including "Don't panic!" (while panicking himself), "They don't like it up 'em!", "Permission to speak, sir?", "Handy-hock!" and his tales about the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies". Mainwaring's catchphrase to Pike is "You stupid boy", which he uses in many episodes. Other cast members used catchphrases, including Sergeant Wilson, who regularly asked, "Do you think that's wise, sir?" when Captain Mainwaring made a suggestion. The early series occasionally included darker humour, reflecting that, especially early in the war, the Home Guard was woefully under-equipped but was still willing to resist the Wehrmacht. For instance, in the episode "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", the platoon believes the enemy has invaded Britain. Mainwaring, Godfrey, Frazer and Jones (along with Godfrey's sisters, who are completely unaware of the invasion) decide to stay at the cottage to delay the German advance, buying the regular army time to arrive with reinforcements; "It'll probably be the end of us, but we're ready for that, aren't we, men?" says Mainwaring. "Of course," replies Frazer. Characters Private Pike (Ian Lavender) ARP Warden Hodges (Bill Pertwee) Private Frazer (John Laurie) Private Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) Private Walker (James Beck) Lance Corporal Jones (Clive Dunn) Sergeant Wilson (John Le Mesurier) Main characters Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), the pompous, if essentially brave and unerringly patriotic local bank manager. Mainwaring appointed himself leader of his town's contingent of Local Defence Volunteers. He had been a lieutenant in the First World War but is embarrassed by the fact that he never saw combat, only being sent to France in 1919 after the Armistice as part of the Army of Occupation in Germany. The character, along with Wilson, also appeared in the original pilot episode of the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier), a diffident, upper-middle-class chief bank clerk who often quietly questions Mainwaring's judgement ("Do you think that's wise, sir?"). Wilson had actually served as a captain during the First World War, but he only reveals this in the final episode. He does not live with the Pike family, but is implied to be in a relationship with the widowed Mrs Pike. Wilson also appears in the later radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Lance Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn), the local butcher, born in 1870. Jones is an old campaigner who enlisted as a drummer boy at the age of 14 and participated, as a boy soldier, in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884–85 and, as an adult, in Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan in 1896–98. Jones also served during the Boer War and the Great War. He often suffers from the effects of malaria caught during one of his campaigns and has to be calmed during his "shudders". Often seen as fastidious and a worrier, he has a number of catchphrases, including "They don't like it up 'em!" and "Don't panic, don't panic!", which he says whilst panicking. Dunn was considerably younger than his character, being only 46 when the series began. This meant he often performed the physical comedy of the show, which some of the older cast members were no longer capable of. Private James Frazer (John Laurie), a dour Scottish former chief petty officer on HMS Defiant in the Royal Navy. He served at the Battle of Jutland as a ship's cook and also has a medal for having served on Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. He grew up on the Isle of Barra and is prone to theatrical poetry. In episode one, he states that he owns a philately shop, but subsequently his profession is changed to an undertaker. His catchphrase is "We're doomed. Doomed!" Private Joe Walker (James Beck), a black market spiv, Walker is one of only two able-bodied men of military age among the main characters (the other one being Private Pike). In the first episode, Walker claims he was not called up to the regular army because he was in a reserved occupation as a wholesale supplier. In one of the missing episodes, it is revealed that he was not called up because of an allergy to corned beef. Although always on the lookout to make money, Walker is also seen to support local charities, including a children's home. Following James Beck's death in 1973, Walker was written out of the series. Private Charles Godfrey (Arnold Ridley), a retired shop assistant who had worked at the Army & Navy store in London. He lives in Walmington with his elderly sisters and serves as the platoon's medical orderly. He has a weak bladder and often needs to "be excused". A conscientious objector during the First World War, he was nevertheless awarded the Military Medal for heroic actions as a combat medic during the Battle of the Somme. He also demonstrates bravery during his Home Guard service, particularly during the "Branded" episode in which Mainwaring, unconscious in a smoke-filled room, is rescued by Godfrey. Private Frank Pike (Ian Lavender), the youngest of the platoon. He is a cosseted, somewhat immature mother's boy, often wearing a thick scarf over his uniform to prevent illness and a frequent target for Mainwaring's derision ("You stupid boy!"). Pike is not called up to the regular army due to his rare blood group (in series eight, he is excused for this reason). He works in his day job as an assistant bank clerk for Mainwaring. He frequently addresses Sergeant Wilson as "Uncle Arthur". However, on the last day of filming, David Croft confirmed to Lavender that Wilson was in fact Pike's father. Pike would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Supporting characters Chief ARP Warden William Hodges (Bill Pertwee), the platoon's major rival and nemesis. He calls Mainwaring "Napoleon". Mainwaring looks down on him as the local greengrocer and dislikes that Hodges saw active service in the First World War. As an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden, he is always demanding that people "Put that light out!". He often calls the platoon "Ruddy hooligans!". The character of Hodges would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Reverend Timothy Farthing (Frank Williams), the effete, petulant vicar of St Aldhelm's Church. He reluctantly shares his church hall and office with the platoon. In several episodes of the series, it was implied that the character was a non-active closet gay. Maurice Yeatman (Edward Sinclair), the verger at St Aldhelm's Church and Scoutmaster of the local Sea Scout troop. He is often hostile to the platoon while frequently sycophantic towards the vicar, who often struggles to tolerate him and frequently employs the catchphrase "Oh do be quiet, Mr Yeatman!". He often sides with Hodges to undermine the platoon's activities. Mrs Mavis Pike (Janet Davies), Pike's overbearing widowed mother, who is often implied to be in a relationship with Sergeant Wilson. Liz Frazer replaced Janet Davies in the 1971 film version. Mrs Fox (Pamela Cundell), a glamorous widow. There is a mutual attraction with Corporal Jones and the couple marry in the last episode. Illicit little "extras" are passed across the counter on her regular visits to Jones's butcher's shop and she helps the platoon with official functions. In the episode "Mum's Army", she gives her first name as Marcia, but by the final episode she is addressed as Mildred. Colonel Pritchard (Robert Raglan), Captain Mainwaring's superior officer. A stern, serious man, he unexpectedly appeared to admire Mainwaring, frequently commenting on his successes and warning people not to underestimate him. Private Sponge (Colin Bean), a sheep farmer. He leads the members of the platoon's second section (the first section being led by Corporal Jones) and thus had only occasional speaking parts, although he became more prominent in later series. He appeared in 76 of the 80 episodes. Mr Claude Gordon (Eric Longworth), the Walmington town clerk often involved when the platoon is taking part in local parades and displays. Although generally civil with Captain Mainwaring and his men, he is an officious and somewhat pompous individual, and Hodges tends to use him to try and interfere with the platoon's activities. Private Cheeseman (Talfryn Thomas), a Welshman who works for the town newspaper. He joined the Walmington-on-Sea platoon during the seventh series only after the sudden death of James Beck, who played Private Walker. Captain Square (Geoffrey Lumsden), the pompous commanding officer of the rival Eastgate platoon, and a former regular soldier who served with Lawrence of Arabia during the First World War. He is frequently at loggerheads with Mainwaring (whose name he persists in mispronouncing as spelt, "Main-wearing", instead of the correct "Mannering") and has the catchphrase "You blithering idiot!". Mrs Yeatman (Olive Mercer), the somewhat tyrannical wife of Maurice Yeatman, the verger. Over the course of the series, her first name is given as either Beryl, Anthea or Tracey. Mr Sidney Bluett (Harold Bennett), an elderly local man who is occasionally involved with the antics of both the platoon and Hodges. He and Mrs Yeatman are implied to be having an affair. Miss Janet King (Caroline Dowdeswell), a clerk at Swallow Bank who works with Mainwaring, Wilson and Pike in the first series. Edith Parish (Wendy Richard), also called Shirley, a cinema usherette and girlfriend of Private Walker. Dolly (Amy Dalby and Joan Cooper) and Cissy Godfrey (Nan Braunton and Kathleen Saintsbury), Private Godfrey's spinster sisters, who reside with him at their cottage. Elizabeth Mainwaring (unseen character), George Mainwaring's reclusive, paranoid and domineering wife who is never seen onscreen in the TV series. (In the episode "A Soldier's Farewell" her "shape" is seen sleeping in the bunk above the captain while in their Anderson Shelter.) Her marriage to George is not a happy one and he does his best to avoid her at any opportunity. They have no children. Mrs Mainwaring had a significant on screen role in the 2016 film. Other actors who appeared in small roles include Timothy Carlton, Don Estelle, Nigel Hawthorne, Geoffrey Hughes, Michael Knowles, John Ringham, Fulton Mackay, Anthony Sagar, Anthony Sharp, Carmen Silvera and Barbara Windsor. Larry Martyn appeared as an unnamed private in four episodes, and later took over the part of Walker in the radio series following the death of James Beck. The former cricketer Fred Trueman appeared in "The Test". Opening and closing credits The show's opening titles were originally intended to feature footage of refugees and Nazi troops, to illustrate the threat faced by the Home Guard. Despite opposition from the BBC's head of comedy Michael Mills, Paul Fox, the controller of BBC1, ordered that these be removed on the grounds that they were offensive. The replacement titles featured the animated sequence of swastika-headed arrows approaching Britain.[25] Originally in black and white, the opening titles were updated twice; firstly in series three, adding colour and improved animation, and once again in series six, which made further improvements to the animation. There were two different versions of the closing credits used in the show. The first version, used in series one and two, simply showed footage of the main cast superimposed over a still photograph, with the crew credits rolling over a black background. The better-known closing credits, introduced in series three, were a homage to the end credits of The Way Ahead (1944), a film which had covered the training of a platoon during the Second World War. In both instances, each character is shown as they walk across a smoke-filled battlefield. One of the actors in Dad's Army, John Laurie, also appeared in that film, and his performance in the end credits of The Way Ahead appears to be copied in the sitcom. Coincidentally, the film's lead character (played by David Niven) is named Lieutenant Jim Perry. Following this sequence, the end credits roll, and the platoon is shown in a wide angle shot as, armed, they run towards the camera, while bombs explode behind them. As the credits come to an end, the platoon run past the camera and the all clear siren rings, before the screen fades to black. Music The show's theme tune, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?" was Jimmy Perry's idea, written especially for the show and intended as a gentle pastiche of wartime songs. The other songs were authentic 1940s music recordings. Perry wrote the lyrics and composed the music with Derek Taverner. Perry persuaded one of his childhood idols, wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan, to sing the theme for 100 guineas (equivalent to £2,400 in 2023). Flanagan died less than a year after the recording. At the time it was widely believed to be a wartime song. The music over the opening credits was recorded at Riverside Studios, Flanagan being accompanied by the Orchestra of the Band of the Coldstream Guards. The version played over the opening credits differs slightly from the full version recorded by Flanagan; an edit removes, for timing reasons, two lines of lyric with the "middle eight" tune: "So watch out Mr Hitler, you have met your match in us/If you think you can crush us, we're afraid you've missed the bus." (The latter lyric is a reference to a speech by Neville Chamberlain.) Bud Flanagan's full version appears as an Easter egg on the first series DVD release and on the authorised soundtrack CD issued by CD41. Arthur Lowe also recorded a full version of the theme. The closing credits feature an instrumental march version of the song played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards conducted by Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Trevor L. Sharpe, ending with the air-raid warning siren sounding all-clear. It is accompanied by a style of credits that became a trademark of David Croft: the caption "You have been watching", followed by vignettes of the main cast. The series also contains genuine wartime and period songs between scenes, usually brief quotations that have some reference to the theme of the episode or the scene. Many appear on the CD soundtrack issued by CD41, being the same versions used in the series. Episodes List of Dad's Army episodes The television programme lasted nine series and was broadcast over nine years, with 80 episodes in total, including three Christmas specials and an hour-long special. At its peak, the programme regularly gained audiences of 18.5 million.[35] There were also four short specials broadcast as part of Christmas Night with the Stars in 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1972; one of which was also restaged as part of the Royal Variety Performance 1975. Missing episodes Main article: Dad's Army missing episodes The first two series were recorded and screened in black-and-white, while series three to nine were recorded and screened in colour. Even so, one episode in series three, "Room at the Bottom", formerly survived only as a 16mm black-and-white film telerecording, made for overseas sales to countries not yet broadcasting in colour; and remains on the official DVD releases in this form. This episode has benefited from colour recovery technology, using a buried colour signal (chroma dots) in the black-and-white film print to restore the episode to colour and was transmitted on 13 December 2008 on BBC Two. The newly restored colour version of "Room at the Bottom" was eventually made commercially available in 2023, when it appeared as an extra on the DVD release Dad's Army: The Missing Episodes, with a specially filmed introduction by Ian Lavender. Dad's Army was less affected than most from the wiping of videotape, but three second-series episodes remain missing: episode nine "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", episode eleven "A Stripe for Frazer" and episode 12 "Under Fire". (All three missing episodes were among those remade for BBC Radio with most of the original cast, adapted from the original TV scripts. Audio recordings of all three were included as bonus features on The Complete Series DVD Collection.) Two further series two episodes, "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", were thought lost until 2001.[8] Two of the three missing episodes have since been performed as part of the latest stage show. In 2008, soundtracks of the missing episode "A Stripe for Frazer" and the 1968 Christmas Night with the Stars segment "Present Arms" were recovered. The soundtrack of "A Stripe for Frazer" has been mixed with animation to replace the missing images.[36] The audio soundtrack for the "Cornish Floral Dance" sketch, from the 1970 episode of Christmas Night with the Stars, has also been recovered. Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes (2019) In 2018, UKTV announced plans to recreate the three missing episodes for broadcast on its Gold channel. Mercury Productions, the company responsible for Saluting Dad's Army, Gold's 50th anniversary tribute series, produced the episodes, which were directed by Ben Kellett. The recreations were broadcast in August 2019, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of their original broadcast by the BBC.[37] Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson, with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey. The full cast was announced in January 2019, with McNally, Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon, Mathew Horne, David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal. However, Bernard Cribbins subsequently withdrew from the project, and was replaced as Godfrey by Timothy West. Cast Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson Kevin Eldon as Lance Corporal Jones David Hayman as Private Frazer Mathew Horne as Private Walker Timothy West as Private Godfrey Tom Rosenthal as Private Pike Tracy-Ann Oberman as Mrs Pike Simon Ludders as ARP Warden Hodges David Horovitch as Corporal-Colonel Square John Biggins as the Verger Films 1971 film Main article: Dad's Army (1971 film) In common with many British sitcoms of that era, Dad's Army was spun-off as a feature film which was released in 1971. Backers Columbia Pictures imposed arbitrary changes, such as recasting Liz Fraser as Mavis Pike and filming locations in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, rather than Thetford in Norfolk, which made the cast unhappy. The director, Norman Cohen, whose idea it was to make the film, was nearly sacked by the studio.: 168 Jimmy Perry and David Croft wrote the original screenplay. This was expanded by Cohen to try to make it more cinematic; Columbia executives made more changes to plot and pacing. As finally realised, two-thirds of the film consists of the creation of the platoon; this was the contribution of Perry and Croft, and differs in a number of ways from the formation of the platoon as seen in the first series of the television version. The final third shows the platoon in action, rescuing hostages from the church hall where they had been held captive by the crewmen of a downed German aircraft. Neither the cast nor Perry and Croft were happy with the result. Perry argued for changes to try to reproduce the style of the television series, but with mixed results. Filming took place from 10 August to 25 September 1970 at Shepperton Studios and on location. After shooting the film, the cast returned to working on the fourth television series. The film's UK première was on 12 March 1971 at the Columbia Theatre, London. Critical reviews were mixed, but it performed well at the UK box-office. Discussions were held about a possible sequel, to be called Dad's Army and the Secret U-Boat Base, but the project never came to fruition. Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey (2014) 2016 film Main article: Dad's Army (2016 film) A second film, written by Hamish McColl and directed by Oliver Parker, was released in 2016. The cast included Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtenay as Lance Corporal Jones, Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey, Blake Harrison as Private Pike, Daniel Mays as Private Walker and Bill Paterson as Private Frazer. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sarah Lancashire and Mark Gatiss also featured. The film was primarily shot on location in Yorkshire. Filming took place on the beach at North Landing, Flamborough Head, Yorkshire and at nearby Bridlington. It opened in February 2016 to mainly negative reviews. Stage show Main article: Dad's Army (stage show) A poster advertising the stage show In 1975, Dad's Army transferred to the stage as a revue, with songs, familiar scenes from the show and individual "turns" for cast members. It was created by Roger Redfarn, who shared the same agent as the series' writers. Most of the principal cast transferred with it, with the exception of John Laurie, who was replaced by Hamish Roughead.[8] Following James Beck's death two years earlier, Walker was played by John Bardon.[8] Dad's Army: A Nostalgic Music and Laughter Show of Britain's Finest Hour opened at Billingham in Teesside on 4 September 1975 for a two-week tryout. After cuts and revisions, the show transferred to London's West End and opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 2 October 1975. On the opening night there was a surprise appearance by Chesney Allen, singing the old Flanagan and Allen song Hometown with Arthur Lowe. The show ran in the West End until 21 February 1976, disrupted twice by bomb scares and then toured the country until 4 September 1976. Clive Dunn was replaced for half the tour by Jack Haig (David Croft's original first choice for the role of Corporal Jones on television). Jeffrey Holland, who went on to star in several later Croft sitcoms, also had a number of roles in the production. The stage show, billed as Dad's Army—The Musical, was staged in Australia and toured New Zealand in 2004–2005, starring Jon English. Several sections of this stage show were filmed and have subsequently been included as extras on the final Dad's Army DVD. In April 2007, a new stage show was announced with cast members including Leslie Grantham as Private Walker and Emmerdale actor Peter Martin as Captain Mainwaring. The production contained the episodes "A Stripe for Frazer", "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", "Room at the Bottom" and "The Deadly Attachment". In August 2017, a new two-man stage show titled, Dad's Army Radio Hour, opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe It starred David Benson and Jack Lane. Between them, the pair voiced the entire cast of Dad's Army, including incidental characters. The episodes adapted from the original radio scripts were "The Deadly Attachment", "The Day the Balloon Went Up", "Brain Versus Brawn", "My British Buddy", "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel" and "Mum's Army". The production featured three episodes not adapted for the radio series "When You've Got to Go", "My Brother and I" and "Never Too Old". The show was well received by critics and the David Croft estate for its respectful and uncanny performances. In 2019, the production changed its name to Dad's Army Radio Show and continued to tour nationally throughout the UK until the end of 2021. Radio series List of Dad's Army radio episodes The majority of the television scripts were adapted for BBC Radio 4 with the original cast, although other actors played Walker after James Beck's death (which took place soon after recording and before transmission of the first radio series). Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles were responsible for the adaptation,[8] while wartime BBC announcer John Snagge set the scene for each episode. Different actors were used for some of the minor parts: for example Mollie Sugden played the role of Mrs Fox, and Pearl Hackney played Mrs Pike. The first episode was based on the revised version of events seen in the opening of the film version, rather than on the television pilot. The series ran for three series and 67 episodes from 1974-76.[8] The entire radio series has been released on CD. Knowles and Snoad developed a radio series, It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which followed Sergeant Wilson, Private Pike and Warden Hodges's attempts to renovate a pier in the fictional town of Frambourne-on-Sea following the end of the war. It was originally intended to star Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier, but Lowe died after recording the pilot episode in 1981. In consequence, Bill Pertwee and Ian Lavender were brought in to replace him. In the event the revised cast recorded a 13-episode series. John Le Mesurier died in November 1983, making another series impossible. The last radio recording of Dad's Army occurred in 1995, when Jimmy Perry wrote a radio sketch entitled The Boy Who Saved England for the "Full Steam A-Hudd" evening broadcast on BBC Radio 2, transmitted on 3 June 1995 on the occasion of the closure of the BBC's Paris studios in Lower Regent Street. It featured Ian Lavender as Pike, Bill Pertwee as Hodges, Frank Williams as the Vicar and Jimmy Perry as General Haverlock-Seabag. American adaptation A pilot episode for an American remake called The Rear Guard, adapted for American viewers by Arthur Julian, was produced by the ABC and broadcast on 10 August 1976, based on the Dad's Army episode "The Deadly Attachment".[8] Set in Long Island, the pilot starred Cliff Norton as Captain Rosatti, Lou Jacobi as Sergeant Raskin and Eddie Foy Jr. as Lance Corporal Wagner. The pilot was considered a failure, so the original tapes were wiped. However, director Hal Cooper kept a copy of the pilot, which was returned to several collectors in 1998. Though further storylines were planned, the series failed to make it past the pilot stage. Other appearances Lowe, Le Mesurier, Laurie, Beck, Ridley and Lavender (wearing Pike's signature scarf) appeared as guests in the 22 April 1971 edition of The Morecambe & Wise Show on BBC2 in the "Monty on the Bonty" sketch, with Lowe as Captain Bligh and the others as crewmen on HMS Bounty. Lowe, Le Mesurier and Laurie again made a cameo appearance as their Dad's Army characters in the 1977 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special. While Elton John is following incomprehensible instructions to find the BBC studios, he encounters them in a steam room. On leaving, Mainwaring calls him a "stupid boy". Arthur Lowe twice appeared on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The first time, in 1973, was with John Le Mesurier, in which the two appeared in costume and in character as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Together they viewed and discussed a mural painted by schoolchildren, featuring the characters from the show at a Christmas party, among whom was Mainwaring's unseen wife Elizabeth – or rather, what the children thought she looked like (Mainwaring remarks "Good grief. What a remarkable likeness!"). Arthur Lowe made a second appearance as Captain Mainwaring on Blue Peter with the Dad's Army van, which would appear in the forthcoming London-Brighton run, and showed presenter John Noakes the vehicle's hidden anti-Nazi defences.[29][59] Later that year, Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender and Pertwee, along with Jones's van, appeared in character at the finish of the 1974 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. The cast appeared in a 1974 public information film, in character but set in the modern day, in which the platoon demonstrated how to cross the road safely at Pelican crossings. Lowe and Le Mesurier made a final appearance as their Dad's Army characters for a 1982 television commercial advertising Wispa chocolate bars. Clive Dunn made occasional appearances as Lance Corporal Jones at 1940s themed events in the 1980s and 1990s and on television on the BBC Saturday night entertainment show Noel's House Party on 27 November 1993. Awards During its original television run, Dad's Army was nominated for multiple British Academy Television Awards, although only won "Best Light Entertainment Programme" in 1971. It was nominated as "Best Situation Comedy" in 1973, 1974 and 1975. In addition, Arthur Lowe was frequently nominated for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" in 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1978. In 2000, the show was voted 13th in a British Film Institute poll of industry professionals of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. In 2004, championed by Phill Jupitus, it came fourth in the BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom with 174,138 votes. Legacy Statue of Captain Mainwaring, erected in Thetford in June 2010 In June 2010, a statue of Captain Mainwaring was erected in the Norfolk town of Thetford where most of the exteriors for the TV series were filmed. The statue features Captain Mainwaring sitting to attention on a simple bench in Home Guard uniform, with his swagger stick across his knees. The statue is mounted at the end of a winding brick pathway with a Union Flag patterned arrowhead to reflect the opening credits of the TV series and the sculpture has been designed so that members of the public can sit beside Captain Mainwaring and have their photograph taken. The statue was vandalised not long after the unveiling by a 10-year-old boy, who kicked it for ten minutes and broke off the statue's glasses, throwing them into a nearby river. The statue has since been fixed. Several references to Dad's Army have been made in other television series. In a 1995 episode of Bottom, titled "Hole", Richie shouts Lance Corporal Jones's catchphrase while stuck up a Ferris wheel set to be demolished the following day. The British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart paid tribute to Dad's Army in episode one of its second series in 1995, "Don't Get Around Much Any More". Here, lead character Gary Sparrow (Nicholas Lyndhurst) – a time-traveller from the 1990s – goes into a bank in 1941 and meets a bank manager named Mainwaring (Alec Linstead) and his chief clerk, Wilson (Terrence Hardiman), both of whom are in the Home Guard. When he hears the names Mainwaring and Wilson, Gary begins singing the Dad's Army theme song.[72] In addition, a brief visual tribute to Dad's Army is made at the start of the episode "Rag Week" from Ben Elton's 1990s sitcom The Thin Blue Line: a shopfront bears the name "Mainwaring's". In June 2018 the Royal Mail issued a set of eight stamps, featuring the main characters and their catchphrases, to mark the comedy's 50th anniversary. In 2020, Niles Schilder, for the Dad's Army Appreciation Society, wrote four short scripts which detailed how the characters from the series would have, in the author's opinion, dealt with the events of that year. Titles of the scripts included Dad's Army Negotiates Brexit and An Unauthorised Gathering. Cultural influence A pub in Shoeburyness named (albeit incorrectly) after Arthur Lowe's character The characters of Dad's Army and their catchphrases are well known in the UK due to the popularity of the series when originally shown and the frequency of repeats. Jimmy Perry recalls that before writing the sitcom, the Home Guard was a largely forgotten aspect of Britain's defence in the Second World War, something which the series rectified. In a 1972 Radio Times interview, Arthur Lowe expressed surprise at the programme's success: We expected the show to have limited appeal, to the age group that lived through the war and the Home Guard. We didn't expect what has happened – that children from the age of five upwards would enjoy it too. By focusing on the comic aspects of the Home Guard in a cosy south coast setting, the television series distorted the popular perception of the organisation. Its characters represented the older volunteers within the Home Guard, but largely ignored the large numbers of teenagers and factory workers who also served. Accounts from Home Guard members and their regimental publications inspired Norman Longmate's history The Real Dad's Army (1974). Media releases Main articles: List of Dad's Army books and memorabilia and List of Dad's Army audio releases The first DVD releases of Dad's Army were two "best of" collections, released by the BBC and distributed by 2 Entertain, in October 2001 and September 2002. The first series and the surviving episodes of the second series, along with the documentary Dad's Army: Missing Presumed Wiped, were released in September 2004,[80] while the final series was released in May 2007.[81] In November 2007, the final episodes, the three specials "Battle of the Giants!", "My Brother and I" and "The Love of Three Oranges", were released, along with Dad's Army: The Passing Years documentary, several Christmas Night with the Stars sketches, and excerpts from the 1975-76 stage show.[82] From the third series DVD, We Are the Boys..., a short individual biographical documentary about the main actors and the characters they portrayed on the programme, was included as a special feature. The Columbia film adaptation is separately available; as this is not a BBC production, it is not included in the box set. In 1973 the series was adapted into a comic strip, drawn by Bill Titcombe, which was published in daily newspapers in the UK. These cartoon strips were subsequently collected together and published in book form, by Piccolo Books, in paperback. sleep insomnia relax chill night nightime bed bedtime oldtimeradio drama comedy radio talkradio hancock tonyhancock hancockshalfhour sherlock sherlockholmes radiodrama popular viral viralpodcast podcast brett brettorchard orchard east devon seaton beer lyme regis village condado de alhama spain murcia #dadsarmy The Golden Age of Radio Also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows. Radio was the first broadcast medium, and during this period people regularly tuned in to their favourite radio programs, and families gathered to listen to the home radio in the evening. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. A variety of new entertainment formats and genres were created for the new medium, many of which later migrated to television: radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, talent shows, daytime and evening variety hours, situation comedies, play-by-play sports, children's shows, cooking shows, and more. In the 1950s, television surpassed radio as the most popular broadcast medium, and commercial radio programming shifted to narrower formats of news, talk, sports and music. Religious broadcasters, listener-supported public radio and college stations provide their own distinctive formats. Origins A family listening to the first broadcasts around 1920 with a crystal radio. The crystal radio, a legacy from the pre-broadcast era, could not power a loudspeaker so the family must share earphones During the first three decades of radio, from 1887 to about 1920, the technology of transmitting sound was undeveloped; the information-carrying ability of radio waves was the same as a telegraph; the radio signal could be either on or off. Radio communication was by wireless telegraphy; at the sending end, an operator tapped on a switch which caused the radio transmitter to produce a series of pulses of radio waves which spelled out text messages in Morse code. At the receiver these sounded like beeps, requiring an operator who knew Morse code to translate them back to text. This type of radio was used exclusively for person-to-person text communication for commercial, diplomatic and military purposes and hobbyists; broadcasting did not exist. The broadcasts of live drama, comedy, music and news that characterize the Golden Age of Radio had a precedent in the Théâtrophone, commercially introduced in Paris in 1890 and available as late as 1932. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live stage performances and hear news reports by means of a network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept. Between 1900 and 1920 the first technology for transmitting sound by radio was developed, AM (amplitude modulation), and AM broadcasting sprang up around 1920. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said to have broadcast the first radio program, consisting of some violin playing and passages from the Bible. While Fessenden's role as an inventor and early radio experimenter is not in dispute, several contemporary radio researchers have questioned whether the Christmas Eve broadcast took place, or whether the date was, in fact, several weeks earlier. The first apparent published reference to the event was made in 1928 by H. P. Davis, Vice President of Westinghouse, in a lecture given at Harvard University. In 1932 Fessenden cited the Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S. M. Kinter of Westinghouse. Fessenden's wife Helen recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (1940), eight years after Fessenden's death. The issue of whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually happened is discussed in Donna Halper's article "In Search of the Truth About Fessenden"[2] and also in James O'Neal's essays.