You not-so-stupid boy! Trademark Dad’s Army catchphrases were missing from original scripts and were added in by actors, team behind the remake of the classic sitcom reveals
The catchphrases ‘we’re doomed’ and ‘you stupid boy’ have earned a special place in TV history.
But stars of three new recreated Dad’s Army episodes had to add them in – because they weren’t in the original scripts from the late 1960s.
Three episodes of the sitcom shown in 1969 were wiped by the BBC shortly after they were screened. UKTV channel Gold has remade them with Kevin McNally, Robert Bathurst and Timothy West in lead roles.
Left tor right: Kevin R McNally as Captain Mainwaring , Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson , Kevin Eldon as Lance Corporal Jones , David Hayman as Private Frazer , Timothy West as Private Godfrey , Tom Rosenthal as Pike and Mathew Horne as Private Walker
But rather than sticking to every word of writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s screenplays – the new cast slotted in some trademark lines.
David Hayman, who plays glowering coffin maker Private Frazer, made famous by John Laurie, said: ‘It’s really interesting that two of the iconic phrases “you stupid boy” coming from Captain Mainwaring and “we’re all doomed” weren’t in the three scripts that we shot but we added them in during the mishaps that go wrong during the recording.
Ian Lavender as Private Pike in the original
‘So we threw them in and got wonderful responses to them,’ he told the Radio Times BFI Festival yesterday.
‘I think the whole series is wonderfully, delightfully, deliciously over the top. But Frazer is the most over-the-top character of them all, he is demonic.’
The episodes – The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker, A Stripe for Frazer and Under Fire – were seen by an average audience of 12.2million in 1969, an improvement on its 1968 debut.
Cold Feet’s Robert Bathurst plays Sergeant Wilson, Pirates of the Caribbean actor Kevin McNally is Capt Mainwaring (pictured) and veteran stage and TV star Timothy West recreates bumbling first aider Godfrey.
Bathurst, 62, who replaces John Le Mesurier as Arthur Wilson, said when making the programme they were conscious of not mimicking the original shows too much.
‘You didn’t want it to be a museum piece’, he said.
‘We had to be faithful and attentive to the show but still let it breathe somehow. Still make you think that these two people are actually talking to each other.’
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