THE “shower” of Hut 29 will fall in on parade again on Tuesday, when Granada’s The Army Game returns. But with a difference that is not really a difference. It comes back with two of the favourites from the early days — William Hartnell as Company-Sgt-Major Bullimore, and Geoffrey Sumner as Major Upshot-Bagley.

Geoffrey Sumner’s return also means the return of Major Upshot-Bagley’s pigs. Harry Fowler continues as “Flogger” Hoskins, Ted Lune soldiers on as Pte Bone, and Mario Fabrizi as Merryweather. But Alfie Bass has left the Army and Dick Emery replaces him.

“Wait until I get my hands on that ‘shower’!” exclaimed Bill Hartnell, who takes over from Bill Fraser. Fraser, with Alfie Bass, begins a civvy street series. “They’ve been getting off too lightly. More discipline, that’s what they need. Things are going to change when I get back!” He was obviously pleased to be returning to the show. “But when it was suggested, my first reaction was that it wouldn’t be a good idea,” he admitted. “It just wouldn’t be the same unless I was teamed with Geoffrey Sumner again.

“But Peter Eton, the producer, told me that he was negotiating with Geoffrey Sumner, which sounded too good to be true. The only reason for Sumner leaving the cast was that he couldn’t cope with a weekly programme.

“So I didn’t really expect he would be able to do it this time. But he said he could fit it in as the programme was on Tuesdays. I was delighted, and that’s why I am back. There’d have been no sense in trying to do it with anyone else. Geoffrey and I originated the roles, built them up and understood one another.

“We can work together. Our timing fits. I can’t stand changes, anyway. I suppose it’s because I have an organised brain. I’m a disciplinarian to myself.”

Geoffrey Sumner explained: “There will be no change in our characters, but we are not going to attempt to carry on exactly where we left off. We are allowing for the fact that there has been a gap of three years. The impression we hope to give is that Bullimore and I have been together somewhere else, and now we’ve come across a new ‘shower,’ heaven help ’em!

“The pigs? Of course. Upshot-Bagley wouldn’t go anywhere without his pigs.”

In fact, Geoffrey Sumner, who lives on a 15-acre farm in Surrey, is a pig-keeper and pig-lover. At various periods he has had herds of 150 or more, and there is never a time when his farm is without them.

“So it isn’t a gag in The Army Game,” he assured me. “I like pigs. People make fun of them, but they are the most intelligent of all farm animals. They are also the cleanest.

“But the trouble with pigs is that they regard themselves as your equal and won’t be bossed. That’s why you never see them in The Army Game.

“We tried it at the beginning of the series when we had a real Rosie in the studios. It was disastrous. She took complete charge of the proceedings, refused to stand still, ignored the camera — except to try to eat the pedestal — and generally ran riot.

“Fortunately, we introduced Rosie when we were doing a ‘dry run,’ so, by the time we got to transmission. Rosie was heard but not seen ”

Alas, the pig on which Rosie was based — she was one of Geoffrey Sumner’s herd, of course — is dead. But one of her progeny won first prize last year in the National Farmers’ Union field contest.

Geoffrey Sumner was in the Army during the war years and reached the rank of colonel. Did he have a Sergeant-Major like Bullimore?

“Fortunately not,” he said with a chuckle, and introduced me to his personal assistant, a tall, brown-haired, green-eyed girl named Peggy Warrington. “She was my real Army admin sergeant,” he said.

“I chose her because I was fascinated by the way she wore her cap. It was perched right on the top of her head. Made her look positively Edwardian. An excellent admin sergeant she turned out to be, too.”

Soon after the war, when he was looking for a personal assistant, Geoffrey Sumner sought out Peggy Warrington. She has been with him since.

The most important newcomer to the cast, Dick Emery, is not exactly a stranger to the “shower ” He has been in previous Army Game productions, playing various parts.

Bill Hartnell summed up: “I think we’re going to be a happy family. We’ll certainly have a jolly good go at it.”

The post Storms ahead for the ‘shower’ of Hut 29 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

When Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser, stars of Bootsie and Snudge, are invited out for the evening, there is always the question — do they go as Bass and Fraser or Bootsie and Snudge? But when an invitation to the principal inhabitants of television’s Imperial Club came from a real-life Imperial Club, there was no doubt about it — the night out was for Bootsie and Snudge. And it went something like this …

THE major-domo of the Imperial Club, resplendent in his uniform, was looking through the post piled on the reception desk. “‘Ullo, ‘ullo, what’s this then?” exclaimed Snudge. “A letter addressed to not nobody else but me.” Then he added, with a look of deep disgust at his assistant in the corner: “And that one over there.”

As Bootsie came up, Snudge tore the envelope open. Inside was a piece of notepaper headed “The Imperial Club.”

“And what for would the Imperial Club be of writing to us ‘ere in this Imperial Club?” he asked, aggressively.

“Look,” said Bootsie, peering under his shoulder “It’s got a different address. It’s another Imperial Club, in South London.”

And, taking the piece of paper from Snudge’s hands, he read slowly: “As your club has the same name as our club, we are inviting you both to be our guests.”

Snudge fixed his beady eye on Bootsie and inquired in his most indignant tones: “And ‘ow do you think your name ‘appened to get writ on to this smart piece of hembossed stationery?”

Cried Bootsie: “I’m as good as you.”

“Not,” declared the major-domo firmly, “when it’s an hinvitation to a swurry.”

On the journey, there was a mood of ill-suppressed excitement about the pair. “I’ve got no doubt,” confided Snudge in a hoarse whisper, “but what there’ll be a lot of financiers and company directors at this ’ere club we’re going to.”

“Yes,” burst in Bootsie, “and famous surgeons with lovely hands and all that.”

Walking down Kennington-lane, however. the mood began to change. “You know,” remarked Snudge. “this is a strange district for the hoi polloi.”

However, they reached the club building. and were quickly greeted by Jim Pringle, the steward. “Tell me,” said Snudge, looking round the clubroom with an air of gracious authority, “which one is Charles Clore? I know ’im. of course, but is face ’as slipped me memory.” Jim looked puzzled. Meanwhile Bootsie was glancing round anxiously. “I bet that one’s a surgeon,” he announced, pointing to a man in the corner. “Look at the way he’s holding his beer in his lovely long fingers.”

“I think,” the steward interposed, “you must be under some misapprehension. Do you know what this club is?”

“Why,” cried Snudge, an anxious tone creeping in, “it’s one of the famous abodes of the hupper crust, isn’t it not?” “No,” Jim replied, roaring with laughter. ‘This is the club for the NAAFI workers in London.”

Snudge was a sight to be seen. Drawing himself up to his full height he exploded: “Even when I was in the Army I didn’t not go near the NAAFI.”

Bootsie took the blow more calmly “Well, never mind, eh?” he remarked. And moving over to the bar he added: “If you don’t have any surgeons, have you got any winkles or shrimps? Or…” and here his eyes lit up, “any jelly babies?”