[3][4] An annotated argument supporting Fessenden as the world's first radio broadcaster was offered in 2006 by Dr. John S. Belrose, Radioscientist Emeritus at the Communications Research Centre Canada, in his essay "Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast." It was not until after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912 that radio for mass communication came into vogue, inspired first by the work of amateur ("ham") radio operators. Radio was especially important during World War I as it was vital for air and naval operations. World War I brought about major developments in radio, superseding the Morse code of the wireless telegraph with the vocal communication of the wireless telephone, through advancements in vacuum tube technology and the introduction of the transceiver. After the war, numerous radio stations were born in the United States and set the standard for later radio programs. The first radio news program was broadcast on August 31, 1920, on the station 8MK in Detroit; owned by The Detroit News, the station covered local election results. This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA, being established in Pittsburgh. The first regular entertainment programs were broadcast in 1922, and on March 10, Variety carried the front-page headline: "Radio Sweeping Country: 1,000,000 Sets in Use." A highlight of this time was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1, 1923, on the Los Angeles station KHJ. Growth of radio Broadcast radio in the United States underwent a period of rapid change through the decade of the 1920s. Technology advances, better regulation, rapid consumer adoption, and the creation of broadcast networks transformed radio from a consumer curiosity into the mass media powerhouse that defined the Golden Age of Radio. Consumer adoption Through the decade of the 1920s, the purchase of radios by United States homes continued, and accelerated. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) released figures in 1925 stating that 19% of United States homes owned a radio. The triode and regenerative circuit made amplified, vacuum tube radios widely available to consumers by the second half of the 1920s. The advantage was obvious: several people at once in a home could now easily listen to their radio at the same time. In 1930, 40% of the nation's households owned a radio,[8] a figure that was much higher in suburban and large metropolitan areas. The superheterodyne receiver and other inventions refined radios even further in the next decade; even as the Great Depression ravaged the country in the 1930s, radio would stay at the centre of American life. 83% of American homes would own a radio by 1940. Government regulation Although radio was well established with United States consumers by the mid-1920s, regulation of the broadcast medium presented its own challenges. Until 1926, broadcast radio power and frequency use was regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, until a legal challenge rendered the agency powerless to do so. Congress responded by enacting the Radio Act of 1927, which included the formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). One of the FRC's most important early actions was the adoption of General Order 40, which divided stations on the AM band into three power level categories, which became known as Local, Regional, and Clear Channel, and reorganized station assignments. Based on this plan, effective 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on November 11, 1928, most of the country's stations were assigned to new transmitting frequencies. Broadcast networks The final element needed to make the Golden Age of Radio possible focused on the question of distribution: the ability for multiple radio stations to simultaneously broadcast the same content, and this would be solved with the concept of a radio network. The earliest radio programs of the 1920s were largely unsponsored; radio stations were a service designed to sell radio receivers. In early 1922, American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting on its owned stations, and plans for the development of the first radio network using its telephone lines to transmit the content. In July 1926, AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to a group headed by RCA, which used the assets to form the National Broadcasting Company. Four radio networks had formed by 1934. These were: National Broadcasting Company Red Network (NBC Red), launched November 15, 1926. Originally founded as the National Broadcasting Company in late 1926, the company was almost immediately forced to split under antitrust laws to form NBC Red and NBC Blue. When, in 1942, NBC Blue was sold and renamed the Blue Network, this network would go back to calling itself simply the National Broadcasting Company Radio Network (NBC). National Broadcasting Company Blue Network (NBC Blue); launched January 10, 1927, split from NBC Red. NBC Blue was sold in 1942 and became the Blue Network, and it in turn transferred its assets to a new company, the American Broadcasting Company on June 15, 1945. That network identified itself as the American Broadcasting Company Radio Network (ABC). Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), launched September 18, 1927. After an initially struggling attempt to compete with the NBC networks, CBS gained new momentum when William S. Paley was installed as company president. Mutual Broadcasting System (Mutual), launched September 29, 1934. Mutual was initially run as a cooperative in which the flagship stations owned the network, not the other way around as was the case with the other three radio networks. Programming In the period before and after the advent of the broadcast network, new forms of entertainment needed to be created to fill the time of a station's broadcast day. Many of the formats born in this era continued into the television and digital eras. In the beginning of the Golden Age, network programs were almost exclusively broadcast live, as the national networks prohibited the airing of recorded programs until the late 1940s because of the inferior sound quality of phonograph discs, the only practical recording medium at that time. As a result, network prime-time shows would be performed twice, once for each coast. Rehearsal for the World War II radio show You Can't Do Business with Hitler with John Flynn and Virginia Moore. This series of programs, broadcast at least once weekly by more than 790 radio stations in the United States, was written and produced by the radio section of the Office of War Information (OWI). Live events Coverage of live events included musical concerts and play-by-play sports broadcasts. News The capability of the new medium to get information to people created the format of modern radio news: headlines, remote reporting, sidewalk interviews (such as Vox Pop), panel discussions, weather reports, and farm reports. The entry of radio into the realm of news triggered a feud between the radio and newspaper industries in the mid-1930s, eventually culminating in newspapers trumping up exaggerated [citation needed] reports of a mass hysteria from the (entirely fictional) radio presentation of The War of the Worlds, which had been presented as a faux newscast. Musical features The sponsored musical feature soon became one of the most popular program formats. Most early radio sponsorship came in the form of selling the naming rights to the program, as evidenced by such programs as The A&P Gypsies, Champion Spark Plug Hour, The Clicquot Club Eskimos, and King Biscuit Time; commercials, as they are known in the modern era, were still relatively uncommon and considered intrusive. During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes, and NBC's Monitor continued such remotes well into the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America. Singers such as Harriet Lee and Wendell Hall became popular fixtures on network radio beginning in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Local stations often had staff organists such as Jesse Crawford playing popular tunes. Classical music programs on the air included The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour. Texaco sponsored the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts; the broadcasts, now sponsored by the Toll Brothers, continue to this day around the world, and are one of the few examples of live classical music still broadcast on radio. One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been created especially for him. At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro. Popular songwriters such as George Gershwin were also featured on radio. (Gershwin, in addition to frequent appearances as a guest, had his own program in 1934.) The New York Philharmonic also had weekly concerts on radio. There was no dedicated classical music radio station like NPR at that time, so classical music programs had to share the network they were broadcast on with more popular ones, much as in the days of television before the creation of NET and PBS. Country music also enjoyed popularity. National Barn Dance, begun on Chicago's WLS in 1924, was picked up by NBC Radio in 1933. In 1925, WSM Barn Dance went on the air from Nashville. It was renamed the Grand Ole Opry in 1927 and NBC carried portions from 1944 to 1956. NBC also aired The Red Foley Show from 1951 to 1961, and ABC Radio carried Ozark Jubilee from 1953 to 1961. Comedy Radio attracted top comedy talents from vaudeville and Hollywood for many years: Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Bob Burns, Judy Canova, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Burns and Allen, Phil Harris, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Jean Shepherd, Red Skelton and Ed Wynn. Situational comedies also gained popularity, such as Amos 'n' Andy, Easy Aces, Ethel and Albert, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Goldbergs, The Great Gildersleeve, The Halls of Ivy (which featured screen star Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume), Meet Corliss Archer, Meet Millie, and Our Miss Brooks. Radio comedy ran the gamut from the small town humor of Lum and Abner, Herb Shriner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan. Gags galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You Top This?,[18] panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant, and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones, Stoopnagle and Budd, Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray. British comedy reached American shores in a major assault when NBC carried The Goon Show in the mid-1950s. Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-running The Aldrich Family (1939–1953) with the familiar catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!," followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!" Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It with You (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan. Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, The Gumps, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye the Sailor, Red Ryder, Reg'lar Fellers, Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler. Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from 1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941–1942 comedy based on cartoonist H. T. Webster's famed Caspar Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s. Conversely, some radio shows gave rise to spinoff comic strips, such as My Friend Irma starring Marie Wilson. Soap operas The first program generally considered to be a daytime serial drama by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams, which premiered on WGN on October 20, 1930. The first networked daytime serial is Clara, Lu, 'n Em, which started in a daytime time slot on February 15, 1932. As daytime serials became popular in the early 1930s, they became known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. On November 25, 1960, the last four daytime radio dramas—Young Dr. Malone, Right to Happiness, The Second Mrs. Burton and Ma Perkins, all broadcast on the CBS Radio Network—were brought to an end. Children's programming The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, The Cisco Kid, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Captain Midnight, and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Badges, rings, decoding devices and other radio premiums offered on these adventure shows were often allied with a sponsor's product, requiring the young listeners to mail in a boxtop from a breakfast cereal or other proof of purchase. Radio plays Radio plays were presented on such programs as 26 by Corwin, NBC Short Story, Arch Oboler's Plays, Quiet, Please, and CBS Radio Workshop. Orson Welles's The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse were considered by many critics to be the finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as Margaret Sullavan or Helen Hayes, in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as Liliom, Oliver Twist (a title now feared lost), A Tale of Two Cities, Lost Horizon, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was on Mercury Theatre that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, formatted to sound like a breaking news program. Theatre Guild on the Air presented adaptations of classical and Broadway plays. Their Shakespeare adaptations included a one-hour Macbeth starring Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson, and a 90-minute Hamlet, starring John Gielgud.[22] Recordings of many of these programs survive. During the 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in films, repeated their characterizations on radio on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which featured both original stories and episodes directly adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became the only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as "The Speckled Band". There were also many dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce. During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor John Barrymore starred in a radio program, Streamlined Shakespeare, which featured him in a series of one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as Twelfth Night (in which he played both Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch), and Macbeth. Lux Radio Theatre and The Screen Guild Theater presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. Suspense, Escape, The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum Mystery were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin, Carlton E. Morse, David Goodis, Archibald MacLeish, Arthur Miller, Arch Oboler, Wyllis Cooper, Rod Serling, Jay Bennett, and Irwin Shaw. Game shows Game shows saw their beginnings in radio. One of the first was Information Please in 1938, and one of the first major successes was Dr. I.Q. in 1939. Winner Take All, which premiered in 1946, was the first to use lockout devices and feature returning champions. A relative of the game show, which would be called the giveaway show in contemporary media, typically involved giving sponsored products to studio audience members, people randomly called by telephone, or both. An early example of this show was the 1939 show Pot o' Gold, but the breakout hit of this type was ABC's Stop the Music in 1948. Winning a prize generally required knowledge of what was being aired on the show at that moment, which led to criticism of the giveaway show as a form of "buying an audience". Giveaway shows were extremely popular through 1948 and 1949. They were often panned as low-brow, and an unsuccessful attempt was even made by the FCC to ban them (as an illegal lottery) in August 1949.[23] Broadcast production methods The RCA Type 44-BX microphone had two live faces and two dead ones. Thus actors could face each other and react. An actor could give the effect of leaving the room by simply moving their head toward the dead face of the microphone. The scripts were paper-clipped together. It has been disputed whether or not actors and actresses would drop finished pages to the carpeted floor after use. Radio stations Despite a general ban on use of recordings on broadcasts by radio networks through the late 1940s, "reference recordings" on phonograph disc were made of many programs as they were being broadcast, for review by the sponsor and for the network's own archival purposes. With the development of high-fidelity magnetic wire and tape recording in the years following World War II, the networks became more open to airing recorded programs and the prerecording of shows became more common. Local stations, however, had always been free to use recordings and sometimes made substantial use of pre-recorded syndicated programs distributed on pressed (as opposed to individually recorded) transcription discs. Recording was done using a cutting lathe and acetate discs. Programs were normally recorded at 331⁄3 rpm on 16 inch discs, the standard format used for such "electrical transcriptions" from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Sometimes, the groove was cut starting at the inside of the disc and running to the outside. This was useful when the program to be recorded was longer than 15 minutes so required more than one disc side. By recording the first side outside in, the second inside out, and so on, the sound quality at the disc change-over points would match and result in a more seamless playback. An inside start also had the advantage that the thread of material cut from the disc's surface, which had to be kept out of the path of the cutting stylus, was naturally thrown toward the centre of the disc so was automatically out of the way. When cutting an outside start disc, a brush could be used to keep it out of the way by sweeping it toward the middle of the disc. Well-equipped recording lathes used the vacuum from a water aspirator to pick it up as it was cut and deposit it in a water-filled bottle. In addition to convenience, this served a safety purpose, as the cellulose nitrate thread was highly flammable and a loose accumulation of it combusted violently if ignited. Most recordings of radio broadcasts were made at a radio network's studios, or at the facilities of a network-owned or affil
We have a trio of brilliant British shows for you this week as Chris Lang's Unforgotten reunites Sunny with his famous backpack for its sixth series on ITV (52:22), Jack Rooke's Big Boys gets a last hurrah as its third and final series hits Channel 4 (59:40), and Lucy Punch starring Motherland spinoff Amandaland makes its debut on BBC1 (1:07:26). Plus we take a deep dive look at this week's Next On Netflix presentation and Ben Travis gets called at home to answer for his ridiculous question. (Episode 322)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 12 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+ at empire.supportingcast.fm.
