The Goon Show Depository - User contributions [en]

Is There Honey Still for Tea?

2022-08-15T12:29:11Z

86.160.37.191:

{{unreferenced|date=June 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2012}}
{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[Dad's Army]]
| image =
| caption =
| series_no = 8
| episode = 3
| director = David Croft
| story = [[Jimmy Perry]] and [[David Croft (TV producer)|David Croft]]
| producer = David Croft
| airdate = 19 September 1975<br />(recorded 26 June 1975)
| length = 30 minutes
| guests =
| prev = [[When You've Got to Go]]
| next = [[Come In, Your Time Is Up]]
}}
"'''Is There Honey Still for Tea?'''" is the third episode of the eighth British comedy series ''[[Dad's Army]]'' that was originally transmitted on Friday, 19 September 1975. The title is taken from the concluding lines of [[Rupert Brooke]]'s 1912 poem, ''[[The Old Vicarage, Grantchester]]'':

:''Stands the Church clock at ten to three?''
:''And is there honey still for tea?''

==Synopsis==
Private Godfrey's Cherry Tree Cottage is set to be flattened to make way for a new [[aerodrome]]. Frazer, however, champions his cause. He knows the minister responsible for the plan, and he knows his father, and he knows about an incident in the draper's shop...

==Plot==
It is three months [[The King Was in His Counting House|since Swallows Bank was bombed]] and Captain Mainwaring is keenly anticipating the arrival of his new office door (the last having been destroyed by bomb damage). He is disappointed, however, to discover the replacement is made out of [[paper]]. Various misfortunes occur to it, leaving the door in ruins in a matter of minutes.

The Colonel arrives and informs Mainwaring that Private Godfrey's cottage is to be flattened to make way for a new aerodrome. Mainwaring summons Jones and Frazer to the bank and tries to work out how best to break the news to Godfrey. Mainwaring resolves to go and inform Godfrey personally. He, Pike and Wilson walk out to pay a call to Cherry Tree Cottage, only to be invited to stay for tea. During the visit Mainwaring repeatedly puts off telling Godfrey, and finally tries to shift the responsibility, and make Wilson tell him, a job his Sergeant shirks. The three of them depart the cottage, with Godfrey seemingly none the wiser about his home's intended fate.

Next Mainwaring tries to persuade Jones and Frazer to do the deed as the two oldest members of the platoon. Frazer abandons Jones, leaving him to tell Godfrey alone. Slightly awkwardly, Jones begins a rambling and convoluted explanation - only to find that Godfrey already knows, having received official notification several days before. He innocuously mentions that he meant to tell Captain Mainwaring, but he did not want to "upset him". Jones offers to let Godfrey stay with him, which he accepts.

Later, Frazer makes a call to the home of the [[Minister (government)|government minister]] in charge of building the new aerodrome, Sir Charles Renfrew McAllister, in the middle of the night - and threatens him with exposure for his youthful transgressions if he does not re-consider the scheme.

The next day, the platoon helps to load the [[furniture]] into [[Air Raid Precautions|ARP]] Warden Hodges' van as he prepares to move out, with a melancholic Godfrey and his sisters watching their possessions being carried away. However, Frazer arrives, bearing news of the official decision to shift the aerodrome several hundred [[Yard|yards]], meaning that Godfrey's cottage will now be on the edge of it rather than in the middle. The platoon respond with delight, leaving Hodges annoyed at losing out on the fee for use of his van.

The episode ends with a [[Tea party|tea party]] at Godfrey's cottage, in which he thanks Mainwaring for saving his house, unaware that it was in fact Frazer who was responsible. Suddenly, the tea party - which is being held on the lawn of the cottage - is interrupted by a plane which has just taken off from the aerodrome blowing everyone and everything around the garden.

==Notes==
#In this episode, Pike refers to two films: ''[[The Ghost Goes West]]'' (1935), in which an American millionaire transports a castle from Scotland to [[California]], and ''[[Dangerous Moonlight]]'' (1941) about the life and romance of an [[Anti-Nazi League|anti-Nazi]] Polish pilot, who is also a concert pianist, and fights in the [[Battle of Britain]]. John Laurie appeared in the latter film.

