Re-Making Dad’s Army, Vandalism?

Dad’s Army, Remake branded “cultural vandalism”

We Ask, Bring Them back Or Leave Them Junked?

UKTV Gold has re-made three missing episodes of Dad’s Army that are due to be screened later this month on GOLD to coincide with the 50th anniversary of their original transmission.  Whilst this is not the first time these missing episodes have been re-made (there have been stage productions and more recently animated versions) this is the first time they’ve been re-made for TV.

Whilst many fans don’t expect them to live up to the originals, one person has spoken out about the succession of sitcom re-makes.  Stuart Mc Gugan, who guest starred in an episode of the original series as well as starring in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, called the re-make “cultural Vandalism”

He spoke out in an exclusive interview with The Sun which you can read here.

Has he got a point? These are all time classic shows that pulled in millions of TV viewers and radio listeners.  Unfortunately due to a policy at the time of wiping tape to make  way for new shows many episodes of our most cherished shows found themselves consigned to history.

The policy stopped around 1974 and in recent years there has been a clammer to recreate these missing shows for a whole  new audience.  Does it work?

In a series of posts we’ll look at some of those re-makes.

Starting with Tony Hancock.

Not all Hancock’s work still exists in the archives.  In recent years The Tony Hancock appreciation society have unearthed some off air audio recordings, made by eager fans in the day, of missing TV episodes.  To be fair Tony’s radio show is still one of the funniest sitcoms ever made and these audio recordings do nothing to spoil the enjoyment of the originals.  In 2014 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his first radio series several episodes were re-made with an all new cast and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.  Made with full support from writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and starring Kevin Mc Nally as the lad himself these were really very good.  So good there were four series.

However the TV recreation in our opinion was not as good.

 

[AdSense-A]

 

 

[AdSense-A]

 

 

Tribute Sketch