Spring may be round the corner, but it's always winter in our souls! Yes, as most normal people dare to celebrate the evenings getting ever so slowly lighter, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour draws the heavy brocade curtains, lights a candle or two and reclines further into the misanthropic gloom. It certainly beats going outside, where the real horror lies. In this extended trailer for their NEW SUPERNATURAL SERIES, Messrs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops move the glass of nostalgic criticism over the animated lycanthropic-farce Fangface, and try to make contact with BBC1's 1992 sitcom So Haunt Me. If there really *is* somebody there, all will be revealed After Dark... How many stars of Capcom had a Before-They-Were-Famous career at Ruby-Spears? How many online auctions of original animation-cells would you have to win before you become the rights-holder of a cartoon? And how many sitcom-dads does it take sitting round the table until they can see the ghost? Watch agog as an unseen spectral hand presses the Play button, and find out... The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com
Good evening and a huge welcome back to the show, I hope you've had a great day and you're ready to kick back and relax with another episode of Brett's old time radio show. Hello, I'm Brett your host for this evening and welcome to my home in beautiful Lyme Bay where it's lovely December night. I hope it's just as nice where you are. You'll find all of my links at www.linktr.ee/brettsoldtimeradioshow A huge thankyou for joining me once again for our regular late night visit to those dusty studio archives of Old Time radio shows right here at my home in the united kingdom. Don't forget I have an instagram page and youtube channel both called brett's old time radio show and I'd love it if you could follow me. Feel free to send me some feedback on this and the other shows if you get a moment, brett@tourdate.co.uk #sleep #insomnia #relax #chill #night #nighttime #bed #bedtime #oldtimeradio #drama #comedy #radio #talkradio #hancock #tonyhancock #hancockshalfhour #sherlock #sherlockholmes #radiodrama #popular #viral #viralpodcast #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podtok #podcastclip #podcastclips #podcasttrailer #podcastteaser #newpodcastepisode #newpodcast #videopodcast #upcomingpodcast #audiogram #audiograms #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #truecrime #podcaster #viral #popular #viralpodcast #number1 #instagram #youtube #facebook #johnnydollar #crime #fiction #unwind #devon #texas #texasranger #beer #seaton #seaside #smuggler #colyton #devon #seaton #beer #branscombe #lymebay #lymeregis #brett #brettorchard #orchard #greatdetectives #greatdetectivesofoldtimeradio #detectives #johnnydollar #thesaint #steptoe #texasrangers Dad's Army Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally. The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title Dad's Army), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription. Most of the platoon members in Dad's Army are over military age and the series stars several older British actors, including Arnold Ridley, John Laurie, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier. Younger members of the cast included Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn (who, despite being one of the younger cast members, played the oldest guardsman, Lance Corporal Jones) and James Beck (who died suddenly during production of the sixth series in 1973). Other regular cast members included Frank Williams as the vicar, Edward Sinclair as the verger, and Bill Pertwee as the chief ARP warden. The series has influenced British popular culture, with its catchphrases and characters being widely known. The Radio Times magazine listed Captain Mainwaring's "You stupid boy!" among the 25 greatest put-downs on TV. A 2001 Channel 4 poll ranked Captain Mainwaring 21st on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2004, Dad's Army came fourth in a BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was placed 13th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, and voted for by industry professionals. A second feature film of Dad's Army with a different cast was released in 2016. In 2019, UKTV recreated three missing episodes for broadcast in August that year on its Gold channel under the title Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes. It starred Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Origins Co-writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry during a Dad's Army event at Bressingham Steam Museum, May 2011 Originally intended to be called The Fighting Tigers, Dad's Army was based partly on co-writer and creator Jimmy Perry's experiences in the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV, later known as the Home Guard) and highlighted a somewhat forgotten aspect of defence during the Second World War. Perry was only 16 when he joined the 10th Hertfordshire Battalion. His mother did not like him being out at night, and feared he might catch a cold; he partly resembled the character of Private Pike. An elderly lance corporal in the 10th Hertfordshire often referred to fighting under Kitchener against the "Fuzzy Wuzzies" (Hadendoa), and was the model for Lance Corporal Jones. Other influences included the work of comedians such as Will Hay, whose film Oh, Mr Porter! featured a pompous ass, an old man and a young man; together, this gave Perry the ideas for Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike. Film historian Jeffrey Richards has cited Lancastrian comedian Robb Wilton as a key influence; Wilton portrayed a work-shy husband who joined the Home Guard in numerous comic sketches during World War II. Perry wrote the first script and sent it to David Croft while working as a minor actor in the Croft-produced sitcom Hugh and I, originally intending the role of the spiv, later called Walker, to be his own. Croft was impressed and sent the script to Michael Mills, the BBC's head of comedy, and the series was commissioned. In his book Dad's Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show, Graham McCann explains that the show owes much to Michael Mills. It was he who renamed the show Dad's Army. He did not like Brightsea-on-Sea, so the location was changed to Walmington-on-Sea. He was happy with the names for the characters Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike, but not with other names, and he made suggestions: Private Jim Duck became James Frazer, Joe Fish became Joe Walker and Jim Jones became Jack Jones. He also suggested adding a Scot. Jimmy Perry had produced the original idea, but needed a more experienced partner to see it through, so Mills suggested David Croft and this launched the beginning of their professional association. When an episode was screened to members of the public to gauge audience reaction prior to broadcast of the first series, the majority of the audience thought it was very poor. The production team put the report containing the negative comments at the bottom of David Croft's in-tray. He only saw it several months later,[16] after the series had been broadcast and received a positive response. Situation The series is set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, located on the south coast of England, not far from Eastbourne. The exterior scenes were mostly filmed in and around the Stanford Training Area (STANTA), near Thetford, Norfolk.[19] Walmington, and its Home Guard platoon, would be on the frontline in the event of a German invasion across the English Channel. The first series has a loose narrative thread, with Captain Mainwaring's platoon being formed and equipped, initially with wooden guns and LDV armbands, later on with full army uniforms; the platoon is part of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. The first episode, "The Man and the Hour", begins with a scene set in the then-present day of 1968, in which Mainwaring addresses his old platoon as part of the contemporary '"I'm Backing Britain" campaign. The prologue opening was a condition imposed after initial concerns from Paul Fox, the BBC1 controller, that it belittled the efforts of the Home Guard. After Mainwaring relates how he had backed Britain in 1940, the episode proper begins; Dad's Army is thus told in flashback, although the final episode does not return to 1968. Later episodes are largely self-contained, albeit referring to previous events and with additional character development. As the comedy in many ways relies on the platoon's lack of participation in the Second World War, opposition to their activities must come from another quarter, and this is generally provided by Chief Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Warden Hodges, and sometimes by the verger of the local church (St Aldhelm's) or by Captain Square and the neighbouring Eastgate Home Guard platoon. The group, however, does have some encounters related to the enemy, such as downed German planes, a Luftwaffe pilot who parachutes into the town's clock tower, a U-boat crew and discarded parachutes that may have been German; a Viennese ornithologist appears in "Man Hunt" and an IRA suspect appears in "Absent Friends". The humour ranges from the subtle (especially the class-reversed relationship between grammar school-educated Mainwaring, the local bank manager, and public school-educated Wilson, his deputy at the bank) to the slapstick (the antics of the elderly Jones being a prime example). Jones had several catchphrases, including "Don't panic!" (while panicking himself), "They don't like it up 'em!", "Permission to speak, sir?", "Handy-hock!" and his tales about the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies". Mainwaring's catchphrase to Pike is "You stupid boy", which he uses in many episodes. Other cast members used catchphrases, including Sergeant Wilson, who regularly asked, "Do you think that's wise, sir?" when Captain Mainwaring made a suggestion. The early series occasionally included darker humour, reflecting that, especially early in the war, the Home Guard was woefully under-equipped but was still willing to resist the Wehrmacht. For instance, in the episode "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", the platoon believes the enemy has invaded Britain. Mainwaring, Godfrey, Frazer and Jones (along with Godfrey's sisters, who are completely unaware of the invasion) decide to stay at the cottage to delay the German advance, buying the regular army time to arrive with reinforcements; "It'll probably be the end of us, but we're ready for that, aren't we, men?" says Mainwaring. "Of course," replies Frazer. Characters Private Pike (Ian Lavender) ARP Warden Hodges (Bill Pertwee) Private Frazer (John Laurie) Private Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) Private Walker (James Beck) Lance Corporal Jones (Clive Dunn) Sergeant Wilson (John Le Mesurier) Main characters Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), the pompous, if essentially brave and unerringly patriotic local bank manager. Mainwaring appointed himself leader of his town's contingent of Local Defence Volunteers. He had been a lieutenant in the First World War but is embarrassed by the fact that he never saw combat, only being sent to France in 1919 after the Armistice as part of the Army of Occupation in Germany. The character, along with Wilson, also appeared in the original pilot episode of the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier), a diffident, upper-middle-class chief bank clerk who often quietly questions Mainwaring's judgement ("Do you think that's wise, sir?"). Wilson had actually served as a captain during the First World War, but he only reveals this in the final episode. He does not live with the Pike family, but is implied to be in a relationship with the widowed Mrs Pike. Wilson also appears in the later radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Lance Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn), the local butcher, born in 1870. Jones is an old campaigner who enlisted as a drummer boy at the age of 14 and participated, as a boy soldier, in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884–85 and, as an adult, in Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan in 1896–98. Jones also served during the Boer War and the Great War. He often suffers from the effects of malaria caught during one of his campaigns and has to be calmed during his "shudders". Often seen as fastidious and a worrier, he has a number of catchphrases, including "They don't like it up 'em!" and "Don't panic, don't panic!", which he says whilst panicking. Dunn was considerably younger than his character, being only 46 when the series began. This meant he often performed the physical comedy of the show, which some of the older cast members were no longer capable of. Private James Frazer (John Laurie), a dour Scottish former chief petty officer on HMS Defiant in the Royal Navy. He served at the Battle of Jutland as a ship's cook and also has a medal for having served on Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. He grew up on the Isle of Barra and is prone to theatrical poetry. In episode one, he states that he owns a philately shop, but subsequently his profession is changed to an undertaker. His catchphrase is "We're doomed. Doomed!" Private Joe Walker (James Beck), a black market spiv, Walker is one of only two able-bodied men of military age among the main characters (the other one being Private Pike). In the first episode, Walker claims he was not called up to the regular army because he was in a reserved occupation as a wholesale supplier. In one of the missing episodes, it is revealed that he was not called up because of an allergy to corned beef. Although always on the lookout to make money, Walker is also seen to support local charities, including a children's home. Following James Beck's death in 1973, Walker was written out of the series. Private Charles Godfrey (Arnold Ridley), a retired shop assistant who had worked at the Army & Navy store in London. He lives in Walmington with his elderly sisters and serves as the platoon's medical orderly. He has a weak bladder and often needs to "be excused". A conscientious objector during the First World War, he was nevertheless awarded the Military Medal for heroic actions as a combat medic during the Battle of the Somme. He also demonstrates bravery during his Home Guard service, particularly during the "Branded" episode in which Mainwaring, unconscious in a smoke-filled room, is rescued by Godfrey. Private Frank Pike (Ian Lavender), the youngest of the platoon. He is a cosseted, somewhat immature mother's boy, often wearing a thick scarf over his uniform to prevent illness and a frequent target for Mainwaring's derision ("You stupid boy!"). Pike is not called up to the regular army due to his rare blood group (in series eight, he is excused for this reason). He works in his day job as an assistant bank clerk for Mainwaring. He frequently addresses Sergeant Wilson as "Uncle Arthur". However, on the last day of filming, David Croft confirmed to Lavender that Wilson was in fact Pike's father. Pike would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Supporting characters Chief ARP Warden William Hodges (Bill Pertwee), the platoon's major rival and nemesis. He calls Mainwaring "Napoleon". Mainwaring looks down on him as the local greengrocer and dislikes that Hodges saw active service in the First World War. As an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden, he is always demanding that people "Put that light out!". He often calls the platoon "Ruddy hooligans!". The character of Hodges would later appear in the radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile. Reverend Timothy Farthing (Frank Williams), the effete, petulant vicar of St Aldhelm's Church. He reluctantly shares his church hall and office with the platoon. In several episodes of the series, it was implied that the character was a non-active closet gay. Maurice Yeatman (Edward Sinclair), the verger at St Aldhelm's Church and Scoutmaster of the local Sea Scout troop. He is often hostile to the platoon while frequently sycophantic towards the vicar, who often struggles to tolerate him and frequently employs the catchphrase "Oh do be quiet, Mr Yeatman!". He often sides with Hodges to undermine the platoon's activities. Mrs Mavis Pike (Janet Davies), Pike's overbearing widowed mother, who is often implied to be in a relationship with Sergeant Wilson. Liz Frazer replaced Janet Davies in the 1971 film version. Mrs Fox (Pamela Cundell), a glamorous widow. There is a mutual attraction with Corporal Jones and the couple marry in the last episode. Illicit little "extras" are passed across the counter on her regular visits to Jones's butcher's shop and she helps the platoon with official functions. In the episode "Mum's Army", she gives her first name as Marcia, but by the final episode she is addressed as Mildred. Colonel Pritchard (Robert Raglan), Captain Mainwaring's superior officer. A stern, serious man, he unexpectedly appeared to admire Mainwaring, frequently commenting on his successes and warning people not to underestimate him. Private Sponge (Colin Bean), a sheep farmer. He leads the members of the platoon's second section (the first section being led by Corporal Jones) and thus had only occasional speaking parts, although he became more prominent in later series. He appeared in 76 of the 80 episodes. Mr Claude Gordon (Eric Longworth), the Walmington town clerk often involved when the platoon is taking part in local parades and displays. Although generally civil with Captain Mainwaring and his men, he is an officious and somewhat pompous individual, and Hodges tends to use him to try and interfere with the platoon's activities. Private Cheeseman (Talfryn Thomas), a Welshman who works for the town newspaper. He joined the Walmington-on-Sea platoon during the seventh series only after the sudden death of James Beck, who played Private Walker. Captain Square (Geoffrey Lumsden), the pompous commanding officer of the rival Eastgate platoon, and a former regular soldier who served with Lawrence of Arabia during the First World War. He is frequently at loggerheads with Mainwaring (whose name he persists in mispronouncing as spelt, "Main-wearing", instead of the correct "Mannering") and has the catchphrase "You blithering idiot!". Mrs Yeatman (Olive Mercer), the somewhat tyrannical wife of Maurice Yeatman, the verger. Over the course of the series, her first name is given as either Beryl, Anthea or Tracey. Mr Sidney Bluett (Harold Bennett), an elderly local man who is occasionally involved with the antics of both the platoon and Hodges. He and Mrs Yeatman are implied to be having an affair. Miss Janet King (Caroline Dowdeswell), a clerk at Swallow Bank who works with Mainwaring, Wilson and Pike in the first series. Edith Parish (Wendy Richard), also called Shirley, a cinema usherette and girlfriend of Private Walker. Dolly (Amy Dalby and Joan Cooper) and Cissy Godfrey (Nan Braunton and Kathleen Saintsbury), Private Godfrey's spinster sisters, who reside with him at their cottage. Elizabeth Mainwaring (unseen character), George Mainwaring's reclusive, paranoid and domineering wife who is never seen onscreen in the TV series. (In the episode "A Soldier's Farewell" her "shape" is seen sleeping in the bunk above the captain while in their Anderson Shelter.) Her marriage to George is not a happy one and he does his best to avoid her at any opportunity. They have no children. Mrs Mainwaring had a significant on screen role in the 2016 film. Other actors who appeared in small roles include Timothy Carlton, Don Estelle, Nigel Hawthorne, Geoffrey Hughes, Michael Knowles, John Ringham, Fulton Mackay, Anthony Sagar, Anthony Sharp, Carmen Silvera and Barbara Windsor. Larry Martyn appeared as an unnamed private in four episodes, and later took over the part of Walker in the radio series following the death of James Beck. The former cricketer Fred Trueman appeared in "The Test". Opening and closing credits The show's opening titles were originally intended to feature footage of refugees and Nazi troops, to illustrate the threat faced by the Home Guard. Despite opposition from the BBC's head of comedy Michael Mills, Paul Fox, the controller of BBC1, ordered that these be removed on the grounds that they were offensive. The replacement titles featured the animated sequence of swastika-headed arrows approaching Britain.