“I’m afraid not,” chuckled Jim. “Would girls do instead? This is a mixed club.”

Snudge began to mellow. “Now you come to mention it,” he recalled, “I do remember a NAAFI girl what used to be at No 3 Disposal Camp…”

Someone put a disc on the record player and a tall blonde approached Bootsie. “Well, all right,” he said, “but if I have a dance wiv you, mind me feet.” And he limped on to the floor.

Snudge twirled his moustache. “Yes, my dear.” he said in reply to a question from a tiny brunette. “I was the pride of the sergeants’ mess at Poona. When it came to glide round the old floor there wasn’t no one who couldn’t touch me, not nohow.”

As his partner rocked her way through the number, however, doubt began to flit through his mind. “Are you quite sure,” he demanded, “that this is the Lancers?”

In search of a little rest after the strain of the dance, Bootsie and Snudge joined a whist party in an adjoining room.

But the peace and quiet was short-lived. Snudge’s beady eyes swivelled too firmly in the direction of Bootsie’s cards. “’Ere,” exclaimed Bootsie indignantly. “No lookin’ – and no splashin’.”

Snudge refused to be put out. “Haven’t you got the double six?” he asked blandly.

As he played his next card a cry came from Bootsie: “You’ve revoked!”

Flashing a look of reproach. Snudge rejoined: “If you hadn’t spoken, nobody wouldn’t never not know I’d revoked.”

They were at the snooker table when Steward Pringle approached them once “We were wondering,” he asked diffidently, “if you would both be so good as to give us the benefit of your professional experience?”

Snudge smirked. “Well,” he said con condescendingly, “when it comes to knowing about serving delicacies to the hot polloi, I’m your man. Camel curry, with goat’s brains on the side-plate, Mafeking pudding… no, not that,” he added hurriedly.

“And,” put in Bootsie, “I know all about the delicate jobs. All the ones that need fine handling and cartful fingers. Beds, for example … sleeping on ‘em and that.”

“Actually,” replied Jim, “we were thinking more of such things as washing up and cleaning the place out.”

As the last member of the NAAFI Imperial Club slipped away, Bootsie was busy on a sink-full of dirty crocks.

Snudge, who had confined himself to expert advice on how much washing-up liquid to put in the water, looked at his watch.

“Well,” he said to Bootsie, “I’ll be leavin’ you now.”

Pulling his NAAFI overall closer around him, Bootsie plunged his hands into the suds with an air of hatred. “You rotten droopy drawers,” he hissed at the spruce figure rapidly vanishing through the doorway.

The post Night out for Bootsie and Snudge appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A new Granada comedy series Bootsie and Snudge begins next Friday. It features those two characters from The Army Game — Sergeant-Major Claude Snudge, played by Bill Fraser, and Bootsie, played by Alfie Bass. But they have left the Army. TV TIMES writers Frank Duesbury and Charles Bayne met them in Civvy-street

WE were strolling down King’s-road in London’s Chelsea when we noted something odd. Not the sort of normal odd thing you would expect to see about Chelsea, which is famous for its oddities.

It was the sight of Sergeant-Major Claude Snudge and his old enemy Bootsie in civvies.

Snudge was leading by about 20 yards, his beady eyes squinting in one of those rare bursts of late summer sunshine. He was immaculate in a business suit, white shirt, nattily knotted tie, and a well-brushed Homburg.

Bootsie was trailing behind, scowling. He was clad in a sweater, trousers and his best plimsolls, which have fewer holes in them than his second-best pair.

“Mr Snudge,” we ventured, “why are you not in uniform?”

“Are you addressing me, sirs?” he snapped, his thumbs, we noted, stiffly pointing down the seams of his immaculate pin-stripe trousers.

We said we were, and perhaps he would like to come and have a drink. And Bootsie, too. “Not wiv him, never,” said Bootsie, who had drawn up beside us.

“I will have a drink with you gentlemen in the saloon bar of this ’ere public house,” said Snudge.

“And I’ll be in the private bar,” said Bootsie testily, hobbling away.

We asked Snudge what he would like to drink. “Bearing in mind me new life I think I’d like a gin and mixed,” he said with an evil smile, “because I’m going to be mixing it.”

He smoothed his waistcoat, deftly snapped a cherry stick between his thumb and forefinger and said: “I am going to be a company director, but I have not decided which company shall have the benefit of my experience. I am in considerable demand.”

We said his experience with the men of Hut 29 in The Army Game should help.

“Help,” spluttered Snudge. “It is invaluable. If there was any of them takeover bids knocking around, Snudge would know. Anything dodgy going off and Snudge would sort that little lot out. Not no how they won’t make a ‘nana’ out of me.

“Then there’s me upbringing, me stature. There’s them that’s got it and them that ain’t. Like speaking proper.” Snudge paused to sip his drink. “I shall have a car, chauffeur-driven of course, two secretaries, and occasional trips abroad,” he said. “No more of that Bootsie and his pals for Snudge. I am now going to live the life of a gentleman, manipulatin’ millions of pounds, thousands of men, machines, exports, imports.

“Power is what I’m trained to, and power is what I am going to be. If I can handle Hut 29 I can handle anything.”

We left Snudge planning his company reports to join Bootsie in the private bar. He was sitting on one stool with his aching feet resting on the rung of another.

“Am I glad to see the back of him,” said Bootsie, nodding towards Snudge several yards away. “It’s worth being in the Army just to be able to say goodbye – to horrors like Snudge.”

Well, we said, what are you going to do, Bootsie? “Me,” he cried, his face lighting up. “I’m just going to do good for everyone. I’m going to be a politician.”

We said we would have a drink while he explained. “Yes,” said Bootsie. “I’ve seen so much unhappiness in the world brought about by that rotten old Snudge that all I want to do is make people happy. Especially them with bad feet.”

He looked serious and went on: “When you have suffered as much as I have, with feet and Snudge, and all the time spent in the medical room of any Army camp, you get to understand the needs of people.

“That is why I have such compassion. I feel for the underdog. I’ll fight his case, because there are Snudges throughout the land.

“I can see myself now, making my maiden speech in the Commons. The deathly hush as the Members listen to my argument, one that would make Flogger Hoskins proud to call me his mate.

“‘Oh, Bootsie, Bootsie!’ they’ll shout when I sit down. I can see it all now … the newspaper headlines … the interviews … my Private Member’s Bill for free plimsolls for bad feet sufferers … Can’t you see it all, eh?”

We said we could. More or less.

Bootsie wriggled on his stool and muttered: “But I never want to do anything for Snudge. Except to make him unhappy. If I ever meet him again in Civvy-street, I’ll have him. I’ll have him.”

How, we ventured, was Bootsie going to get elected to Parliament? He gave us a conspiratorial wink. “It’s being fixed,” he said. “I’m already at the top of the top ten at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park. The crowds love me. I just can’t help being popular.”

