Dad's Army, as well as being a successful television series, was adpated by the BBC into a radio series, with 67 episodes airing on BBC Radio 4 from 1974 to 1976. Television episodes were apdapted for radio by Michael Knowles (who often made appearances on the television series playing various British army officers) and Harold Snoad, who directed several Dad's Army episodes for television in the programme's early seasons. Most of the main cast reprised their roles for the radio series, with a few exceptions (see below).
The entire radio series has been released on CD, and since 2007 the full run of radio episodes has been regularly repeated on digital archive station BBC Radio 7.
Episodes[]
Main article: List of Radio Episodes
Recording of the radio series began mid-way through 1973, though the first episode was not broadcast until the following year. 67 television episodes in total were adapted for radio, though some episodes were not turned into audio stories. Those episodes were: Gorilla Warfare, Ring Dem Bells, When You've Got to Go, Come in, Your Time is Up, The Face on the Poster, My Brother and I, The Love of Three Oranges, Wake-Up Walmington, The Making of Private Pike, Knights of Madness, The Miser's Hoard, Number Engaged & Never Too Old.
The last episode of the radio series (Ten Seconds from Now) was based on the 1972 Christmas Night with the Stars insert Broadcast to the Empire.
Cast[]
While most of the main cast reprised their roles from the TV show for the radio series, Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier and Clive Dunn were the only cast members to appear in all 67 episodes. Despite James Beck still being alive for the recording of the adaptation of Battle School, his last work on the radio series was on the audio episode of A Stripe for Frazer, which was broadcast half-way through the first season. His character of Private Walker was played in subsequent episodes first by Graham Stark, then by Larry Martyn.
John Snagge was a new addition to the cast as a newsreader who would set the scene for each episode. For some smaller parts, different actors to those in the TV series were used; for instance, in the radio series Mollie Sugden was cast as Mrs. Fox, while Pearl Hackney played the role of Mrs. Pike.
Notes[]
The pilot episode The Man and the Hour was actually based on the revised version of events seen in the opening of the film version of the show rather than the TV pilot.
Knowles and Snoad also developed a radio sequel to Dad's Army, It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which told what happened to some of the characters after the war. It was originally intended to star Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier reprising their Dad’s Army roles as Mainwaring and Wilson respectively, but Lowe died shortly after recording the pilot episode. Bill Pertwee and Ian Lavender (Hodges and Pike) were brought in to replace him for a 13-episode series.
Many years later, Dad's Army co-creator Jimmy Perry wrote a radio sketch, The Boy Who Saved England, for the Last Night at the Paris evening broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 3rd June 1995. It featured Ian Lavender as Pike, Bill Pertwee as Hodges, Frank Williams as the Vicar and Perry himself as General Haverlock-Seabag.