[25] Originally in black and white, the opening titles were updated twice; firstly in series three, adding colour and improved animation, and once again in series six, which made further improvements to the animation. There were two different versions of the closing credits used in the show. The first version, used in series one and two, simply showed footage of the main cast superimposed over a still photograph, with the crew credits rolling over a black background. The better-known closing credits, introduced in series three, were a homage to the end credits of The Way Ahead (1944), a film which had covered the training of a platoon during the Second World War. In both instances, each character is shown as they walk across a smoke-filled battlefield. One of the actors in Dad's Army, John Laurie, also appeared in that film, and his performance in the end credits of The Way Ahead appears to be copied in the sitcom. Coincidentally, the film's lead character (played by David Niven) is named Lieutenant Jim Perry. Following this sequence, the end credits roll, and the platoon is shown in a wide angle shot as, armed, they run towards the camera, while bombs explode behind them. As the credits come to an end, the platoon run past the camera and the all clear siren rings, before the screen fades to black. Music The show's theme tune, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?" was Jimmy Perry's idea, written especially for the show and intended as a gentle pastiche of wartime songs. The other songs were authentic 1940s music recordings. Perry wrote the lyrics and composed the music with Derek Taverner. Perry persuaded one of his childhood idols, wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan, to sing the theme for 100 guineas (equivalent to £2,400 in 2023). Flanagan died less than a year after the recording. At the time it was widely believed to be a wartime song. The music over the opening credits was recorded at Riverside Studios, Flanagan being accompanied by the Orchestra of the Band of the Coldstream Guards. The version played over the opening credits differs slightly from the full version recorded by Flanagan; an edit removes, for timing reasons, two lines of lyric with the "middle eight" tune: "So watch out Mr Hitler, you have met your match in us/If you think you can crush us, we're afraid you've missed the bus." (The latter lyric is a reference to a speech by Neville Chamberlain.) Bud Flanagan's full version appears as an Easter egg on the first series DVD release and on the authorised soundtrack CD issued by CD41. Arthur Lowe also recorded a full version of the theme. The closing credits feature an instrumental march version of the song played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards conducted by Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Trevor L. Sharpe, ending with the air-raid warning siren sounding all-clear. It is accompanied by a style of credits that became a trademark of David Croft: the caption "You have been watching", followed by vignettes of the main cast. The series also contains genuine wartime and period songs between scenes, usually brief quotations that have some reference to the theme of the episode or the scene. Many appear on the CD soundtrack issued by CD41, being the same versions used in the series. Episodes List of Dad's Army episodes The television programme lasted nine series and was broadcast over nine years, with 80 episodes in total, including three Christmas specials and an hour-long special. At its peak, the programme regularly gained audiences of 18.5 million.[35] There were also four short specials broadcast as part of Christmas Night with the Stars in 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1972; one of which was also restaged as part of the Royal Variety Performance 1975. Missing episodes Main article: Dad's Army missing episodes The first two series were recorded and screened in black-and-white, while series three to nine were recorded and screened in colour. Even so, one episode in series three, "Room at the Bottom", formerly survived only as a 16mm black-and-white film telerecording, made for overseas sales to countries not yet broadcasting in colour; and remains on the official DVD releases in this form. This episode has benefited from colour recovery technology, using a buried colour signal (chroma dots) in the black-and-white film print to restore the episode to colour and was transmitted on 13 December 2008 on BBC Two. The newly restored colour version of "Room at the Bottom" was eventually made commercially available in 2023, when it appeared as an extra on the DVD release Dad's Army: The Missing Episodes, with a specially filmed introduction by Ian Lavender. Dad's Army was less affected than most from the wiping of videotape, but three second-series episodes remain missing: episode nine "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", episode eleven "A Stripe for Frazer" and episode 12 "Under Fire". (All three missing episodes were among those remade for BBC Radio with most of the original cast, adapted from the original TV scripts. Audio recordings of all three were included as bonus features on The Complete Series DVD Collection.) Two further series two episodes, "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage", were thought lost until 2001.[8] Two of the three missing episodes have since been performed as part of the latest stage show. In 2008, soundtracks of the missing episode "A Stripe for Frazer" and the 1968 Christmas Night with the Stars segment "Present Arms" were recovered. The soundtrack of "A Stripe for Frazer" has been mixed with animation to replace the missing images.[36] The audio soundtrack for the "Cornish Floral Dance" sketch, from the 1970 episode of Christmas Night with the Stars, has also been recovered. Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes (2019) In 2018, UKTV announced plans to recreate the three missing episodes for broadcast on its Gold channel. Mercury Productions, the company responsible for Saluting Dad's Army, Gold's 50th anniversary tribute series, produced the episodes, which were directed by Ben Kellett. The recreations were broadcast in August 2019, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of their original broadcast by the BBC.[37] Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson, with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey. The full cast was announced in January 2019, with McNally, Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon, Mathew Horne, David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal. However, Bernard Cribbins subsequently withdrew from the project, and was replaced as Godfrey by Timothy West. Cast Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson Kevin Eldon as Lance Corporal Jones David Hayman as Private Frazer Mathew Horne as Private Walker Timothy West as Private Godfrey Tom Rosenthal as Private Pike Tracy-Ann Oberman as Mrs Pike Simon Ludders as ARP Warden Hodges David Horovitch as Corporal-Colonel Square John Biggins as the Verger Films 1971 film Main article: Dad's Army (1971 film) In common with many British sitcoms of that era, Dad's Army was spun-off as a feature film which was released in 1971. Backers Columbia Pictures imposed arbitrary changes, such as recasting Liz Fraser as Mavis Pike and filming locations in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, rather than Thetford in Norfolk, which made the cast unhappy. The director, Norman Cohen, whose idea it was to make the film, was nearly sacked by the studio.: 168 Jimmy Perry and David Croft wrote the original screenplay. This was expanded by Cohen to try to make it more cinematic; Columbia executives made more changes to plot and pacing. As finally realised, two-thirds of the film consists of the creation of the platoon; this was the contribution of Perry and Croft, and differs in a number of ways from the formation of the platoon as seen in the first series of the television version. The final third shows the platoon in action, rescuing hostages from the church hall where they had been held captive by the crewmen of a downed German aircraft. Neither the cast nor Perry and Croft were happy with the result. Perry argued for changes to try to reproduce the style of the television series, but with mixed results. Filming took place from 10 August to 25 September 1970 at Shepperton Studios and on location. After shooting the film, the cast returned to working on the fourth television series. The film's UK première was on 12 March 1971 at the Columbia Theatre, London. Critical reviews were mixed, but it performed well at the UK box-office. Discussions were held about a possible sequel, to be called Dad's Army and the Secret U-Boat Base, but the project never came to fruition. Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey (2014) 2016 film Main article: Dad's Army (2016 film) A second film, written by Hamish McColl and directed by Oliver Parker, was released in 2016. The cast included Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtenay as Lance Corporal Jones, Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey, Blake Harrison as Private Pike, Daniel Mays as Private Walker and Bill Paterson as Private Frazer. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sarah Lancashire and Mark Gatiss also featured. The film was primarily shot on location in Yorkshire. Filming took place on the beach at North Landing, Flamborough Head, Yorkshire and at nearby Bridlington. It opened in February 2016 to mainly negative reviews. Stage show Main article: Dad's Army (stage show) A poster advertising the stage show In 1975, Dad's Army transferred to the stage as a revue, with songs, familiar scenes from the show and individual "turns" for cast members. It was created by Roger Redfarn, who shared the same agent as the series' writers. Most of the principal cast transferred with it, with the exception of John Laurie, who was replaced by Hamish Roughead.[8] Following James Beck's death two years earlier, Walker was played by John Bardon.[8] Dad's Army: A Nostalgic Music and Laughter Show of Britain's Finest Hour opened at Billingham in Teesside on 4 September 1975 for a two-week tryout. After cuts and revisions, the show transferred to London's West End and opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 2 October 1975. On the opening night there was a surprise appearance by Chesney Allen, singing the old Flanagan and Allen song Hometown with Arthur Lowe. The show ran in the West End until 21 February 1976, disrupted twice by bomb scares and then toured the country until 4 September 1976. Clive Dunn was replaced for half the tour by Jack Haig (David Croft's original first choice for the role of Corporal Jones on television). Jeffrey Holland, who went on to star in several later Croft sitcoms, also had a number of roles in the production. The stage show, billed as Dad's Army—The Musical, was staged in Australia and toured New Zealand in 2004–2005, starring Jon English. Several sections of this stage show were filmed and have subsequently been included as extras on the final Dad's Army DVD. In April 2007, a new stage show was announced with cast members including Leslie Grantham as Private Walker and Emmerdale actor Peter Martin as Captain Mainwaring. The production contained the episodes "A Stripe for Frazer", "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", "Room at the Bottom" and "The Deadly Attachment". In August 2017, a new two-man stage show titled, Dad's Army Radio Hour, opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe It starred David Benson and Jack Lane. Between them, the pair voiced the entire cast of Dad's Army, including incidental characters. The episodes adapted from the original radio scripts were "The Deadly Attachment", "The Day the Balloon Went Up", "Brain Versus Brawn", "My British Buddy", "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel" and "Mum's Army". The production featured three episodes not adapted for the radio series "When You've Got to Go", "My Brother and I" and "Never Too Old". The show was well received by critics and the David Croft estate for its respectful and uncanny performances. In 2019, the production changed its name to Dad's Army Radio Show and continued to tour nationally throughout the UK until the end of 2021. Radio series List of Dad's Army radio episodes The majority of the television scripts were adapted for BBC Radio 4 with the original cast, although other actors played Walker after James Beck's death (which took place soon after recording and before transmission of the first radio series). Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles were responsible for the adaptation,[8] while wartime BBC announcer John Snagge set the scene for each episode. Different actors were used for some of the minor parts: for example Mollie Sugden played the role of Mrs Fox, and Pearl Hackney played Mrs Pike. The first episode was based on the revised version of events seen in the opening of the film version, rather than on the television pilot. The series ran for three series and 67 episodes from 1974-76.[8] The entire radio series has been released on CD. Knowles and Snoad developed a radio series, It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which followed Sergeant Wilson, Private Pike and Warden Hodges's attempts to renovate a pier in the fictional town of Frambourne-on-Sea following the end of the war. It was originally intended to star Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier, but Lowe died after recording the pilot episode in 1981. In consequence, Bill Pertwee and Ian Lavender were brought in to replace him. In the event the revised cast recorded a 13-episode series. John Le Mesurier died in November 1983, making another series impossible. The last radio recording of Dad's Army occurred in 1995, when Jimmy Perry wrote a radio sketch entitled The Boy Who Saved England for the "Full Steam A-Hudd" evening broadcast on BBC Radio 2, transmitted on 3 June 1995 on the occasion of the closure of the BBC's Paris studios in Lower Regent Street. It featured Ian Lavender as Pike, Bill Pertwee as Hodges, Frank Williams as the Vicar and Jimmy Perry as General Haverlock-Seabag. American adaptation A pilot episode for an American remake called The Rear Guard, adapted for American viewers by Arthur Julian, was produced by the ABC and broadcast on 10 August 1976, based on the Dad's Army episode "The Deadly Attachment".[8] Set in Long Island, the pilot starred Cliff Norton as Captain Rosatti, Lou Jacobi as Sergeant Raskin and Eddie Foy Jr. as Lance Corporal Wagner. The pilot was considered a failure, so the original tapes were wiped. However, director Hal Cooper kept a copy of the pilot, which was returned to several collectors in 1998. Though further storylines were planned, the series failed to make it past the pilot stage. Other appearances Lowe, Le Mesurier, Laurie, Beck, Ridley and Lavender (wearing Pike's signature scarf) appeared as guests in the 22 April 1971 edition of The Morecambe & Wise Show on BBC2 in the "Monty on the Bonty" sketch, with Lowe as Captain Bligh and the others as crewmen on HMS Bounty. Lowe, Le Mesurier and Laurie again made a cameo appearance as their Dad's Army characters in the 1977 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special. While Elton John is following incomprehensible instructions to find the BBC studios, he encounters them in a steam room. On leaving, Mainwaring calls him a "stupid boy". Arthur Lowe twice appeared on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The first time, in 1973, was with John Le Mesurier, in which the two appeared in costume and in character as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. Together they viewed and discussed a mural painted by schoolchildren, featuring the characters from the show at a Christmas party, among whom was Mainwaring's unseen wife Elizabeth – or rather, what the children thought she looked like (Mainwaring remarks "Good grief. What a remarkable likeness!"). Arthur Lowe made a second appearance as Captain Mainwaring on Blue Peter with the Dad's Army van, which would appear in the forthcoming London-Brighton run, and showed presenter John Noakes the vehicle's hidden anti-Nazi defences.