==Cast==
*[[Arthur Lowe]] as [[Captain Mainwaring]]
*[[John Le Mesurier]] as [[Sergeant Wilson]]
*[[Clive Dunn]] as [[Lance Corporal Jones]]
*[[John Laurie]] as [[Private Frazer]]
*[[Arnold Ridley]] as [[Private Godfrey]]
*[[Ian Lavender]] as [[Private Pike]]
*[[Bill Pertwee]] as [[Chief ARP Warden Hodges|ARP Warden Hodges]]
*[[Gordon Peters]] as The man with the door
*[[Robert Raglan]] as The Colonel
*[[Campbell Singer]] as Sir Charles McAllister
*[[Joan Cooper]] as Dolly
*[[Kathleen Saintsbury]] as Cissy

{{Dad's Army}}

{{Use British English|date=September 2014}}

[[Category:Dad's Army (series 8) episodes]]
[[Category:1975 British television episodes]]

The Lion Has Phones

2022-08-14T17:07:25Z

86.160.37.191: /* Notes */

{{More footnotes|date=February 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[Dad's Army]]
| image =
| caption =
| series_no = 3
| episode = 3
| director = [[Harold Snoad]]
| story = [[Jimmy Perry]] and David Croft
| producer = David Croft
| editor =
| airdate = {{Start date|df=yes|1969|09|25}}
| length = 30 minutes
| guests =
| prev = [[Battle School (Dad's Army)|Battle School]]
| next = [[The Bullet is Not for Firing]]
}}
"'''The Lion Has 'Phones'''" is the third episode of the third series of the British comedy series ''[[Dad's Army]]''. It was originally transmitted on 25 September 1969.

==Synopsis==
Captain Mainwaring teaches the [[platoon]] how to use a public [[Telephone booth|telephone box]] for emergency communication.

==Plot==
After a successful exercise in camouflage, Mainwaring delivers a lecture on communications. Apparently, the four main targets are the [[gasometer]], the railway bridge, the telephone exchange and the [[reservoir]]. They are vital to the town's survival, so two men will be posted at each location. If they see anything suspicious, they will phone Mainwaring via the nearest telephone box. Frazer asks Mainwaring what will happen if the telephone boxes are out of action, and many alternatives are suggested, including a [[heliograph]], tick-tacking, shooting a hole in the top of the gasometer and setting fire to it, and tapping the railway line and laying your ear onto it (Pike dismisses this idea by telling Jones that a train may come and run over your ear).

Pike and Godfrey admit they do not know how to use a telephone box; Mrs Pike believes they are unhygienic and Godfrey is hopeless with machines. After a hilarious practical demonstration, they march down to the telephone box nearest the reservoir. Pike is the first to get the lesson, but the recipient of the call is his mum, who gives Mainwaring and Wilson an earful. When a queue begins to form, Walker cons them into believing that telephone calls are going on [[ration]] from tomorrow.

That evening, while out on patrol, Frazer and Walker spot a German plane crash into the reservoir. Walker phones Mainwaring, then mysteriously vanishes. Mainwaring and the rest of the platoon arrive, and their verbal attempts to persuade the Germans to surrender result in heavy gunfire. Mainwaring writes GHQ's phone number on some paper and tells Jones to go and phone them and to memorise and destroy the paper afterwards, but Jones' muddle headedness as he says "Memorise and destroy the phone", and him reading the phone number upside-down (991 instead of 166), results in him ringing the Embassy cinema instead, and ends up believing that [[Googie Withers]] and [[Eric Portman]] are aboard the plane. He gets no joy from [[Emergency service|emergency services]] either, so [[Air Raid Precautions|ARP]] Warden Hodges helps Jones get through.

