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.

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

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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.”

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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.

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