With that, he finished his drink, slipped from his seat and limped through the door into the bustling street. Ahead of him was Snudge, still 20 yards away …

They were heading for the Labour Exchange. A company director, a Member of Parliament? That is what they said. We shall have to wait and see.

The post Bootsie and Snudge in Civvy-street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE moment Harry Fowler takes off the uniform he wears as Cpl “Flogger” Hoskins, The Army Game‘s organising genius, he becomes a real-life organiser of practical jokes.

Says Harry: “I find people I meet go through life so seriously — except for the boys in the show. Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner (he is a Cockney from Lambeth), but I can’t resist playing jokes.”

Tommy Steele has helped in some of Harry’s jokes. Last year they shared a flat for three months. “We borrowed a car without an engine from a car-dealer friend,” said Harry. “We got a push down hill, steered it into a garage and ordered two gallons of petrol. When I pulled the starter nothing happened, of course, so asked the man to look under the bonnet, while Tommy and I went to the office to pay.

“When we returned, the mechanic was gaping under the empty bonnet. ‘What have you done with our engine?’ I asked. ‘He’s stolen it,’ said Tommy. We spent several minutes insisting it was there when we drove in, and threatened to send for the police if it wasn’t put back!

“Finally we admitted it was a joke, but chap never fathomed how we got the car into the garage.”

American film actor Keefe Brasselle, who starred in The Eddie Cantor Story, was another butt for Fowler’s fun.

Said Harry: “We were filming at Walton Studios, where The Adventures of Robin Hood series was made. Our dressing-room accommodation wasn’t so hot, and Keefe compared his room to the one he had in Hollywood.

“That gave me an idea. The Robin Hood unit was on holiday. I got one of the boys to take Richard Greene’s name off his dressing-room door and replace it with Harry Fowler.

“I went to Keefe’s room — we had to learn some lines together — looked amazed and said: ‘Is this your room? Well, I can’t believe it. It’s not a patch on mine … but then I suppose your status over here is a little different. Why don’t you come along to my room?’ It was three days before he caught on. I reckon they were the unhappiest he spent in England.”

Harry still doesn’t know what significance the US Navy placed on his top secret “code” message. “One of their crack submarines was visiting Britain, and I rang London HQ saying ‘I’m Lew-tenant Eagle’ and gave the sub’s name.

“I was put through to a lieutenant commander and gave him precise instructs to memorise this message for his chief. ‘Will have Big Ben blown-up by Two – Eagle.’ He said he would make sure it was passed on!”

Harry insists he doesn’t set out to harm anyone, though one of his jokes misfired with embarrassing results — for him.

“Gerald Campion and I were filming in Top of the Form at Pinewood. Gerry became sleepy and, of all places, chose the studio floor for a nap. While he slept, I got a small hammer and, as quietly as possible, nailed the edges of his coat to the floor.

“That was the day Rank’s managing director John Davis chose to visit the set. The first thing he saw was Gerry asleep — and when someone woke him up poor Gerry was stuck to the floor! I got a dressing-down after that one.”

Bill Fraser (CSM Snudge) comes in for some of “Floggers” Fowlerisms.

“Alfie Bass and I phoned him from a party at 3am, using Eastern accents, said we were calling from India, and would the CSM like a commission in the Indian Army?

“We’re all practical jokers at rehearsals. We bought Frank Williams, our OC, a trick telescope. He wondered why people kept staring at him, until he found he’d been walking round with a black eye.”

Harry even jokes with his fans.

“They stop me and say, ‘You’re “Flogger” Hoskins,’ so I switch from my usual accent and say in a lah-di-da voice: ‘About 14 people tell me that every day. Who is he?’

“Some of them aren’t convinced, but I hear a lot go away saying, ‘No, he can’t be: he speaks so differently.’”

It was Diana Dors’ first husband, Dennis Hamilton, who got further than anyone in giving Harry a dose of his own medicine.

“He phoned saying he was an agent and would I sing a new song over the phone for him. I was half-way through the chorus before I realised it was a gag.”

The post ‘Flogger’ Hoskins – what a card! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

On Friday Granada’s The Army Game returns. Two regulars, Cpl Springer (Michael Medwin) and Pte (Cupcake) Cook (Norman Rossington) will be missing, but never fear, Snudge will be there. Here, the worthy CSM fills in a few details of the delights of his summer rest and the delights he would have if he could clean up Hut 29

THE garden gate was blancoed a gleaming white. On it, the name of the house — The Last Post — was neatly picked out in khaki paint… I glanced over the hedge. In every flowerbed the plants were drawn up in three ranks, tallest on the right, shortest on the left, and down the far end an elderly willow tree seemed to be trying valiantly to stand to attention.

My search was over. I had found the home of Sergeant-Major Claud Snudge. My knock was answered by the great man himself. “Well?” he barked. Almost without thinking, I snapped my feet together, my shoulders went back, my chest out and my chin in, and I stammered the purpose of my visit.

Slowly the corners of his mouth moved wide apart and he bared his teeth. For a dreadful moment I thought he was going to bite me — until I realised he was only smiling.

“So you’re the bloke what’s come about the interview. Come in, come in.”

He led me through to the lounge, where a pile of suitcases and trunks stood against the wall. “I hope you will excuse the place not being quite tickety-boo,” he said, “but we’ve just come back from holiday.”

Somehow it had never occurred to me that sergeant-majors went on holiday. I told him so. “Ho, yes, indeed, yes,” he said. “Us sergeant-majors probably need it more than anyone else. We don’t get no privacy in our job. All the time we’re being surrounded and clamoured at, not just by soldiers but just as often by people, real people.

“Believe me, it’s nice to get away from the human race once in a while.”

“Where did you go this year?” I asked.

“Blackpool. Marvellous place. A proper haven of peace and tranquillitude. For two whole weeks I did nothing but lie on the sand, soaking in the sunshine and thinking beautiful thoughts.”

“What kind of beautiful thoughts?” I asked.

A dreamy glow came into his eyes. “Lovely, beautiful thoughts, like what I would do to that shower in Hut 29 if I had my way. Jankers and fatigues ain’t good enough for that lot. I’d like to see ’em doing some real fatigues, real fatiguing fatigues that would keep ’em out of mischief for good.

“For instance, imagine Private Bisley being told to sweep down the Great North-road with a toothbrush. Or Bone being ordered to bale out the English Channel with a child’s bucket. Now that’s the kind of threat that’d soon clean up Hut 29. What you might call the Ultimate Detergent.

“But what’s the use of torturing myself?”

He lapsed into a sad, troubled silence. It seemed a shame to disturb him, but I was after the facts.

“I noticed you mentioned only Bone and Bisley. Didn’t you consider methods of correction for the others?”