Eventually, Lieutenant Hope-Bruce of the [[Coldstream Guards]] arrives and tells Mainwaring that they've surrounded the reservoir. He pompously tries to get Mainwaring to leave the situation in the hands of the regular army, but is quick to cancel an incautious order for [[Mortar bomb|mortar bombs]] under Mainwaring's persuasion. Walker returns and tells Mainwaring that he's talked to the man in charge of the reservoir: he has opened the [[Sluice|sluices]], and the Germans will have to swim for it in less than two hours. Laughing, Mainwaring says they should leave the mopping up to the Coldstream Guards.

==Cast==
{{div col}}
*[[Arthur Lowe]] as [[Captain Mainwaring]]
*[[John Le Mesurier]] as [[Sergeant Wilson]]
*[[Clive Dunn]] as [[Lance Corporal Jones]]
*[[John Laurie]] as [[Private Frazer]]
*[[James Beck]] as [[Private Walker]]
*[[Arnold Ridley]] as [[Private Godfrey]]
*[[Ian Lavender]] as [[Private Pike]]
*[[Janet Davies (actress)|Janet Davies]] as [[List of Dad's Army characters#Mrs Pike|Mrs Pike]]
*[[Bill Pertwee]] as [[List of Dad's Army characters#Chief ARP Warden Hodges|ARP Warden Hodges]]
*[[Avril Angers]] as the Telephone Operator
*[[Timothy Carlton]] as Lieutenant Hope-Bruce
*[[Stanley McGeagh]] as Sergeant Waller
*[[Pamela Cundell]], [[Olive Mercer]] and [[Bernadette Milnes]] as the Ladies in the Queue
*[[Gilda Perry]] as Doreen
*[[Linda James (actress)|Linda James]] as Betty
*[[Richard Jacques (actor)|Richard Jacques]] as Mr Cheesewright
*[[Colin Daniel (actor)|Colin Daniel]] and [[Carson Green]] as Boys
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
#The working title for this episode was 'Sorry, Wrong Number', which was the title used for the later radio episode.
#The episode title is a reference to the 1939 propaganda film ''[[The Lion Has Wings]]''.
#When Jones accidentally rings up the cinema, they mistakenly believe he is enquiring about the 1942 film ''[[One of Our Aircraft Is Missing]]'' starring, as they tell him, Googie Withers. A poster for this film can be seen on the wall of the box office.
#In this episode, Sgt Wilson says "I have never heard you swear before, sir", when Captain Mainwaring says "bloody cheek". This is untrue, as Wilson has heard Mainwaring say "the rotten bastard" in ''[[The Showing Up of Corporal Jones]]'', an episode from [[List of Dad's Army episodes#Series 1|Series 1]].
#When the ladies join the queue for the telephone box, [[Pamela Cundell]]'s character is referred to as [[Mrs Fox]], the character she played two episodes previously, yet she is still credited as 'Lady in Queue'.
#In 2020, for the [[Dad's Army Appreciation Society]], [[Niles Schilder]] wrote four scripts about how the platoon would have dealt with the events of 2020. In one of the scripts, ''An Unauthorised Gathering,'' the platoon learn how to wash their hands in a similar way to how they learnt to use a public telephone box in this episode.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Schilder|first=Niles|title=fanfiction|url=http://www.dadsarmy.co.uk/fanfiction.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-02-23|website=www.dadsarmy.co.uk}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book|title=The Complete A-Z of Dad’s Army|author1=Croft, David |author2=Perry, Jimmy |author3=Webber, Richard |year=2000|publisher=Orion|isbn= 0-7528-4637-X}}

==External links==
*{{BBC episode|b00tn6gk}}
*{{IMDb episode|0552327}}

{{Dad's Army}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lion Has Phones, The}}
[[Category:Dad's Army (series 3) episodes]]
[[Category:1969 British television episodes]]

The Honourable Man

2022-08-07T06:23:47Z

86.160.37.191: /* Plot */

{{one source|date=February 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[Dad's Army]]
| image =
| caption =
| series_no = 6
| episode = 5
| director = [[David Croft (TV producer)|David Croft]]
| story = [[Jimmy Perry]] and David Croft
| producer = David Croft
| airdate = 28 November 1973
| length = 30 minutes
| guests =
| prev = [[We Know Our Onions]]
| next = [[Things That Go Bump in the Night (Dad's Army)|Things That Go Bump in the Night]]
}}

"'''The Honourable Man'''" is the fifth episode of the sixth series of the British comedy series ''[[Dad's Army]]''. It was originally transmitted on 28 November 1973.

