50 Moments That Made Dad’s Army: #2 Mainwaring’s Hat

Mainwaring’s Hat

Although Dad’s Army is often said to be an ensemble comedy the truth is it is really Captain Mainwaring’s show – the whole thing pivots around the redoubtable captain and his (often difficult) relationships with the other characters.

The genius of Jimmy Perry’s casting of Arthur Lowe was that, while he’s often thought to be typecast as the pompous bank manager, Lowe was actually a brilliant and versatile comic actor. Watch this clip closely and you will see that he actually becomes red in the face when he sees what has happened to his new hat. As the series progresses, scenes like this, in which Pike’s naive stupidity and Mainwaring’s short temper clash, became more and more common.

This moment comes from the feature length Special episode the Battle of the Giants, first screened on 27 December 1971. It begins with Corporal Jones putting the platoon through bayonet practice in the hall – and we just know that disaster can’t be far away.

 

50 Moments that made Dad’s Army is a series of blog posts each focusing on one moment that helped define the popular comedy series. There will be one post for each of the 50 days leading-up to the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast of the first episode of the series on 31st July 1968. 50 Moments that Made Dad’s Army is brought to you by walmington-on-line.co.uk and copyright of all video clips belongs to the BBC.

 

 

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