His face grew sadder. “Cook and Springer? The ones wot got away? Yes, they’re gone, and I’ll never have the pleasure of putting them on the hooks no more. Cook’s uncle died and left him a cake shop, so he bought himself out of the Army. And Corporal Springer wangled himself a posting as military bodyguard to the clerk of the course at Newmarket.” “But surely life will be a lot easier now that Hut 29 is without a leader?”

“They’ve got a leader all right. Captain Pocket has moved Corporal Hoskins into Hut 29.”

Corporal (Flogger) Hoskins is played by Harry Fowler.

Snudge looked so upset I thought I would try to cheer him up. “Well, that should make a nice change,” I said brightly.

Snudge gazed at me in silent pity. When he finally spoke, his voice shook with emotion. “It’s a nice change, all right. Like a plague of Colorado beetles is a nice change from a swarm of locusts. It’s just my luck to get rid of the Army’s Conniving Champion and find myself stuck with the No 1 Contender.”

I clucked sympathetically. “It looks as if you are in for a pretty rough time, then.”

Snudge’s drooping figure snapped erect and his eyes flashed indignantly. “Nonsense! I’ll soon show them who’s the master. It’s all a matter of attitude.”

“Attitude?”

“Yes, if I catch ’em at it they’re going to get chewed.”

“At least you have only three of them to worry about now.” I pointed out.

Evil cunning gleamed from the corners of his eyes. “Yes, and they’re used to working in fours. I can use that. All I need is a real soldier. A proper, heels-togethering, shoulders backing, chest out-ing, chin-inning, neat and tidy, no-idle soldiering soldier. With someone like that in Hut 29, we’d really get somewhere.”

“And where are you going to get such a paragon?”

The dream of hope faded. “T don’t know. I just don’t know. Oh, we’ve got some, you know. I remember seeing one at Aidershot only last year…” His voice trailed off as the treasured memory warmed his mind.

“Lovely sight he was. All knife-edge creases and blanco.” I turned my head tactfully to allow him to wipe away a nostalgic tear that threatened the left wing of his moustache.

“Perhaps they’ll send you one,” I said. I felt I had to say something. “They do send you soldiers from time to time, don’t they?”

He shook his head. “No, not soldiers. Sleeping, talking, eating, walking, living uniforms, yes. Soldiers, no. In fact, we get a new intake arriving the day camp opens.”

“They might send you a good one by mistake.”

“That would not be a mistake, it would be a blooming miracle. And miracles,” said Snudge sadly, as I left him, “don’t happen, not never no more.”

The post The beady eye is back appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

LOVE of animals occupies a big part in the life of C. B. Poultney — alias Major Geoffrey Gervaise Duckworth, the fiercely-monocled CO of The Army Game.

But whereas, at Nether Hopping, the Major, as befits an old cavalry officer, is only happy when he is talking about horses, in private life Poultney excludes them from his affections. “I think they are silly creatures,” he told me. “They’ve got flat heads.”

I found “C.B.” in his London bachelor flat — a 67-year-old military-looking man whose constant companion is a four year old, irrepressible, floppy-looking spaniel called Buffin.

But before I could get one word out of Poultney about himself, I had to hear how Bulfin came to be there.

For years his master wrote animal stories in a national newspaper. Many of them were about his Scottie, Rhoderick Dhu, and, when “Roddy” died, the readers of the paper subscribed £200 [£4,000 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] to buy another dog. He chose Buffin — and also bought a guide dog for a blind person.

C.B.’s love of cats and dogs is shown by the photographs of them covering one wall of his sitting – room and the books and short stories he has written about them, many of which he has illustrated himself with pen and ink sketches. For C.B. is an artist as well as an actor and an author, and, in fact, started his career as a commercial artist in Birmingham, where his father was a newspaper editor. He is also a member of the governing committee of the People s Dispensary for Sick Animals.

Another difference is that “Major Duckworth” is married with a daughter, while C.B. is a bachelor. C.B. Poultney has some Army background to call on in building up the character of the Major. “I joined the Army as a private in 1914,” he says, “and, by the time the war ended, I was a captain in the Fusiliers, so I knew quite a lot of officers like the Major.”

C.B. never uses his Christian names, which are Clifford Blake. “I don’t like ’em,” he said. “Most people call me C B. or ‘Tibby.’”

I thought the latter might be a reference to his affection for cats, but I was wrong. “It’s because I once played the part of Captain Tibenham, VC, in a play with Marie Lohr. That was many years ago, but the name has stuck,” he said.

He has appeared in a wide variety of plays in his long career — everything from Shakespeare to comedy, but since playing in Charley’s Aunt at His Majesty’s Theatre in 1948, C.B. has devoted most of his time to writing and television.

C.B. likes his new role. “Major Duckworth is a character I can get my teeth into,” he said. “And as for keeping the ‘shower’ under control, well, my neighbour gave me a few tips on that.”

His neighbour? Jack Allen, the last CO at Nether Hopping.

The post The cavalry major doesn’t like horses appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

I HAVE kept silent long enough. But now I must speak. Now I must tell all. By telling what I know, I shall walk in terror of my life, but still it is my duty to tell the world of the graft and corruption that exists behind the scenes of Bootsie and Snudge.

First, let me tell you something of myself. I am a tabby cat employed in the offices of Feldman and Took, who purport to be the writers of Bootsie and Snudge; I say “purport” but more of that in due course.

I was christened Calthrop Mingus. (How I came by this name is a long and uninteresting story. It is best told by my employers, who are adept at writing long and uninteresting stories.)

I first came into their employ in the summer of 1960 (I secured the post through an agency), and at first it seemed a comfortable situation. Soon, they were to be revealed to me in their true light.

Not that they have ever physically maltreated me, but there is such a thing as mental cruelty.

It started with cheap gibes at my cathood. “If you’re a cat,” they would sneer, “where’s your tail?” (I am a Manx cat, but what do those ignorant dopes know?)

“Why don’t you catch mice?” they would taunt. There was none; what was I supposed to do, import one to satisfy their blood lust?

You have no conception of the lengths they go to degrade me.

They would exercise their warped minds by devising fresh soubriquets for me. “Fatty.” they would hoot; “Old Pajama Case” … “Boss eyes” (A veiled reference to the cast in my left eye and typical of their loutish, heavy-handed sense of humour)

At other times they would sing, brawl, whine, giggle, throw the furniture about and do impressions of Alma Cogan. (Needless to say — very bad impressions. Neither of them has any talent.)

Generally they would end up squabbling over who should sleep in my basket. But let us consider them separately.

Barry Took (as he now calls himself) can be most charitably described as a gawky, shambling, credulous fool. He is intensely vain and affects an opera cloak, a duelling scar and an eyepatch.

He likes to be called “the Baron” and tries to assume the manner of a Middle-European nobleman.

All in all, the effect he achieves is not so much that of a scion of a noble house as much as that of a barker at a flea circus, which, in point of fact, he was.

Not the sort of man you would wish to meet in a dark alleyway — or anywhere.

