Reporting For Duty

- Caren Clark

More than 50 years after audiences first met the hapless Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard in Dad’s Army, some of the most memorable catchphrases and characters in British comedy are brought back to life this week in a recreation of three missing episodes on Gold.

Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes sees a new cast – led by Kevin McNally as the pompous Captain Mainwaring, Robert Bathurst as effete Sergeant Wilson and Kevin Eldon as over-eager Lance Corporal Jones – using original scripts to recreate three 1969 instalments of the much-loved World War Two sitcom, because the recordings have since vanished from the BBC archives.

‘You can’t see the originals so we’re giving our loving recreation. We’re going for an essence, not a slavish imitation,’ McNally says. ‘There were nerves. But we are not treading on the A-team’s performances; we’re understudies. The set is a beautiful recreation of the original. Everyone was in tears when we first saw it.’