David Croft (I)

Jimmy Perry and David Croft interview

The creative forces behind Dad's Army and You Rang M'Lord are octogenarians Jimmy Perry and David Croft.

The show was written by David Croft and Richard Spendlove, but it might just as easily have been written by a low-level computer, because Oh Doctor Beeching! is not so much a work of creative writing as it is one of applied mathematics. Having had such a great and deserved triumph with Dad's Army, which he co-wrote with Jimmy Perry, Mr Croft has spent 20 years trying to recreate the forumula.

It was pig-in-clover happiness just to watch the extracts from Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot, Mum and Hi-De-Hi! in the Omnibus tribute to Perry and Croft, who wrote them.

Last night's Omnibus (BBC1) looked at the other great sitcom partnership of that generation, Jimmy Perry and David Croft, creators of Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and Hi-de-Hi! [...] Of the talking heads who'd queued up to pay homage, only Bob Monkhouse spoke with insight and eloquence, noting how jokes were tailor-made for the characters, and how the duo "bring such extraordinarily opposing views of comedy and blend them together so perfectly that the result is seamless".

What did they schedule? Grace and Favour. I rest my case. This is a programme that makes 'Allo 'Allo look like Beckett [...] This is not so much a comedy programme, more your funny aunts and uncles doing a routine at the Christmas party. You simply have to feel well-disposed towards the actors for it to succeed.

By relative standards, shows like Dad's Army and Porridge are miracles of observation, and even by absolute ones they are astonishingly good: the best of each (and both are getting repeats now on BBC1, thereby providing a feast of viewing) will never look entirely like period pieces, but will always retain their capacity to surprise. Compare the floundering abstractness of 'The Grove Family' to the subtleties of social nuance in 'Dad's Army': it's a clear advance.

Well, people enter Are You Being Served? by walking downstairs, one by one in more or less fancy dress. Original it ain't. Indeed, it is strangely familiar. It reminds me of that stuff of which not a drop is sold until it's 10 years old. The effect is much the same: you tend to fall on the floor and feel utterly ashamed of yourself afterwards.

Clearly trying to do another Dad's Army, Jimmy Perry and David Croft have come up with something called It Ain't Half Hot, Mum. [...] The whole thing is calculated to yield mirth in plenty. Unfortunately the air of calculation is precisely what comes over strongest. Windsor Davies, however, playing a neurotic sar'-major with imperialistic convictions, was very funny straight away. Judgment reserved.

This pain-wracked (I hope) pair write "Dad's Army" (BBC1) and "It Ain't Half Hot, Mum" (BBC1) which is about the misadventures of an army concert party in India is, I think, funnier. I particularly recommend the performance of Windsor Davies as the Sergeant Major.

Jimmy Perry's and David Croft's inaugural script was pretty feeble, with an over reliance on strained little jokes, but again this may be only a scene-setting problem.