But it is when I consider Marty Feldman that my blood runs cold. Below middle height (in fact, he stands 3ft. 6in.) with the appearance of a depraved jockey and the savoir faire of a hermit crab, he is without doubt the better looking of the pair.

He likes to think of himself as a dandy, and his green frock coat, moleskin trousers and stove pipe hat have caused many gasps of surprise and grudging admiration when he rides in Rotten Row of a Sunday morning, on a large St. Bernard dog.

At his best — a truculent, bibulous clod, he is nonetheless an enigmatic and puzzling personality. You leave his company with one question uppermost in your mind, “Why isn’t he behind bars?”

These, then, are my employers. You are saying to yourselves, how can these moonstruck simpletons produce the scripts they claim to?

Come with me to their seedy office in a condemned building in Chelsea, and let us observe them at work.

It is a simple room. The desk is a homely muddle of bottles, dust and begging letters awaiting their signature.

The floor is covered by what in happier times would, have been described as a carpet. It is here we find them — on the floor.

Some deep, primeval instinct makes them stir. They lumber to their feet, mouthing curses at each other and slump at the typewriter.

They concentrate. Hours pass. No inspiration. They just sit there staring into space, waiting for something to come. Then suddenly — just when it looks as if it’s going to be a blank day, Took speaks.

“If I look out of the corner of my eye,” he says, “I can see my ear reflected in my glasses.” Hours pass. Then Feldman leaps to his feet … “I can touch the end of my nose with my tongue.”

Soon, exhausted by concentration, they shamble off to a nearby tea parlour and that is the last I see of them until night when, crazed with tea and biscuits, they return with their disreputable acquaintances to make the night hideous with their pathetic carousing.

How then does the script come to be written?

At last it can be told. The jig’s up and the cat’s out of the bag. I, Calthrop Mingus, a mere pussy cat, am the real author of Bootsie and Snudge. Calthrop Mingus — the name you never see.

But I’ve reached the end of my tether — from now on boys, you’re on your own!

The post The cat’s whispers appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The Army Game troops report back for duty this week.

Most of the regulars will be on parade: Sergeant-Major Snudge (Bill Fraser), Corporal Springer (Michael Medwin), “Cupcake” Cook (Norman Rossington) and “Excused Boots” (Alfie Bass).

But two newcomers are on the postings-in list on the guardroom notice board: A new CO, Major Geoffrey Gervaise Duckworth (C. B. Poultney), still living out his Army life as a cavalry subaltern, and Private BONE (Ted Lune) …

A TOP-SECRET signal was flashed from Whitehall to the Commanding Officer, Nether Hopping: “Am posting Private Bone to you forthwith. Documents revealing him to be a psychopathic scrounger and pathological liar to follow.”

I intercepted that short-wave message … and immediately chartered a helicopter to fly me to Nether Hopping to get Bone’s story.

Lancashire-born Bone is a brilliant old campaigner and strategist who has fought his way — single-handed — out of NAAFI queues all over the world. He is also an internationally-known authority on the game — he would call it The Art — of football.

Bone revealed to me a shattering now-it-can-be-told story that will shake Britain — the true story of how Bolton Wanderers really won the FA Cup last season.

Over to Private Bone, alias comedian Ted Lune …

“Ask any football fan who led t’Wanderers to victory in t’Cup game last season, and he’ll tell you: ‘Nat Lofthouse.’

“And he’ll be wrong. It wasn’t Nat at all.

“IT WAS ME — BONE.

“Only the 11 men of Bolton Wanderers knew the truth until today. Now I can reveal it.

“It was me that led t’Wanderers on to the Wembley turf that historic Saturday in May, 1958.

“And this is how it happened … The Friday night before t’Final. I got a telegram from me Mam in Bolton.

“My hand shook as I tore it open. Perhaps she’d wangled me a Cup Final ticket after all. But, no. It was this message:

“‘Coome ome, lad, T’Wanderers need thee.’

“I knew what was expected of me. It had happened just this way before. Somebody had dropped out of the team at the last minute.

“A panic-stations conference in the plush Bolton board-room and the decision was made. Send for Bone.

“I talked it over with the lads in the billet. Should I go? I’d nothing else on that day. And it was a great chance.

“I’d played plenty of League games when they’d been short of first-team payers. But this — The Football Match of The Year.

“‘Take it, Bone,’ said the lads. ‘We’ll be cheering for you.’

“So I went home and collected my things. No 9 shirt … size 10 boots.

“Thousands of folk in that packed Wembley Stadium never guessed, millions of viewers watching on TV couldn’t have known—that the chap who went to Bolton Wanderers’ rescue in their Hour of Need was ME.

“For the first time, pictures tell the true story …”

Before I wrote this amazing story, I sought the approval of the highest-up brass-hats I could find in Whitehall.

This is their report: “Our records show that on May 3, 1958, the day of the FA Cup Final at Wembley, Private Bone was under close arrest in his unit’s guardroom.

“He was awaiting court martial, accused of being absent without leave the weekend before.

“Military Police picked him up in Bolton — trying to sell five-shilling Cup Final tickets at black market prices.”

Footnote: The Bolton Wanderers players who co-operated in this TV TIMES reconstruction of Bone’s story were: Nat Lofthouse, Roy Hartle, Ray Parry, Dennis Stevens, Brian Edwards, Tommy Banks, John Higgins and Eddie Hopkinson.

The post Private Bone (alias Ted Lune) reveals: how I won t’cup for Bolton appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

NO, Bernard Bresslaw — Popeye of The Army Game — isn’t as goofy as all that. It’s just that he’s 6ft 5in tall, has an adenoidal voice, big eyes, and tends to leave his mouth open…

But one can’t kelp making good-humoured fun of Bernard — his looks and personality naturally invite it.

The other day, for example, a man introduced his young daughter to Popeye. She had insisted to her father that Popeye couldn’t really be so silly. “Say something,” ordered the girl. Bernard said something. The poor girl went away with an even more puzzled air. To be proved wrong at that age can be shattering…

Of course, being so tall isn’t all fun. People tend to pick on you. Till last season, Bernard used to play rugby. He was a wing forward, one of the most vulnerable men. Opponents used to look his team over, then the whisper would go round: “Better get that big feller down hard to start with or he might be a trouble.” First time he touched the ball, down he would go under a pile of writhing bodies.

It was the same in the Army. Bernard didn’t find it half such fun as the television one. People always used to pick on the tall RASC driver clerk.

But Bernard showed them. He turned to good account his natural ability to play the part of an “oaf.” His first big part was that of a simple country boy in the Irish farce The McRoary Whirl. This was one of the few occasions he has worn a suit on stage — a sky-blue suit to go with his off-white camel-hair coat and white cap.

The play lasted only three days in London’s West End. But it was a good blooding for Bernard.

