Lack of familiarity breeds contempt

At the beginning of Season Two, I’d have bet a modest sum that Abigoliah would struggle to like brittle, arch, obscure Yes Minister, and immediately fall in love with warm, silly, relatable Dad’s Army. I would have lost that bet, and I wouldn’t have been able to argue. Yes Minister was a slam dunk and Dad’s Army only has The Goon Show to rival it for shows Abigoliah just didn’t get. So what went wrong?

Firstly, there’s the problem of familiarity. Dad’s Army started in the late 1960s so even if you’re at my relatively advanced age, you first encountered it as re-run. It was a show you knew, that had always been around, that you were supposed to like. Our affection for the characters means that we tolerate the easier pace and lower gag-rate of Dad’s Army. But now imagine that you’re used to watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and you decide to give Warmington-on-Sea a visit. Do you start to see the problem?

But the warmth which I thought would be so beguiling (remembering that The Good Life was a hit, but Abigoliah struggled with Reginald Perrin) is actually a problem here. Yes Minister doesn’t ask us for sympathy for its characters. Hacker is bumblingly relatable but he’s also selfish, narcissistic, and not above betraying his colleagues if it will get him personal advancement. Sir Humphrey is almost entirely self-serving, whether that’s feathering his own nest, banking favours, or simply maintaining the status quo. Bernard shows loyalty to whomever spoke to him last and generally just tries to keep his head down and not get fired.

So, the fact that a new viewer hasn’t spent years getting to know this trio isn’t an issue. You aren’t expected to clasp them to your bosom. But you are expected to love and admire the Dad’s Army platoon, even if they are silly and sometimes self-aggrandising, they generally do the right thing and in one or two episodes are even shown as willing to lay down their lives for their country. But it’s a big cast and so that means over two episodes, you just get a lot of silly old men falling over and blithering at each other.

So… is Dad’s Army – I hate this word – genuinely “overrated”? No, I don’t think that’s fair. It was a hit when it was first on, and remained a very well-regarded show for generations. The characters are accurately drawn and beautifully played, and the plots are ingenious enough to draw us in, without overwhelming the delicate interplay between the actors. But it does slightly fall between two stools. Hancock never promises it’s going to be a machine-gun gag-fest, but the concept of social climber vs casually charming working class bestie (or social climber vs the world in the last series) is very easy to grasp. Whereas even the key tension between Mainwaring and Wilson isn’t necessarily apparent at first glance.

It’s also worth noting that Perry and Croft didn’t rest on their laurels. Later episodes include the technically challenging story in which Arthur Lowe plays the dual role of Mainwaring and his joke shop owning brother. And the final episode is genuinely moving. It first went out on Remembrance Sunday.

I don’t blame myself, I think I did give Dad’s Army the best chance I could. But that’s the thing about comedy – we don’t all have to agree, and we probably never will.