[29][59] Later that year, Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender and Pertwee, along with Jones's van, appeared in character at the finish of the 1974 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. The cast appeared in a 1974 public information film, in character but set in the modern day, in which the platoon demonstrated how to cross the road safely at Pelican crossings. Lowe and Le Mesurier made a final appearance as their Dad's Army characters for a 1982 television commercial advertising Wispa chocolate bars. Clive Dunn made occasional appearances as Lance Corporal Jones at 1940s themed events in the 1980s and 1990s and on television on the BBC Saturday night entertainment show Noel's House Party on 27 November 1993. Awards During its original television run, Dad's Army was nominated for multiple British Academy Television Awards, although only won "Best Light Entertainment Programme" in 1971. It was nominated as "Best Situation Comedy" in 1973, 1974 and 1975. In addition, Arthur Lowe was frequently nominated for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" in 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1978. In 2000, the show was voted 13th in a British Film Institute poll of industry professionals of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. In 2004, championed by Phill Jupitus, it came fourth in the BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom with 174,138 votes. Legacy Statue of Captain Mainwaring, erected in Thetford in June 2010 In June 2010, a statue of Captain Mainwaring was erected in the Norfolk town of Thetford where most of the exteriors for the TV series were filmed. The statue features Captain Mainwaring sitting to attention on a simple bench in Home Guard uniform, with his swagger stick across his knees. The statue is mounted at the end of a winding brick pathway with a Union Flag patterned arrowhead to reflect the opening credits of the TV series and the sculpture has been designed so that members of the public can sit beside Captain Mainwaring and have their photograph taken. The statue was vandalised not long after the unveiling by a 10-year-old boy, who kicked it for ten minutes and broke off the statue's glasses, throwing them into a nearby river. The statue has since been fixed. Several references to Dad's Army have been made in other television series. In a 1995 episode of Bottom, titled "Hole", Richie shouts Lance Corporal Jones's catchphrase while stuck up a Ferris wheel set to be demolished the following day. The British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart paid tribute to Dad's Army in episode one of its second series in 1995, "Don't Get Around Much Any More". Here, lead character Gary Sparrow (Nicholas Lyndhurst) – a time-traveller from the 1990s – goes into a bank in 1941 and meets a bank manager named Mainwaring (Alec Linstead) and his chief clerk, Wilson (Terrence Hardiman), both of whom are in the Home Guard. When he hears the names Mainwaring and Wilson, Gary begins singing the Dad's Army theme song.[72] In addition, a brief visual tribute to Dad's Army is made at the start of the episode "Rag Week" from Ben Elton's 1990s sitcom The Thin Blue Line: a shopfront bears the name "Mainwaring's". In June 2018 the Royal Mail issued a set of eight stamps, featuring the main characters and their catchphrases, to mark the comedy's 50th anniversary. In 2020, Niles Schilder, for the Dad's Army Appreciation Society, wrote four short scripts which detailed how the characters from the series would have, in the author's opinion, dealt with the events of that year. Titles of the scripts included Dad's Army Negotiates Brexit and An Unauthorised Gathering. Cultural influence A pub in Shoeburyness named (albeit incorrectly) after Arthur Lowe's character The characters of Dad's Army and their catchphrases are well known in the UK due to the popularity of the series when originally shown and the frequency of repeats. Jimmy Perry recalls that before writing the sitcom, the Home Guard was a largely forgotten aspect of Britain's defence in the Second World War, something which the series rectified. In a 1972 Radio Times interview, Arthur Lowe expressed surprise at the programme's success: We expected the show to have limited appeal, to the age group that lived through the war and the Home Guard. We didn't expect what has happened – that children from the age of five upwards would enjoy it too. By focusing on the comic aspects of the Home Guard in a cosy south coast setting, the television series distorted the popular perception of the organisation. Its characters represented the older volunteers within the Home Guard, but largely ignored the large numbers of teenagers and factory workers who also served. Accounts from Home Guard members and their regimental publications inspired Norman Longmate's history The Real Dad's Army (1974). Media releases Main articles: List of Dad's Army books and memorabilia and List of Dad's Army audio releases The first DVD releases of Dad's Army were two "best of" collections, released by the BBC and distributed by 2 Entertain, in October 2001 and September 2002. The first series and the surviving episodes of the second series, along with the documentary Dad's Army: Missing Presumed Wiped, were released in September 2004,[80] while the final series was released in May 2007.[81] In November 2007, the final episodes, the three specials "Battle of the Giants!", "My Brother and I" and "The Love of Three Oranges", were released, along with Dad's Army: The Passing Years documentary, several Christmas Night with the Stars sketches, and excerpts from the 1975-76 stage show.[82] From the third series DVD, We Are the Boys..., a short individual biographical documentary about the main actors and the characters they portrayed on the programme, was included as a special feature. The Columbia film adaptation is separately available; as this is not a BBC production, it is not included in the box set. In 1973 the series was adapted into a comic strip, drawn by Bill Titcombe, which was published in daily newspapers in the UK. These cartoon strips were subsequently collected together and published in book form, by Piccolo Books, in paperback. sleep insomnia relax chill night nightime bed bedtime oldtimeradio drama comedy radio talkradio hancock tonyhancock hancockshalfhour sherlock sherlockholmes radiodrama popular viral viralpodcast podcast brett brettorchard orchard east devon seaton beer lyme regis village condado de alhama spain murcia #dadsarmy The Golden Age of Radio Also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows. Radio was the first broadcast medium, and during this period people regularly tuned in to their favourite radio programs, and families gathered to listen to the home radio in the evening. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. A variety of new entertainment formats and genres were created for the new medium, many of which later migrated to television: radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, talent shows, daytime and evening variety hours, situation comedies, play-by-play sports, children's shows, cooking shows, and more. In the 1950s, television surpassed radio as the most popular broadcast medium, and commercial radio programming shifted to narrower formats of news, talk, sports and music. Religious broadcasters, listener-supported public radio and college stations provide their own distinctive formats. Origins A family listening to the first broadcasts around 1920 with a crystal radio. The crystal radio, a legacy from the pre-broadcast era, could not power a loudspeaker so the family must share earphones During the first three decades of radio, from 1887 to about 1920, the technology of transmitting sound was undeveloped; the information-carrying ability of radio waves was the same as a telegraph; the radio signal could be either on or off. Radio communication was by wireless telegraphy; at the sending end, an operator tapped on a switch which caused the radio transmitter to produce a series of pulses of radio waves which spelled out text messages in Morse code. At the receiver these sounded like beeps, requiring an operator who knew Morse code to translate them back to text. This type of radio was used exclusively for person-to-person text communication for commercial, diplomatic and military purposes and hobbyists; broadcasting did not exist. The broadcasts of live drama, comedy, music and news that characterize the Golden Age of Radio had a precedent in the Théâtrophone, commercially introduced in Paris in 1890 and available as late as 1932. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live stage performances and hear news reports by means of a network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept. Between 1900 and 1920 the first technology for transmitting sound by radio was developed, AM (amplitude modulation), and AM broadcasting sprang up around 1920. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said to have broadcast the first radio program, consisting of some violin playing and passages from the Bible. While Fessenden's role as an inventor and early radio experimenter is not in dispute, several contemporary radio researchers have questioned whether the Christmas Eve broadcast took place, or whether the date was, in fact, several weeks earlier. The first apparent published reference to the event was made in 1928 by H. P. Davis, Vice President of Westinghouse, in a lecture given at Harvard University. In 1932 Fessenden cited the Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S. M. Kinter of Westinghouse. Fessenden's wife Helen recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (1940), eight years after Fessenden's death. The issue of whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually happened is discussed in Donna Halper's article "In Search of the Truth About Fessenden"[2] and also in James O'Neal's essays.[3][4] An annotated argument supporting Fessenden as the world's first radio broadcaster was offered in 2006 by Dr. John S. Belrose, Radioscientist Emeritus at the Communications Research Centre Canada, in his essay "Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast." It was not until after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912 that radio for mass communication came into vogue, inspired first by the work of amateur ("ham") radio operators. Radio was especially important during World War I as it was vital for air and naval operations. World War I brought about major developments in radio, superseding the Morse code of the wireless telegraph with the vocal communication of the wireless telephone, through advancements in vacuum tube technology and the introduction of the transceiver. After the war, numerous radio stations were born in the United States and set the standard for later radio programs. The first radio news program was broadcast on August 31, 1920, on the station 8MK in Detroit; owned by The Detroit News, the station covered local election results. This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA, being established in Pittsburgh. The first regular entertainment programs were broadcast in 1922, and on March 10, Variety carried the front-page headline: "Radio Sweeping Country: 1,000,000 Sets in Use." A highlight of this time was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1, 1923, on the Los Angeles station KHJ. Growth of radio Broadcast radio in the United States underwent a period of rapid change through the decade of the 1920s. Technology advances, better regulation, rapid consumer adoption, and the creation of broadcast networks transformed radio from a consumer curiosity into the mass media powerhouse that defined the Golden Age of Radio. Consumer adoption Through the decade of the 1920s, the purchase of radios by United States homes continued, and accelerated. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) released figures in 1925 stating that 19% of United States homes owned a radio. The triode and regenerative circuit made amplified, vacuum tube radios widely available to consumers by the second half of the 1920s. The advantage was obvious: several people at once in a home could now easily listen to their radio at the same time. In 1930, 40% of the nation's households owned a radio,[8] a figure that was much higher in suburban and large metropolitan areas. The superheterodyne receiver and other inventions refined radios even further in the next decade; even as the Great Depression ravaged the country in the 1930s, radio would stay at the centre of American life. 83% of American homes would own a radio by 1940. Government regulation Although radio was well established with United States consumers by the mid-1920s, regulation of the broadcast medium presented its own challenges. Until 1926, broadcast radio power and frequency use was regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, until a legal challenge rendered the agency powerless to do so. Congress responded by enacting the Radio Act of 1927, which included the formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). One of the FRC's most important early actions was the adoption of General Order 40, which divided stations on the AM band into three power level categories, which became known as Local, Regional, and Clear Channel, and reorganized station assignments. Based on this plan, effective 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on November 11, 1928, most of the country's stations were assigned to new transmitting frequencies. Broadcast networks The final element needed to make the Golden Age of Radio possible focused on the question of distribution: the ability for multiple radio stations to simultaneously broadcast the same content, and this would be solved with the concept of a radio network. The earliest radio programs of the 1920s were largely unsponsored; radio stations were a service designed to sell radio receivers. In early 1922, American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting on its owned stations, and plans for the development of the first radio network using its telephone lines to transmit the content. In July 1926, AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to a group headed by RCA, which used the assets to form the National Broadcasting Company. Four radio networks had formed by 1934. These were: National Broadcasting Company Red Network (NBC Red), launched November 15, 1926. Originally founded as the National Broadcasting Company in late 1926, the company was almost immediately forced to split under antitrust laws to form NBC Red and NBC Blue. When, in 1942, NBC Blue was sold and renamed the Blue Network, this network would go back to calling itself simply the National Broadcasting Company Radio Network (NBC). National Broadcasting Company Blue Network (NBC Blue); launched January 10, 1927, split from NBC Red. NBC Blue was sold in 1942 and became the Blue Network, and it in turn transferred its assets to a new company, the American Broadcasting Company on June 15, 1945. That network identified itself as the American Broadcasting Company Radio Network (ABC). Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), launched September 18, 1927. After an initially struggling attempt to compete with the NBC networks, CBS gained new momentum when William S. Paley was installed as company president. Mutual Broadcasting System (Mutual), launched September 29, 1934. Mutual was initially run as a cooperative in which the flagship stations owned the network, not the other way around as was the case with the other three radio networks. Programming In the period before and after the advent of the broadcast network, new forms of entertainment needed to be created to fill the time of a station's broadcast day. Many of the formats born in this era continued into the television and digital eras. In the beginning of the Golden Age, network programs were almost exclusively broadcast live, as the national networks prohibited the airing of recorded programs until the late 1940s because of the inferior sound quality of phonograph discs, the only practical recording medium at that time. As a result, network prime-time shows would be performed twice, once for each coast. Rehearsal for the World War II radio show You Can't Do Business with Hitler with John Flynn and Virginia Moore. This series of programs, broadcast at least once weekly by more than 790 radio stations in the United States, was written and produced by the radio section of the Office of War Information (OWI). Live events Coverage of live events included musical concerts and play-by-play sports broadcasts. News The capability of the new medium to get information to people created the format of modern radio news: headlines, remote reporting, sidewalk interviews (such as Vox Pop), panel discussions, weather reports, and farm reports. The entry of radio into the realm of news triggered a feud between the radio and newspaper industries in the mid-1930s, eventually culminating in newspapers trumping up exaggerated [citation needed] reports of a mass hysteria from the (entirely fictional) radio presentation of The War of the Worlds, which had been presented as a faux newscast. Musical features The sponsored musical feature soon became one of the most popular program formats. Most early radio sponsorship came in the form of selling the naming rights to the program, as evidenced by such programs as The A&P Gypsies, Champion Spark Plug Hour, The Clicquot Club Eskimos, and King Biscuit Time; commercials, as they are known in the modern era, were still relatively uncommon and considered intrusive. During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes, and NBC's Monitor continued such remotes well into the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America. Singers such as Harriet Lee and Wendell Hall became popular fixtures on network radio beginning in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Local stations often had staff organists such as Jesse Crawford playing popular tunes. Classical music programs on the air included The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour. Texaco sponsored the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts; the broadcasts, now sponsored by the Toll Brothers, continue to this day around the world, and are one of the few examples of live classical music still broadcast on radio. One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been created especially for him. At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro. Popular songwriters such as George Gershwin were also featured on radio. (Gershwin, in addition to frequent appearances as a guest, had his own program in 1934.) The New York Philharmonic also had weekly concerts on radio. There was no dedicated classical music radio station like NPR at that time, so classical music programs had to share the network they were broadcast on with more popular ones, much as in the days of television before the creation of NET and PBS. Country music also enjoyed popularity. National Barn Dance, begun on Chicago's WLS in 1924, was picked up by NBC Radio in 1933. In 1925, WSM Barn Dance went on the air from Nashville. It was renamed the Grand Ole Opry in 1927 and NBC carried portions from 1944 to 1956. NBC also aired The Red Foley Show from 1951 to 1961, and ABC Radio carried Ozark Jubilee from 1953 to 1961. Comedy Radio attracted top comedy talents from vaudeville and Hollywood for many years: Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Bob Burns, Judy Canova, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Burns and Allen, Phil Harris, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Jean Shepherd, Red Skelton and Ed Wynn. Situational comedies also gained popularity, such as Amos 'n' Andy, Easy Aces, Ethel and Albert, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Goldbergs, The Great Gildersleeve, The Halls of Ivy (which featured screen star Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume), Meet Corliss Archer, Meet Millie, and Our Miss Brooks. Radio comedy ran the gamut from the small town humor of Lum and Abner, Herb Shriner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan. Gags galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You Top This?,[18] panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant, and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones, Stoopnagle and Budd, Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray. British comedy reached American shores in a major assault when NBC carried The Goon Show in the mid-1950s. Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-running The Aldrich Family (1939–1953) with the familiar catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!," followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!" Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It with You (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan. Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, The Gumps, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye the Sailor, Red Ryder, Reg'lar Fellers, Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler. Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from 1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941–1942 comedy based on cartoonist H. T. Webster's famed Caspar Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s. Conversely, some radio shows gave rise to spinoff comic strips, such as My Friend Irma starring Marie Wilson. Soap operas The first program generally considered to be a daytime serial drama by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams, which premiered on WGN on October 20, 1930. The first networked daytime serial is Clara, Lu, 'n Em, which started in a daytime time slot on February 15, 1932. As daytime serials became popular in the early 1930s, they became known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. On November 25, 1960, the last four daytime radio dramas—Young Dr. Malone, Right to Happiness, The Second Mrs. Burton and Ma Perkins, all broadcast on the CBS Radio Network—were brought to an end. Children's programming The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, The Cisco Kid, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Captain Midnight, and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Badges, rings, decoding devices and other radio premiums offered on these adventure shows were often allied with a sponsor's product, requiring the young listeners to mail in a boxtop from a breakfast cereal or other proof of purchase. Radio plays Radio plays were presented on such programs as 26 by Corwin, NBC Short Story, Arch Oboler's Plays, Quiet, Please, and CBS Radio Workshop. Orson Welles's The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse were considered by many critics to be the finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as Margaret Sullavan or Helen Hayes, in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as Liliom, Oliver Twist (a title now feared lost), A Tale of Two Cities, Lost Horizon, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was on Mercury Theatre that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, formatted to sound like a breaking news program. Theatre Guild on the Air presented adaptations of classical and Broadway plays. Their Shakespeare adaptations included a one-hour Macbeth starring Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson, and a 90-minute Hamlet, starring John Gielgud.[22] Recordings of many of these programs survive. During the 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in films, repeated their characterizations on radio on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which featured both original stories and episodes directly adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became the only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as "The Speckled Band". There were also many dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce. During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor John Barrymore starred in a radio program, Streamlined Shakespeare, which featured him in a series of one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as Twelfth Night (in which he played both Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch), and Macbeth. Lux Radio Theatre and The Screen Guild Theater presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. Suspense, Escape, The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum Mystery were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin, Carlton E. Morse, David Goodis, Archibald MacLeish, Arthur Miller, Arch Oboler, Wyllis Cooper, Rod Serling, Jay Bennett, and Irwin Shaw. Game shows Game shows saw their beginnings in radio. One of the first was Information Please in 1938, and one of the first major successes was Dr. I.Q. in 1939. Winner Take All, which premiered in 1946, was the first to use lockout devices and feature returning champions. A relative of the game show, which would be called the giveaway show in contemporary media, typically involved giving sponsored products to studio audience members, people randomly called by telephone, or both. An early example of this show was the 1939 show Pot o' Gold, but the breakout hit of this type was ABC's Stop the Music in 1948. Winning a prize generally required knowledge of what was being aired on the show at that moment, which led to criticism of the giveaway show as a form of "buying an audience". Giveaway shows were extremely popular through 1948 and 1949. They were often panned as low-brow, and an unsuccessful attempt was even made by the FCC to ban them (as an illegal lottery) in August 1949.[23] Broadcast production methods The RCA Type 44-BX microphone had two live faces and two dead ones. Thus actors could face each other and react. An actor could give the effect of leaving the room by simply moving their head toward the dead face of the microphone. The scripts were paper-clipped together. It has been disputed whether or not actors and actresses would drop finished pages to the carpeted floor after use. Radio stations Despite a general ban on use of recordings on broadcasts by radio networks through the late 1940s, "reference recordings" on phonograph disc were made of many programs as they were being broadcast, for review by the sponsor and for the network's own archival purposes. With the development of high-fidelity magnetic wire and tape recording in the years following World War II, the networks became more open to airing recorded programs and the prerecording of shows became more common. Local stations, however, had always been free to use recordings and sometimes made substantial use of pre-recorded syndicated programs distributed on pressed (as opposed to individually recorded) transcription discs. Recording was done using a cutting lathe and acetate discs. Programs were normally recorded at 331⁄3 rpm on 16 inch discs, the standard format used for such "electrical transcriptions" from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Sometimes, the groove was cut starting at the inside of the disc and running to the outside. This was useful when the program to be recorded was longer than 15 minutes so required more than one disc side. By recording the first side outside in, the second inside out, and so on, the sound quality at the disc change-over points would match and result in a more seamless playback. An inside start also had the advantage that the thread of material cut from the disc's surface, which had to be kept out of the path of the cutting stylus, was naturally thrown toward the centre of the disc so was automatically out of the way. When cutting an outside start disc, a brush could be used to keep it out of the way by sweeping it toward the middle of the disc. Well-equipped recording lathes used the vacuum from a water aspirator to pick it up as it was cut and deposit it in a water-filled bottle. In addition to convenience, this served a safety purpose, as the cellulose nitrate thread was highly flammable and a loose accumulation of it combusted violently if ignited. Most recordings of radio broadcasts were made at a radio network's studios, or at the facilities of a network-owned or affil
American conductor Marin Alsop was the first woman to lead major orchestras in the UK, South America and in the United States, becoming principal conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007. Nominated for Grammy Awards five times, in 2013 she became the first ever woman to lead the Last Night Of The Proms, and is now regarded as one of the greatest conductors in the world. She talks to John Wilson about her professional musician parents who nurtured her love of music and supported her career choice from the age of 9 when she first revealed she wanted to be a conductor. Marin also talks about Leonard Bernstein, the great American composer and conductor, who inspired her ambitions and later became a mentor to her. She also chooses Carl Jung's work The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, and explains how his theories have helped her in leading orchestras around the world.Producer: Edwina PitmanMusic and archive used: Serenade in C major for String Orchestra, Op. 48; Valse, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, New York City Ballet Orchestra, 1986 Irish Spring commercial: "Clean as a Whistle" 1980 Leonard Bernstein, Young People's Concerts: "What is Classical Music?", CBS Television, 24 January 1959 Omnibus: Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, BBC2, 10 May 1985 Archive of Leonard Bernstein and Marin Alsop at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, 1987 Leonard Bernstein, Young People's Concerts: "What Does Music Mean?", CBS Television, 18 January 1958 Archive of OrchKids concert, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 26 July, 2005 Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop Last Night of the Proms, BBC1, 7 September 2013 Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, "Resurrection", Gustav Mahler, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop
Zla Mavka is a non-violent all-female Ukrainian resistance group, fighting against Russian occupation. It spreads newsletters and shares experiences aiming to support others. Anita Rani is joined by the Guardian's chief culture writer, Charlotte Higgins, who has spoken to some of the members and Tetyana Filevska, the curator at the Ukrainian Institute to find out more.When bicycles were first invented in the 19th century, the main danger associated with them wasn't the design or lack of brakes. For women, it was in fact a health problem called “bicycle face”. Tamsin Johnson, PhD candidate and lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, tells Anita how doctors became concerned about this condition and the history of women cycling.In September 2024, multiple Israeli missiles hit an apartment building in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry said that 73 people were killed, the worst single attack in almost two decades. A BBC Eye investigation found that most many of those killed were innocent civilians, 23 of whom were women. Nawal Al-Maghafi has been investigating this attack and speaking to survivors. She joins Anita to share the story of Batoul. Writer, broadcaster and food critic Grace Dent has a book: Comfort Eating: What we eat when nobody's looking. It's inspired by her podcast of the same name, where she talks with a variety of celebrities to discover their secret snacks. Anita asked her about comfort foods.The finale of BBC1's mystery-cum-reality show that everyone is talking about, The Traitors, hits the small screen tonight. Anita discusses this year's themes - sisterhood and deceit with The Traitors superfan, the podcaster and author Vogue Williams and a former contestant from Season 2, Diane, also known as Ross' mum.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt
Matthew Bannister on Dame Joan Plowright, one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation who was married to Laurence Olivier. Dame Judi Dench pays tribute.Sir Jim Walker, who built up his family business from a small bakery in the North of Scotland to become a global food exporter. Barbara Clegg, the first woman to write a story for Dr Who.Denis Law – the Scottish born footballer who was part of Manchester United's “Holy Trinity” alongside Bobby Charlton and George Best. Producer: Ed PrendivilleArchive: Doctor Who : Season 20 : Enlightenment : Part 1, BBC1, 01.03.1983; Emergency Ward 10; 14.08.1959; THE DALES: BBC Radio, 27.10.1966; Jim Walker reflects on 125 years of Walker's Shortbread, Highlands News & Media, 2022; Nothing Like a Dame, BBC 2, 31.12.2021; In Touch : Dame Joan Plowright at Home, BBC Radio 4, 25.12.2018; Wogan, 10.12.1990; Private Passions : Sound Frontiers: Dame Joan Plowright, BBC Radio 3, 25.09.2016; Roots, BBC Radio 3, 29.02.1960; FOOTBALLERS LIVES, DENIS LAW, 21.03.2002; MORE THAN A GAME, BBC, 26.05.2001; MEMORY MATCHES: ENGLAND V SCOTLAND 1967; 15.04.1967; Sports Special, BBC,, 24.11.1979
Having worked as a BBC television journalist, and as political editor for the Observer newspaper, Robert Harris published his debut novel Fatherland in 1992. A counterfactual story set in the 1960s that imagines Nazi Germany had won the Second World War, the book was a global bestseller. Since then Robert Harris has written 15 novels, mainly historical fiction which ranges from the ancient Roman politics of Pompeii and his Cicero trilogy, to the Restoration era manhunt of Act Of Oblivion, and Papal thriller Conclave. His most recent novel Precipice is about the romantic relationship between prime minister Herbert Asquith young socialite Venetia Stanley during the First World War. Robert Harris tells John Wilson about how reading The Origins of the Second World War by the historian A. J. P. Taylor, as a teenager ignited his interest in looking at history from perspectives that challenge the accepted narratives. Later, reading both the fiction and non-fiction of George Orwell inspired him to attempt to make writing about politics into an art form, as Orwell had done in works including 1984.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Did Hitler Cause The War?, BBC1, 9 July 1961 The Hitler Diaries, Newsnight, BBC2, 8 July 1985 Reading from Fatherland, Robert Harris Reading from 1984, George Orwell, BBC Radio 4, 2 January 1984 Reading from The Ghost, Robert Harris
On this MadTech Podcast episode, ExchangeWire head of content John Still is joined by COO Lindsay Rowntree and Charlie Glyn, ad tech leader at Channel 4 Sales, to discuss the latest in ad tech. They look at Netflix's audience reach overtaking BBC1's for the first time, the popularity of Disney's streaming service's ad tier, and Meta's decision to terminate its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes.
Proposed GPU export restrictions target China, setting tiered licensing rules that could impact global AI chip distribution. Mastodon wants to transfer ownership, Sonos CEO's resigns, and Netflix overtakes BBC1 in the UK.Starring Tom Merritt and Jason Howell.Show note can be found here.
Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, a special guest, Magical Bones. We were introduced to Bones on our recent anniversary cruise to the A, B, and C Islands in the Southern Caribbean on Celebrity Ascent. Bones was a headliner that put on a show that was spellbinding, funny, and captivating as Bones broke into breakdancing! So, I enjoyed his performance but I was knocked off my feet as he shared his story of growing up Black in UK; getting into Bboying, and then into magic.Magical Bones is one of the most exciting talents to emerge from the Magic scene in recent years; he has been entertaining audiences globally for over a decade. Starting out his career as a professional hip-hop dancer, he was given the nickname ‘Bones' because of his hard-hitting dance style. An exceptionally skilled break-dancer and a gifted showman, Bones has worked with some of the biggest artists within the music industry such as Madonna, and Alicia Keys, and is the featured dancer in the music video of Mint Royals' No. 1 smash hit single, Singing In the Rain.Now focusing on his career as a magician, Bones' uniqueness resides in his ability to effectively fuse mind-blowing magic with street-dance culture, music & lifestyle. He is a one-off. 2020 saw Bones make the final of Britain's Got Talent with his audition logging over 10 million online views and the judges describing his act as the ‘best-presented magic act I've ever seen!' Among his other TV credits are the BAFTA awards (BBC1), Penn & Teller Fool Us (The CW), Around the World in 80 Tricks (Amazon), Pure Magic (BBC) and This Morning (ITV). In 2022 Bones was the 2nd placed winner for ITV's Christmas special The Ultimate Magician. On the live stage, Bones was selected as the headline magician for the hit West End magic show, IMPOSSIBLE, which played for two seasons at the Noel Coward Theatre before moving on to a hugely successful world tour in 2017. Bones' debut solo show Black Magic sold-out residencies at both London's Southbank Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and played to packed houses across UK. His second show Soulful Magic premiered at Fringe 2022 and went on to be a sell-out nationwide tour in the spring of 2023.Relying on ship wifi is slow, unsecure, sometimes not available & at foreign ports travelers don't want to pay their carriers' high fees. Save $ with GigSky! Get a data package usable on the ship & in ports. Link to GigSky: https://gigsky.pxf.io/nloxor. For a 10% discount use code: joyofcruisingSupport the showSupport thejoyofcruisingpodcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/2113608/supporters/newSupport Me https://www.buymeacoffee.com/drpaulthContact Me https://www.thejoyofcruising.net/contact-me.htmlBook Cruises https://bit.ly/TheJoyOfCruisingPodcast-BookACruiseUS Orders (coupon code joyofcruisingpodcast)The Joy of Cruising https://bit.ly/TheJoyOfCruisingCruising Interrupted https://bit.ly/CruisingInterruptedThe Joy of Cruising Again https://bit.ly/TheJoyOfCruisingAgainIntl Orders via Amazon
Joining us today is a critically acclaimed actress who has established herself as one of Britain's most versatile and enduring talents across decades of film, television, and stage: it's the brilliant Emilia Fox!In this episode, Emilia takes us through the highlights of her incredible career—from her breakout role as Georgiana Darcy in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice and her powerful performance in Roman Polanski's The Pianist to her 21-year tenure as Dr Nikki Alexander in Silent Witness, a role that has defined and enriched both her professional and personal life. Away from the spotlight, Emilia shares heartfelt insights into single motherhood, her approach to navigating life's challenges, and the courage she's drawn from her family motto, “To the brave, nothing is difficult.”Catch the brand new series of Silent Witness every Monday at 9pm on BBC1.For all the latest news, click here to follow us on Instagram!***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Matthew Bannister on Jean-Marie Le Pen, who built up the French right wing National Front Party before being ejected from it by his daughter.Catherine Brown, the food writer who championed traditional Scottish cuisine.Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes, the parliamentarian who fought for consumer rights.And the radio DJ Johnnie Walker, known for his passion for music and his rebellious attitude. Bob Harris pays tribute.Producer: Ed PrendevilleArchive: Birmingham Six Case Reopens, BBC News, 1990; Release of the Birmingham Six, BBC News, 1991; Hard Talk, BBC, 2000; BBC Radio 4, 1974; Anti-IRA Marches, BBC News, 1974; Sounds of the 70s with Bob Harris, BBC R2, 2024; Johnnie Walker, Radio Caroline, 1968; Johnnie Walker: Interview, BBC Radio 1 Vintage, 2017; Sounds of the 70s with Johnnie Walker, BBC R2, 2024; Offshore Radio RSL and Johnnie Walker interview, Sky News, 1992; Sounds of the 70s with Johnnie Walker - Walker & Walker: Johnnie & Tiggy, BBC R2, 2024; Johnnie Walker Show, Radio Caroline, 14/08/1967; Walker on Walker, BBC R2, 2025; Johnnie Walker on KSAN, 1976; Johnnie Walker Documentary on Pirate Stations; Radio Cafe, BBC Radio Scotland, 2009; Kitchen Cafe, BBC Radio Scotland, 2009; Catherine Brown, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2017; BBC World at One,1981; House of Lords, 2017; BBC West, 1974: Tomorrow's World, BBC1, 1976; BBC News, 1989
Visuals: https://getbehindthebillboard.com/episode-83-aidan-mcclureEpisode #83 features the super-charming, super-talented Aidan McClure, CCO and co-founder of Wonderhood Studios.We caught up with Aidan just before Christmas and had a great natter.We heard the story of how he got onto the Watford Copywriting course by pretending to be the Queen.We discovered how Aidan (and partner Laurent Simon) got their first job after winning the Diageo Best Student Team in the UK doing placements at Mother, BBH and JWT before settling at AMV. Not a bad start.We even talked about Aidan's musical side hustle, playing the violin nearly as well as Stefan Grappelli.And of course there were many brilliant billboards, starting with some classics for The Economist and VW before the incredible BBC Russia World Cup tapestry … still hanging in the Football Museum in Manchester today.We found out how Aidan worked with our Dan on the ground-breaking Google Front Row campaign that featured the world's first live stream to pitch side hoardings.Then there was Nike ‘The 93', The Migration Museum and the changing of the signage of Coral's betting shops during the last Euro's.Every piece of work has a story, a vibe that makes it feel more than advertising. It's a theme throughout Aidan's award-winning career which includes ‘The Bear and Hare' campaign for John Lewis, which won a Cannes Gold and BBC1's Christmas campaign ‘The Supporting Act' that was one of the Beeb's most successful commercials ever.Aidan thank you so much for coming on and bringing your warmth and creativity to us in abundance! It was a total pleasure.
The Smart 7 is an award winning daily podcast that gives you everything you need to know in 7 minutes, at 7am, 7 days a week…With over 17 million downloads and consistently charting, including as No. 1 News Podcast on Spotify, we're a trusted source for people every day and we've won Gold at the Signal International Podcast awardsIf you're enjoying it, please follow, share, or even post a review, it all helps... Today's episode includes the following:https://x.com/i/status/1874437775941869808 https://x.com/i/status/1874607834232766891 https://x.com/i/status/1874352040371249345 https://x.com/i/status/1874391139651875180 https://x.com/i/status/1874362839520960922 https://x.com/i/status/1874379106806346172 https://x.com/i/status/1874547007135584642 https://x.com/i/status/1874567746132005134 https://x.com/i/status/1874419549724107177 https://youtu.be/4xwkP9HNzA4Contact us over @TheSmart7pod or visit www.thesmart7.comVoiced by Jamie East, using AI, written by Liam Thompson, researched by Lucie Lewis and produced by Daft Doris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The original run of A Ghost Story for Christmas aired on the BBC from 1971 to 1978, bringing classic ghost stories to television and keeping alive the tradition of sharing supernatural tales during the Christmas season. In our journey through the series, we've covered A Warning to the Curious and The Signalman in Episode 21, Whistle and I'll Come to You and Stigma in Episode 32, and The Stalls of Barchester alongside The Treasure of Abbot Thomas in Episodes 41a and 41b. Just five days ago, on Christmas Eve, we delved into The Ash Tree. If you missed it, you can find it in our podcast feed. And tonight, as we stand on the brink of the space year 2025, we're excited to bring you Lost Hearts. Written by Robin Chapman, produced by Rosemary Hill, and directed by the series' creator Lawrence Gordon Clark, Lost Hearts is based on the 1895 ghost story of the same name by M.R. James. It first aired on BBC1 on December 25, 1973, marking the first installment in the series to be broadcast on Christmas Day itself—and one of only three to ever air on that date. Robin Chapman also wrote 30 episodes of Tales of the Unexpected. (Seek out episode 29, where good old Bernard Cribbins makes an appearance.) The film features Joseph O'Conor as Mr. Abney. O'Conor lent his voice to the narrator in (the best Muppet movie) The Dark Crystal, played Mr. Brownlow in Oliver! (cue James mentioning the exclamation point here), and portrayed the Coroner in The Gorgon—but more on that soon. Simon Gipps-Kent plays Stephen, the young protagonist. Tragically, Gipps-Kent passed away at just 28 years old. However, in his brief career, he appeared in several notable films and TV shows of interest to our listener. He played Paul in The Tomorrow People, had a brief role in Quadrophenia, portrayed Seth in the Doctor Who serial The Horns of Nimon, and starred in something called A Traveller in Time from 1978. which was filmed at Babington House, a farmhouse owned by the parents of Blue Peter presenter Simon Groom. In 2018, Severn Film Productions released a new adaptation of Lost Hearts, directed by Max Van De Banks. This version updated the story to the 1940s (and later 1953). After the death of Stephen's parents, the young boy is evacuated to the countryside during World War II. Unusually, this production was filmed in two parts: the main elements were shot in 2005, while the beginning and ending scenes were filmed in 2016. Louis Newton, who played Stephen in 2005, returned to portray him as a young man recounting the events to his bride-to-be ten years later. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oh, what's occurring? We've only got Ruth Jones & James Corden - aka Smithy & Nessa - joining us for dinner! The creators and stars of hit and beloved comedy, Gavin & Stacey popped round to tell us all the exclusives about the upcoming Christmas special and final ever episode. After binging the entire 3 series in a week, I have a lot of questions. We found out that James & Ruth secretly started writing the episode years ago, Ruth loves going on a literary cruise, how they boiled eggs in kettles when travelling, that Ruth surprised James at his 40th birthday in Mexico, how Ruth was hypnotised to hate chocolate, that James is loving living back in London, and you really, really don't want to miss Nessa & Smithy giving us their ‘last supper'! We are so excited to see what our favourite residents of Barry Island and Billericay have been up to for the last 5 years. The Gavin & Stacey finale will be on BBC1 at 9pm on Christmas Day - oh, don't miss it! X Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This week we have a look at the 1976 short ghost film The Signalman directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. This is Episode #449! The Signalman is a short film which is part of the British supernatural anthology series A Ghost Story for Christmas. Written by Andrew Davies, produced by Rosemary Hill, and directed by the series' creator, Lawrence Gordon Clark, it is based on the ghost story "The Signal-Man" (1866) by Charles Dickens, and first aired on BBC1 on 22 December 1976, the earliest airdate in the series relative to Christmas.It stars Denholm Elliott as a lone signalman who is visited by a traveller (Bernard Lloyd). The signalman reveals that he is being haunted by a spectre which has appeared at the entrance of the tunnel next to his signal box, and these visions begin to likewise trouble the traveller in his sleep.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/castle-of-horror-podcast--4268760/support.
In an unexpected turn of events, Pilot TV's set visit to the new third (and fourth) season of Apple TV+'s Silo resulted in a sit down interview with both Rebecca Ferguson and the big Apple himself, Tim Cook (27:24). Never one to miss a chance to wax lyrical about Foundation, James cornered the Apple CEO to discuss the streamer's penchant for brilliant nerdy sci-fi. Elsewhere, we review BBC1's latest Strike instalment, The Ink Black Heart (1:19:03), and speak to star Holliday Grainger while we're at it (1:00:45), plus we catch up with Kaley Cuoco's serial killer podcast in the second season of Based On A True Story on Sky (1:31:19). Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 12 hours early, with a second weekly show, and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+ at empire.supportingcast.fm.
It's absolute anarchy this week as we manage to begin the podcast first with a debate about proper podcast nomenclature and then with Kay and Boyd fighting over what does and does not constitute and illegal review. But bear with us and we promise the podcast proper does start eventually. And a good thing too, because Aldis Hodge and Ben Watkins join us to talk Cross (22:16) — though not to get cross — and Rebecca Hall drops by to talk The Listeners (49:12). Elsewhere, we give BBC1's The Listeners the full review treatment (1:06:36), plus spice things up with Dune: Prophecy on Sky Atlantic (1:15:48) and discover whether Michael Schur and Ted Danson's new comedy, A Man On the Inside (1:31:22), can hold a candle to The Good Place. Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 12 hours early, with a second weekly show, and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+ at empire.supportingcast.fm.
In new BBC drama series The Listeners*, a woman starts hearing a noise that seemingly no-one else can hear. Which was catnip to Hannah, who got on Zoom with its director, Janicza Bravo, and star, Rebecca Hall, to find out more. * The Listeners starts on BBC1 on November 19 and is also available to watch on the iPlayer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eighties bonkbuster Rivals arrives on Disney+ this week and our very own Kay Ribeiro gets under the covers with star Aidan Turner to talk all about it. Plus, Lennie James takes on a decades-spanning role in Mr Loverman on BBC1, as a septuagenarian finally coming out of the closet, and Boydy got to chat with Lennie all about that. We also take a look at series 2 of The Devil's Hour on Prime, which proves a delightful surprise to James and manages to utterly destroy Kay. Listen and find out why.
Jaega Wise travels the country to meet the three finalists in the Drinks Producer category in this year's BBC Food and Farming Awards. Her journey takes her to Belfast and the Bullhouse Brewery which began life in a farm shed. Now thriving in an industrial estate, head brewer Will Mayne talks about his frustrations with the current alcohol licensing system in Northern Ireland which he says made it hard for him to open a pub and sell his beer. The controversial "Surrender Principle" means there's a cap on the number of issued pub licences which can be sold for one hundred thousand pounds each. Jaega also hears from Colin Neill - the chief executive of the trade body Hospitality Ulster - who believes the current system keeps standards high in pubs and does work for publicans.Then it's on to East Sussex and the producers of a fermented milk drink nicknamed "the champagne of dairy". Ki-Kefir was co-founded by Sam Murphy who started off making kefir in her London kitchen. It proved so popular with friends and family that she linked up with a dairy farm when she moved to the countryside to expand her production. She shows Jaega how kefir is made and discusses its potential health benefits.Lastly, Jaega travels to Scotland to see the country's oldest working distillery. The Glenturret Distillery in Crieff has been producing whisky since 1763, with a short break during the years of Prohibition. Distillery manager Ian Renwick hosts a tour and uncorks some 15-year old whisky in the tasting room.Jaega also mulls over the shortlisted three with the drinks journalist Olly Smith in a whisky bar in London. Presented by Jaega Wise Produced by Sam Grist and Robin Markwell Archive Clip from Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 from 14th Sept, produced by Cactus TV.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