Previously he had been cast in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art students’ annual public show. It was Christopher Fry’s Venus Observed, and was put on at the Phoenix Theatre. He didn’t play an oaf then. In the audience was the director of Windsor Repertory, who heard complimentary remarks about Bernard made by Fry, who was sitting next to him.

When Bernard wrote to Windsor Repertory for a job the director gave him a part in The McRoary Whirl.

Bernard left the Academy with the Emile Littler Prize.

He did a couple of tours before The McRoary Whirl, but then began to find doors closed to him with “You’re too tall.” They couldn’t say that, though, when he was auditioned for the part of a guardsman in the television play Who Goes There? In this part, people really began to appreciate what a perfect oaf he made.

But oafishness is not the only weapon in Bresslaw’s armoury. He recently played a brute in a Mark Saber thriller film on ITV.

Bernard’s friends say he makes a lovable goof; others say he’s a “natura” as a psychopathic case. And it was as the latter that he appeared in the Mark Saber production, going so far as to shoot a poor old lady’s dog.

He believes his public will accept him in this sort of role. One admirer wrote him saying she didn’t like Popeye nearly so much since he had shot that dog. I don’t know whether that means she accepts his other guises or not, but at least she really lives them all with him. I wonder what she’ll think if she sees Bernard in his current film role as a bearded sneak-thief in Blood of the Vampire?

Though 23-year-old Bernard doesn’t mind playing the fool, he would like to develop his other capabilities. He doesn’t yearn to play Hamlet, but he does want to play Shakespeare.

Another ambition is to play in pantomime. Any combination of Idle Jack and Buttons would do.

Who knows? Under that amiable and “vacant” exterior may beat the heart of a great Shakespearean actor. What would Cupcake think of that?

The post He’s Popeye the soldier man appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IT started as a polite excuse for “taking the mickey” out of Army life. It has become one of television’s most rib-tickling comedies. The Army Game, originally intended to last only for the summer, has now been given an indefinite run. And with every fortnightly instalment it is building up new battalions of viewers.

What is the secret of its success? One very important reason could well be the judicious way in which each programme contains a carefully balanced mixture of the real and the imaginary.

The characters are the kind of men you would rarely meet in real life. The situations are all highly improbable. But although these are entirely fictional goings-on, every possible effort is made to see that they happen in surroundings that are true to life.

The man responsible for what we see of Nether Hopping is Granada designer Stanley Mills. The lifelike transit and surplus ordnance depot, with its huts and offices and parade ground, grows up from sketches on his drawing board.

Nether Hopping did not, however, start as just a figment of his imagination. It is made up of hundreds of different features which he has borrowed during visits to several Army camps, big and small, in various parts of the country.

I joined Stanley Mills and his sketchbook for a visit to a hutted camp “somewhere in Cheshire.” Never have I seen an artist with such an eye for detail.

He walked around the grounds noting the positions of stirrup pumps. In one of the huts he got out his steel measure and noted the dimensions of beds, lockers and wall brackets.

He was about to leave the hut when he noticed the door. He stopped and stared. But it was the turn of the off-duty troops in the hut to stop and stare when they heard him enthusing about that simple door.

“Just what I have been looking for,” he murmured, as out came the sketchbook and down went every little feature of the door, from type of knob to the size of the padlock and the shape of the panels.

Said Mills later: “Most of the ideas for the sets used in The Army Game have come from visits I have made to five camps, all of them different.

“One was a Guards training and transit camp, a permanent place that must be one of the biggest in the country. It had polished floors and central heating in each hut. It was very pleasant, and laid out in a most efficient way. But it was more like a garden city, and was much too nice for our purpose.

“Then, completely different, was a munitions dump. It was hidden away in a forest, and there was only a handful of men on the site. When I arrived — even though I had a War Office permit — they rushed around covering up all their maps and plans. A funny thing about that place is that the OC actually keeps pigs — just like our Major Upshot-Bagley.

“What we wanted was something between the Guards camp and the munitions dump. I think that in Nether Hopping we have succeeded.”

The huts used in The Army Game have been built by Granada carpenters from Stanley Mills’ designs. But the equipment that goes into them is all genuine Army issue — on loan.

From Ladysmith Barracks, headquarters of the Manchester Regiment at Ashton under-Lyne, have come beds, lockers and other barrack-room furniture — and a welfare radio set. Certain items of military equipment have been borrowed, too.

“Spud” Taylor, head of Granada’s property department, told me that only two things had to be specially made for the programme. One was a mock bomb which had a little charge in the tail. When a button was pressed it released a sheet of flame. The other was an illicit gin still which, as “Spud” rightly remarked, was not likely to be found in any ordinary Army camp.

In the early days of The Army Game, dummy rifles were used. But now, thanks to Ladysmith Barracks, they have the real things, even if they are unserviceable. Whether they work or not, however, Granada has to have licences for them. And when they occasionally borrow light machine-guns and other small arms, they have to take out separate licences and War Office permits.

The property department once failed to satisfy the programme’s requirements. That was when the script called for a pig. Two were tried. The smaller one was too noisy, and the bigger one turned out to be not much of an actor; he refused to go on when he was cued. Result: no more pigs.

I was in the studio just before this pig episode was rehearsed, and I remember the outburst of Geoffrey Sumner (who besides playing the pig-loving OC is a pig-keeper himself) when he caught sight of one of the porkers.

“I am quite devastated,” he told me. “I asked them to provide me with the kind pf pig I’ve been used to myself — a lop-eared Welsh. But this is a prick-eared Blue pig, which is a cross between a Wessex saddleback and a Large White.

“I made a special point of telling them what I wanted, because a lop-eared pig is much easier to handle than a prick-eared pig. It will be a feat of acting for me to fall in love with this mongrel.”

Fortunately, as it turned out, Geoffrey didn’t have to.

Only once have the people behind The Army Game had to search for something that was not authentic — and that was to work out unidentifiable regimental names.

After a lot of research it was decided that the commanding officer and the company sergeant-major should belong to the “Loamshires,” while the men were all to be in the “QRSBs.”

What does that stand for? Well, “QR” obviously means “Queen’s Royal,” but the rest is anybody’s guess.

The post Here’s why those ‘Army’ sets are so realistic appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

GEOFFREY SUMNER speaking: “In various ways, these TV soldiers that I command once a fortnight remind me of some of the real soldiers I had under my command during the war.”

Geoffrey is, of course, the light comedy actor whom viewers know as Major Upshot Bagley, dithering commanding officer of The Army Game depot, Nether Hopping, on ITV screens again next Wednesday.

What most viewers do not know, is that Sumner ended World War II as a full-blown Colonel.

I had arranged to meet him to hear about his two Army careers, wartime and TV, and the three Sumners — Mr., Major and Colonel — paraded in the cocktail bar prompt on time.

“One of the TV privates keeps on asking questions,” he said.

“It reminds me of a gunner who gave me a lot of trouble.

“He was taking part in gun drill and wanted to know why No. 2 man had to stand in the way of No. 3 man and raise his hand to shoulder level.

