Wee Sonny MacGregor

The full cast was as follows:

Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring
John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson
Clive Dunn as Lance Corporal Jones
Arnold Ridley as Private Godfrey
Ian Lavender as Private Pike
John Bardon as Private Walker
Hamish Roughead as Private Frazer
Bill Pertwee as ARP Warden Hodges
Frank Williams as The Vicar
Edward Sinclair as The Verger
Joan Cooper as Miss Godfrey
Pamela Cundell as Mrs Fox
Janet Davies as Mrs Pike
Jeffrey Holland as the Mad German Inventor


I saw this show at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London and it was pretty good. A highlight was John Le Mesurier rendition of A nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

pabroon

this still remains one of my all time favourite sit coms.the times i have argued with my son as he thinks anything prior to 1990 was rubbish.
i must admit though i have got him to watch steptoe which he does like.

it was the faces of arthur lowe & the expressions of john le mesuire,that always made me laugh & just the stupid situations they got into because captain mainwaring was just so pompous.and here is to the catchphases

WERE DOOMED!!!

STUPID BOY

PERMISSION TO SPEAK SIR

PUT THAT LIGHT OUT!

RUDDY HOOLIGANS

LETS JUST HOPE THAT THE BBC ONE DAY GET AROUND TO MAKING SITUATION COMEDY LIKE THIS AGAIN,WE ALL LIVE IN HOPE !!!!!

homeguard

It'll never happen. If you look at the situations these comedies are based on, they are only funny if they can be related to something in our experience. We have the ability to laugh at their antics because we have met at least a couple of the characters in our lifetime, and they are beautifully parodied by Perry and Croft and the cast. When was the last time any of us met a bank manager, desperate to serve his community and with the integrity of Captain Mainwaring. There was a time, circa Dad's Army, when he really was the most respected and often the most powerful man in town. Now his position is held by a fifteen year-old, Game Boy specialist who runs people's financial affairs via a computer model. I suppose this makes Hollyoaks the nearest modern equivalent. The Spiv, the dodgy Grocer, the Stupid Boy - all gone. They now call it Tesco.
Regards,
HG

Automotivehistorian

My late father-in-law was Bank Manager at Barclays in a small town for 18 years. Everyone knew him! Interestingly, he joined the RAFVR at age 19 and wanted to be a pilot, whilst a bank clerk like Pikey, having joined at 19. He was told ro hang on for a time as they had too many applicants and not enough training spaces in Canada and southern Africa, so he joined the Home Guard. He was given a motorbike donated by a garage to the local HG, and borrowed a .22 rifle which he used to shoot rabbits with on what is now a golf course, but then grassy fields by the sea! He also used to shoot young rooks for the pot...rook breast made a lovely pie! I gather that the 'Mainwaring' type of Manager was only too true, and subsisted for many years after the war. In fact until the late Seventies and early Eighties there were many senior bank men who had seen service in the war, and suffered from injuries that came back to haunt them before retirement (60 compulsory).

Interestingly DA touched on infedility in the war. In practice it seems that illegitimate births, adultery, and divorce were 'accepted' for a time...usual moral attitudes were put on hold until around 1947. The High Court Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division were so overwhelmed with marriage dissolution work from around 1943 that they moved into timber-framed 'tudor-style' buildings in the grounds of the Royal Courts of Justice. The buildings were still there and being used for some purposes until the mid-1970s I recall! After about 1947, morals went back to pre-war attitudes. By then there had been the immediate post-war 'reckoning' between couples returning from the war or as a result of a husband returning, the dearth of children being put up for adoption was on the wane, and the UK was on hard times.