The Army Game

1 9 5 7 - 1 9 6 1 (UK)
154 x 30 minute episodes

Debuting on ITV in 1957, The Army Game was British comedy at its best, very much in the style of Carry On films which were to start the following year (Indeed some of the Army Game cast developed into Carry On regulars).

William Hartnell (who in time became the first Doctor Who) was the appropriately named Sergeant-Major Bullimore, with Bill Fraser as the odious beady-eyed Sergeant Claude Snudge, who together had responsibility for the lads in Hut 29 of the Surplus Ordnance Depot at Nether Hopping in remote Staffordshire. The concept was simple: a group of men serving out time as conscripts in the army are determined to dodge duty and derive maximum fun out of a situation they'd rather not be in.

The fact that National Service was still compulsory in Britain when the series began, and also that the Second World War had only been over for 12 years, meant that audiences could readily identify with the situation, and sympathize with the plight of the conscript.

Michael Medwin (later replaced by Harry Fowler) led as motley a crew of conscripts as you're ever likely to meet, played by Bernard Bresslaw, Norman Rossington, Charles Hawtrey (whose character was heavily into knitting) and Alfie  Bass, who portrayed Private "Excused Boots" Bisley. Bresslaw displayed a minus IQ in the series and had a catchphrase of "I only arsked" which became the title of a 1958 film spin-off. Not everyone saw the funny side of The Army Game, and a real serving officer believed it to be a corrupting influence and decreed that the men in his command should not watch it. He relented after the cast heard of his edict and "invaded" his headquarters.

The episodes of The Army Game that have survived the passing years do not seem anywhere near as funny now as they once were, probably because the era of National Service has since long passed into the memory.

One further peacetime army sitcom was tried in the 1970s (Get Some In!) but, otherwise, subsequent service productions have harked back further, to the war years, the most notable example being the BBC's Dad's Army (Frank Williams - the vicar in Dad's Army - was the dithering Captain Pocket in The Army Game.) In 1960, Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser marched their beloved characters into civvy street for Bootsie and Snudge.