“I didn’t know the answer, and eventually this problem got back to the War Office, with the result that some time and motion study fellows arrived.

“They found that the gun drill had not been revised since the days of Napoleon, and the reason No. 2 had his arm raised was to hold the reins of the leading horse.

“Then we have in the TV Army one of the brainless types. I met some of those, too, and, being quite frank, I didn’t take too kindly to them during the war.

“Our wartime circumstances were far from funny, and a foolish mistake might have cost all our lives. I’m afraid I was rather severe — used to frighten the daylights out of them.

“The brainless ones came in two categories: intentional and unintentional. The former got jumped on, and the chaps who couldn’t help it were sent to the cookhouse and elsewhere.

“At the other extreme we had the ‘fly boys’ — very similar to our TV Corporal Springer. We had a bombardier who was the image of Springer and was wonderfully useful. He made our dump nice and comfortable. I would far rather have a ‘fly boy’ to command than a nit wit.

“For one thing, they know how to make the best of what there is available, and as long as the benefits are coming in they are an asset. You need to watch them, though.”

While Geoffrey was telling me this I was wondering what his great-grandfather would have thought of him becoming an actor. Probably, he would have been horrified, because great-grandfather was an Archbishop of Canterbury. At the same time, another relative was Bishop of Winchester.

“Ours is an old Devonian family,” Geoffrey said. “On one side we are strong Church people. On the other we are Army. I have a cousin who is a brigadier and I don’t think there is much doubt that he is destined to become a general. I envy him quite often.

“And — forgive me if I’m boring you — Sir Francis Drake was an ancestor.”

About his career Geoffrey Sumner said: “As a boy, the RAF turned me down on medical grounds, so I went to study farming in South Africa. I became a farm manager, and eventually had my own farm of 800 acres.

“That was fine — until one night a tropical hail-storm smashed my crops and future. So I came back to England and, in a roundabout way and without any training, started in the theatre.

“Today, I live with my wife, Mary, and our three girls — Victoria, 17, who is a fine horse-woman and pianist, Alexandra, eight, and ‘Charlie,’ four.

“Notice something about the girls? All named after queens. To complete the family we have a Boxer dog, 12 cats and appropriate number of kittens, two horses, budgerigars, chickens and pigs. Home is a 10 acre small holding near Upper Warlingham, and the house dates from Charles I.’

Geoffrey Sumner takes his farming seriously. Recently he had 350 pigs, including some prize winners, but has sold most of them. He is starting again in earnest later this year. Throw in membership of the local branch committee of the National Farmers’ Union, and that would seem enough to keep any man busy.

But not Geoffrey. He also finds time to work as managing director of a cartoon film studio employing 75 artists and technicians.

His toothbrush moustache reminded me that it was the military Sumner I had wanted to interview, not the businessman or farmer.

“I always had a yen for the Army and I never really lose it,” he admitted. “I still have the Army in my blood. You hear criticisms of Army life, but there is a lot to it. There is the ‘bull’ and the red tape and other nonsense, I agree. But my view is that any profession which enables you to make life-long friends is worthwhile.

“On the lighter side, I remember my first command on the south coast, near Dymchurch. We had two naval guns and nobody knew how to fire them accurately. When we practised, we nearly blew the target towing ship out of the water.”

One of his many jobs called Geoffrey Sumner away — but not before I asked him what rank he considered the best in the Army.

“If you want a quiet life with most of the advantages, there is nothing to rival a corporal,” he said.

Now, I wonder what Corporal Springer would say to that?

The post If you want a quiet life, be a corporal appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THERE are right ways and wrong ways of obeying commands. Which comes as a surprise to the awkward squad in The Army Game —they never knew they had a choice. However, on realising the situation, they immediately applied for permission to publish “The Army Game Guide to Good Soldiering”.

(Note : The Guide to Good Soldiering, as here illustrated, is not recommended to serving soldiers).

(Note again : The Army Game will serve up more laughs this Wednesday and every alternate Wednesday).

(Last Note: Cast of our Guide is… The O.C. (Geoffrey Sumner), Sergeant-Major (William Hartnell) … Corporal (Michael Medwin) … Popeye (Bernard Bresslaw) … The Professor (Charles Hawtrey) … Cup-Cake (Norman Rossington).

Words by Eric Linden, following a technical chat with ex-RSM Brittain

The post The Army Game guide to good soldiering appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

STEAMING into port next Tuesday is a small cargo boat, SS Guernsey, known to her rather odd crew as “The Old Cow.” She puts into harbour for Granada’s new weekly situation comedy series, Mess Mates, involving her captain and crew.

For Captain Biskett (Archie Duncan), who once dreamed of commanding an ocean liner, this little coastal vessel is a last ditch, and he wants to stay in it. He relies on Tug Nelson, the Mate, without whom he would not have a crew.

Victor Maddern as the Mate, ringleader of the men in trying to outwit the Captain (for whom he has a great affection), is full of wonderful schemes for making money and dealing with situations. But they nearly always go wrong. However, he can talk his way out.

Each of the half-hour episodes starts in port, for the main plot is about things ashore. Three other members of the crew have their own frustrations and entanglements. For instance, Croaker Jones the Bosun (Sam Kydd) is a worrier for whom life is one long battle. He has a large, comfortable wife and seven children.

Young Willie McGinniss (Fulton MacKay) is a happy Jonah, a great romantic who puts every woman on a pedestal. Blarney Finnigan (Dermot Kelly) is a bit of an “old sweat” with a big line in outlandish stories.

Glasgow-born Archie Duncan, who is 46, is unmarried, like the Captain he plays. His knowledge of the sea comes from building ships. He had 10 years in the Clyde shipyards as an electric welder. He turned actor at 30.

Stocky Victor Maddern, unlike the mate he plays, is married and has four daughters. At 32, he has made 60 films.

“I went to sea at 15,” said Maddern. “I had three years in the Merchant Service, but I didn’t like it a bit. I served my time as a cadet, trained to be an officer, but didn’t sit for my Second Mate’s ticket.”

Sam Kydd beams if you mention the sea. But his experience of it is limited to filming — one happy month on a pleasure steamer and another six weeks on a Thames barge. He is married and has a six year old son.

Fulton MacKay swops one Scottish name for another as engineer Willie McGinniss. A bachelor aged 37, he was born at Clydebank, but he did not build ships there. His main voyaging has been “doon” the Clyde.

Probably the neatest type-casting is Dubliner Dermot Kelly as Blarney Finnigan. Dark-haired little Dermot, only 5ft 4in, with the looks of a leprechaun, might have stepped out of Sean O’Casey.

A bachelor in his early 40’s, Dermot played the lead in ITV’s production of The Quare Fellow.

The post Mess Mates – a cargo of comics appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

SAID William Hartnell: “You’d never believe it, judging by some of the parts I’ve played, but I used to be known as a comedian. I called myself Billy Hartnell in those days.”