==Synopsis==
When Wilson lets it be known that his family has 'moved up one place' and that he is now entitled to style himself '[[The Honourable]],' he finds himself being courted by the [[golf club (institution)|Golf Club]] and is being proposed as the man to welcome a visiting Russian [[Very Important Person|VIP]], Mainwaring is furious.

==Plot==
In the church hall, the Town Clerk is opening a meeting. It is to decide on Walmington-on-Sea's welcome to a visiting Russian worker, who has been made [[Hero of the Soviet Union]] for building 5,723 tanks. The Town Clerk puts Mainwaring in charge of the committee after a pompous speech, but Warden Hodges objects, thus forcing a vote, which overwhelmingly supports Mainwaring, who therefore takes charge. During this both Sergeant Wilson and Lance-Corporal Jones arrive late. Private Frazer suggests that, after a great deal of thought, he would like to offer the Russian a voucher worth [[Pound sterling|£]]10 towards the cost of a funeral. Private Walker argues that that is no use, he would have to die to redeem it, whereupon Frazer comments "That's a risk I have to take". Private Godfrey again expresses his antipathy to "the reds" and so urges that the welcome should not be extravagant, and the vicar refuses to allow his choir to sing "[[The Red Flag]]". The committee decides to present a wooden key, representing the freedom of the town.

In Mainwaring's office, he enquires of Private Pike over Wilson's absence, and is annoyed to hear he is still at lunch, at 2.20pm. Mainwaring finds a letter in his in-tray addressed to "The Honourable Arthur Wilson" and assumes it is a joke. On Wilson's arrival he surprises Mainwaring and amazes Pike by asserting it is genuine: Wilson's uncle, a [[peer]], has died, thus entitling him to be styled "The Honourable". On being asked where he had been at lunchtime, Mainwaring is furious to hear Wilson has been invited to join the golf club (even though Wilson doesn't play golf), as he has been "trying to get in for years". Wilson compounds Mainwaring's rage by announcing that they found him some [[smoked salmon]] for lunch, whereas Mainwaring had a "[[Thyrsites atun|snoek]] [[fishcake]] at the [[British Restaurant]]". During this discussion Pike has telephoned his mother, who bursts into the office, and flings herself all over Wilson, although she does ask "It won't make any difference, will it?", to which Wilson assures her it won't. Pike, however, is too naive to understand the implication.

At the next parade, Jones recounts how the British officers in the [[Sudan]] who had the "Honourable" title always had a [[Stiff upper lip|stiff upper lip]], even after their heads had been blown off. Mainwaring addresses the parade and insists that Wilson must do his motorcycle training on the platoon's motorbike. Then the platoon practise grounding arms and applauding, just as the Town Clerk arrives. In Mainwaring's office he suggests tentatively that "the Honourable Arthur Wilson" should present the key to the Russian instead of Mainwaring. Mainwaring refuses point blank. Back on parade, they are interrupted by the verger and the vicar, who invite Wilson to join the [[Parochial church council|PCC]], and also ask if he would like a crest for his own private pew. Mainwaring and Wilson retreat to his office, where Mainwaring again refuses to step aside for Wilson when telephoned by Hodges. Mainwaring finally snaps and reveals his intense jealousy over Wilson's newfound title; Wilson however admits he resents his new social status, as the people of Walmington-on-Sea continually pester him. This only infuriates Mainwaring more, as he fancies that one should prize aristocratic titles, and admits if he had a title he would make himself a director of the bank. He reminds Wilson that, title or not, he is still Mainwaring's employee and that he had better learn his place.

Wilson is seen embarking on his motorcycle training dressed in khaki overalls. He wobbles unsteadily down the road, goes in and out of [[Ditch|ditches]] and finally falls off in one; a car is seen coming to a halt to help him.

