This was a time when to their eyes the country had stood united and alone with little else to defend itself beyond Winston Churchill’s blood, sweat and tears.ĭad’s Army was but one of a wave of now forgotten but incredibly popular television wartime dramas and comedies produced during this period of apparent national crisis, fictions written by men who had experienced the conflict while in their 20s. As odd as it sounds, they looked longingly back to World War II. A faltering economy, an uppity working class, black immigration and an imperial retreat from East of Suez was too much for those Britons who believed the nation had gone to the dogs. This was an event that provoked the Establishment to consider overthrowing the Labour government. The first episode was broadcast in April 1968, just months after sterling had been devalued. That a comedy about Britain’s wartime Home Guard, a series regarded as old fashioned even when it first appeared in 1968, should still be held in such high and widespread regard is remarkable, especially as the series owed so much to the times in which it was produced. Nearly four decades after the last episode was broadcast, when BBC2 shows Dad’s Army according to the Broadcasters Audience Research Board it still attracts about 1.5 million viewers, more than The Thick of It ever did. The motive for those responsible for producing the movie is clear: to cash in on popular affection for a comedy series that ended in 1977 but is constantly replayed, meaning it has probably been watched by almost every living Briton. The heart sinks more rapidly than the Titanic. ![]() But this promise dissolves rapidly once you consider that those behind the camera are responsible for work as bereft of humour as St Trinians and Mr Bean’s Holiday. Its cast features some of Britain’s finest acting talent – and Catherine Zeta-Jones. In a production office far, far away someone has decided to turn the 1970s BBC sitcom Dad’s Army into a film.
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