A modern Dad's Army? Stupid boy...

Plans to make the legendary TV comedy into a new film are doomed to disappoint. The show was the perfect blend of great acting and writing.

Dad's Army: Permission to laugh, sir!

Clive Dunn, who died last week, was just one of the reasons Dad's Army is still as loved today as ever.

How Clive Dunn & Co made Dad's Army the finest sitcom

10 secrets of how Clive Dunn, who died this week, and his fellow Home Guards made Dad's Army our finest sitcom.

Clive Dunn in Dad's Army: stoicism, charm & sausages

As Corporal Jones, Dunn was Meursault with a dash of Mr Magoo and one of the sweetest characters ever to grace a sitcom.

Dad's Army: picture special

Photo gallery from the sitcom Dad's Army.

Dad's Army butcher van goes on sale

The classic butcher's van ready to foil a Nazi invasion of Britain by Dad's Army is up for sale.

If you've never seen this Dad's Army story (1969 episode 'War Dance'), you might think you're watching a different programme. It's an extraordinary episode: Pike itching to announce his engagement, laid-back Wilson rounding on his superior with "My God, Mainwaring, you can hit pretty low when it suits you!", and the good captain himself getting sloshed. The occasion for all this odd behaviour is the Home Guard dance.

Pike's revelation that he's taking an ATS girl sparks lots of juicy private-life speculation, and some epic snobbery from Mainwaring. It's an unusual outing but a wonderful one. And Arthur Lowe really did play a phenomenally good drunk. Do we give this fine leading man the respect he deserved? Or remember how wide-ranging Dad's Army could be? We certainly should.

Actor Philip Madoc dies aged 77

Welsh actor Philip Madoc has died after a short illness, his agent says. Dad's Army will remember him as the German U-Boat captain in the famous episode "The Deadly Attachment".

A justly lauded 1969 episode, full of well worked gags and delicious confusion. For many years it was missing presumed lost, but returned to the archives in 2001. It follows the platoon's separation when church bells signal an invasion, but what's fun is seeing Godfrey's oft-mentioned sisters Dolly and Cissy, and hearing Wilson deny he's Pike's father (the writers always insisted he was).

The despised Hodges elicits the usual groans, there's a vintage Mainwaring pratfall, and the elderly sisters try to carry on with their tea while gunshots fly all around their cottage. The song There'll Always Be an England sums it all up beautifully.

This episode kicked off the second series in 1969. You'll see that by this stage the cast had their characters down pat: Mainwaring is flummoxed by the 24-hour clock, Jones is a step behind the rest of the platoon, thunder-browed Frazer curses the entire world, and so on.

After some creaky-limbed physical training in the yard, during which Mrs Pike complains that her Frank shouldn't be standing around in a vest, a crashing bore from GHQ drops by with a military challenge for the men. And for some reason that's hard to justify, Frazer and Walker end up in a pantomime cow costume among a real herd. It's a great example of when very silly becomes very funny.