At the welcoming parade, a band, the Home Guard, the Wardens and the Nurses are lined up on the green. The visitor, Mr Vladislovski, arrives in his car, and makes his way to the [[podium]]. The Mayor makes a one sentence speech, then Mainwaring makes a much longer one, but Mr Vladislovski, through his interpreter, reacts angrily, accusing the VIPs greeting him of not being genuine workers, with soft clean uncalloused hands. He rushes to his car, and produces Wilson from inside, whom he insists is a genuine worker, with oily hands, toiling alone in the countryside. He presents Wilson with the key representing the freedom of Walmington, and departs.

==Cast==
{{div col}}
*[[Arthur Lowe]] as [[Captain Mainwaring]]
*[[John Le Mesurier]] as [[Sergeant Wilson]]
*[[Clive Dunn]] as [[Lance Corporal Jones]]
*[[John Laurie]] as [[Private Frazer]]
*[[James Beck]] as [[Private Walker]]
*[[Arnold Ridley]] as [[Private Godfrey]]
*[[Ian Lavender]] as [[Private Pike]]
*[[Bill Pertwee]] as [[Chief ARP Warden Hodges|ARP Warden Hodges]]
*[[Edward Sinclair]] as [[Maurice Yeatman|The Verger]]
*[[Frank Williams (actor)|Frank Williams]] as [[Reverend Timothy Farthing|The Vicar]]
*[[Eric Longworth]] as [[List of characters in Dad's Army#Recurring characters|Mr. Gordon]] (The Town Clerk)
*[[Pamela Cundell]] as [[List of characters in Dad's Army#Recurring characters|Mrs. Fox]]
*Fred McNaughton as The Mayor
*Gabor Vernon as Mr Vladislovski
*[[Hana Maria Pravda]] as Interpreter
*[[Robert Raglan]] as Colonel Pritchard
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
#This episode concerns the uneasy [[Political alliance|alliance]] formed between the [[capitalist]] [[United Kingdom]], its allies and the [[Communist]] [[Soviet Union]] from 1941. Many of Walmington's citizens are uneasy about honouring a 'red', and having [[The Red Flag]] sung. This was quite a common sentiment at the time, though as Mainwaring puts it "in time of war, one can't be too choosy about one's bedfellows".
#Walker lightly references the 1939 [[Nazi-Soviet Pact]], and subsequent [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] invasion of [[Poland]] after Mainwaring had mentioned in his speech that [[United Kingdom|Britain]] and the [[Soviet Union]] were "allies" even through they were "poles apart".
#Of all the episodes of ''Dad's Army'', this is probably the one in which the class conflict between the middle-class Mainwaring and the upper-class Wilson, which is used for comedy throughout the series, is the most explored. In many episodes Mainwaring complains of Wilson's almost relaxed attitude to his duties and his public school education and about how hard he has had to work in comparison, but the deference shown by the townspeople towards Wilson's newly official status allows Mainwaring's chip-on-the-shoulder and Wilson's reticence at being snooty or arriviste about his position to be comprehensively played out on screen.
#This would be the last complete episode of ''Dad's Army'' to feature James Beck as Walker. Beck would record two radio episodes of ''Dad's Army'' on Friday 13 July 1973; the following day he attended a school fete where he became ill and was taken home by his wife. He was later rushed to hospital where he died of acute [[pancreatitis]] three weeks later. His character was mentioned in the studio sequences of the following episode ("[[Things That Go Bump in the Night (Dad's Army)|Things That Go Bump in the Night]]"), and was seen in the location footage which had been filmed in the spring of 1973.<ref>{{cite news|last=Clark|first=Neil|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10223138/James-Beck-the-Dads-Army-star-cut-off-in-his-prime.html|title=James Beck: the Dad’s Army star cut off in his prime|work=The Telegraph|date=6 August 2013|access-date=21 February 2019}}</ref> He was written out of the show in the last episode of this series, "[[The Recruit (Dad's Army)|The Recruit]]".

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Dad's Army}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honourable Man, The}}
[[Category:Dad's Army (series 6) episodes]]
[[Category:1973 British television episodes]]