Certainly, the hard-bitten petty officer of Seagulls over Sorrento, the sergeant of The Way Ahead and the Scotland Yard detective in several films had never struck me as being comedy roles.

“That’s why I like The Army Game,” he continued. “Even though I’m not supposed to be the comic.” Hartnell has only one protest: “I seem to be doomed to playing sergeants and petty officers.”

I took a careful look at Hartnell, the amateur company-sergeant-major. He was off duty at home. And I have to report he looked extremely like a professional company-sergeant-major off duty at home. Or maybe I’m like the rest – I can’t think of him in any other role.

He was wearing a check sports jacket, a brown shirt open at the neck, grey flannels held up by a leather belt, brown slippers. He smoked his cigarette jerkily and kept throwing his chin out and half closing his eyes to look into the distance.

He might have been picking out that ‘orrible little man at the other end of the parade ground. In fact, he was watching a bird which is the part of Hartnell he would like you to know.

“Most people think of me as a tough, snarling character with not very much grey matter,” he said. “Those are the parts I always play. But nobody ever inquires whether I’m really like that.”

I report with pleasure that Mr. Hartnell is not like that. His wife, playwright Heather McIntyre, showed me round their Sussex garden and confided a few secrets about her husband. “He loves birds and animals. See that little wooden house up in that tree? Bill built that for two field mice. We call them Mr. and Mrs. Ashley and every evening about eight we take a meal out to them… Mind where you put your feet – a shrew lives under those two small holes in the lawn. We call it Baby…”

This didn’t sound like a sergeant-major’s life. Inside once more, Bill took me on a tour of the house.

I commented on his pictures, several by Augustus John. “Any money I have to spare in the future will go on buying up originals,” he told me.

Hartnell’s other major interest is fishing. He’s a member of the Hove Deep Sea Fishing Club. “Nearly all my best friends are outside the theatre business,” he said. “You’ve got to escape from the insanity of that world. That’s why we live here. We love the country and a quiet life.”

“Here” is a half-tiled cottage, non-vintage, in a remote lane in a remote part of Sussex 12 miles from Brighton. It’s not a sumptuous house, but it’s friendly. “People have got to accept us as we are,” said Heather Hartnell. “We’re no good at putting on a show.”

I remembered reading somewhere that Norman Hartnell, the Queen’s dressmaker, is Bill’s cousin. Correct? “Second cousin, actually. But we don’t I see each other often. We live in different worlds.”

Heather smiled. “Somehow I can’t see him sitting on our kitchen table having a good old chat.” Then she said: “Let’s have some tea.” We sat down to, fruit cake, scones and strawberries, Hartnell ate three scones and declined the strawberries.

“I was born in Seaton, Devon,” he told me. “My parents separated when I was a child and I was brought up by a guardian. My ambition was to become an actor and a jockey. Somehow, I thought I could do both together. I hated school, ran away three times and finally, at fifteen, was allowed to go to work in a racing stable. But my weight was against me. One day the trainer called me into his office and told me I’d better try something else.”

Sir Frank Benson, the famous Shakespearean actor-manager, took him on. “I did almost every job in the theatre before I began to make a name for myself.”

Hartnell – “Billy” Hartnell that is – understudied Bud Flanagan and Ralph Lynn and attracted a certain amount of attention in comedy roles in films. Then Carol Reed saw him in Brighton Rock and gave him the part of the sergeant in The Way Ahead.

For Hartnell the way ahead ever since has been through the doors of the costumiers who fit him out with sergeant-majors’ and petty officers’ uniforms and raincoats as worn – in films at any rate – by Scotland Yard detectives.

Bill put his foot up on a kitchen chair and brushed a parade ground shine into his shoes. “I wish they’d let me show that I can play other parts besides sergeants.” He moved to the hall and put on a beltless raincoat. “I’d like to play Polonius instead of policemen.”

Then we set off for Brighton, where Bill had an appointment to pick up a script. The role? A tough, tight-lipped gangster. Obviously someone had said “Just the part for Hartnell.”

The post Off parade – at the Hartnell home appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THERE is nothing very special about the Nether Hopping transit camp and surplus ordnance depot. Motorists passing by as they speed along the arterial road never give it a second glance.

It is a ramshackle, miserable-looking hutment camp, three miles from the nearest village and 10 from the nearest town. A camp forgotten by the War Office, where life follows the same lazy routine.

This is the scene of Granada’s new fortnightly comedy, The Army Game.

The peace of Nether Hopping is, however, rudely shattered by the arrival of five newcomers.

“Fly” boy of the outfit is Cockney Cpl. Springer, played by Michael Medwin. He’s the type who sizes up the situation in his first three days in the Army and decides that the rest of the two years will be one long scrounge.

Only regular among them is Pte. Brisley (Alfie Bass) who is called “Bootsie” because he’s been excused boots for most of his Service life. He’s the pessimist of the group.

Then there’s Pte. Hatchett (Charles Hawtrey), who for obvious reasons is nicknamed “Professor.” He’s the barrack-room lawyer.

Pte. Popplewell (Bernard Bresslaw), better known as “Popeye,” is a giant who represents the brute strength of the quintet.

Finally there is Pte. Cook who, on the strength of all the parcels he receives from his fond mother, has the nickname “Cup Cake.”

Collectively, the five are a major threat to the smooth running of any camp – a quality which has kept them on the move. They are determined that their travels must end. But they haven’t counted on Company Sergeant-Major Bullimore (William Hartnell). He does his best to run Nether Hopping on service lines, but he is getting rather tired of the effort.

It is inevitable that a meeting between such a group and a man like Bullimore should be the start of a private war in which no quarter is given and none asked.

Quite happy to let the sergeant-major run the camp his own way is the O.C. Major Upshott-Bagley (Geoffrey Sumner) realised that when he was given the least responsible job the War Office could find for him he had reached the pinnacle of his career. He is content to vegetate until he is pensioned off.

The Army Game has been devised as a riotous comedy – but it is not a farce. The situations may be a little larger than life, but they are based on incidents that could happen in any Army camp.

In this all-male cast, Granada have found people who look the part and who can act the part from personal experience.

Geoffrey Sumner, for instance, joined the Army in 1939 as a second-lieutenant and finished up in New Delhi as a colonel.

Bernard Bresslaw feels quite in character as one of the inmates of Hut 29. He was a private in the RASC. And William Hartnell had a private’s-eye view of the war in the Tank Corps. His promotion didn’t come until he left the Army in 1943 and Carol Reed made him a sergeant for his part in The Way Ahead.

Alfie Bass was a dispatch rider. About the characters in The Army Game he says: They could be real people.”

Scriptwriter Sid Colin was in the RAF. To make sure he gets his technical facts right, Granada have appointed a military adviser, Major John Foley. And the War Office have provided a liaison officer and given him permission to visit any Army camp he likes in search of authentic material.

The post ITV joins the army appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.