Dad's Army: Le Mesurier expected show to 'flop' says ex-wife

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The beloved British sitcom Dad’s Army tells of a hapless Home Guard platoon during the Second World War. Written by showrunners David Croft and Jimmy Perry, the series made 80 episodes and reportedly pulled in around 18 million viewers. Arthur Lowe, who played the pompous Captain Mainwaring, almost didn’t make the cut because of a former TV role he had taken up prior to his Dad’s Army showcase, it has been revealed.

The BBC were not keen on the casting of Arthur as Captain Mainwaring because of his long-running role in ITV’s Coronation Street.

15 years after first treading the boards in repertory theatres, he finally rose to fame as draper Leonard Swindley in the ITV soap Coronation Street, in episodes which aired in 1960.

Reflecting on the comedy’s success, TV channel Gold revealed: “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Dad’s Army.” One fact read: “Jon Pertwee (the third Doctor Who) and Leonard Rossiter (Rising Damp, Reginald Perrin) were considered for the role instead.”

The last of the nine series aired in 1977, but the comedy show is still hugely popular amongst fans.

Besides Arthur, David Jason (Only Fools and Horses) was David Croft’s first choice for Lance Corporal Jones, while Jimmy Perry wanted Jack Haig, who would later star as Monsieur LeClerc in ‘Allo ‘Allo!.

The role of Sergeant Wilson was also originally envisaged for prolific TV actor Robert Dorning, who went on to appear in the classic episode “Something Nasty in the Vault” as a bank inspector.

Before taking up the role, Arthur was a little wary of being involved in comedy that was too lowbrow.

The TV star insisted that his contract would specify that he would never have to appear on the sitcom without wearing his trousers.

The first episode of series six included a comical moment where a grenade ends up down the Captain’s trousers, but Arthur refused to go ahead with it.

BBC showrunners had to quickly rewrite the scene so that Corporal Jones (played by Clive Dunn) ended up with the bomb in his britches instead.

Co-writer Jimmy had reflected on the moment, saying: “Being Arthur, he didn’t read the script until an hour before filming.

“‘I’m not having this, James,’ he said. ‘Tell your partner I don’t have bombs down my trousers and I’m certainly not having John Laurie’s arm down my trousers.’”

The first episode was watched by eight million people and was filmed in Thetford in Norfolk.

Unfortunately for fans, three episodes disappeared and cannot be watched again.

Between 1967 and 1978, the BBC routinely deleted archive programmes to free up storage space and three episodes from series two suffered the fate.

Originally, the broadcaster could have lost five, due to the number of episodes in the series, until an appeal by the BBC unearthed copies that had been dumped in a skip.

The copies had been discovered by a member of staff at Elstree Studios and had been taken home.

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