Dad's Army Radio Show - in Conversation with Jack Lane

The Dad’s Army Radio Show is on national tour this year. On Saturday 5 October, the show will feature here on the Torch Theatre stage. Anwen chatted with one of the actors, Jack Lane, to hear more about the show …

Tell us a bit about your production and what can audiences expect.

Our show takes three of the original television scripts and turns them into what we hope is a unique way to enjoy Dad’s Army afresh. The audience sees two actors, with the scripts in front of them, giving voice to all the characters, with sound effects and vintage music. A very simple set-up but one that gives full rein to each audience member’s imagination and allows us to recreate the original show vividly in their minds.

Is it a challenge – two actors and 25 characters?!

We do have to concentrate very hard when performing the scripts otherwise we can easily veer off the road. It is very easy, when we are on a roll, for one of us to lurch into the wrong voice. It requires a quick reverse and gear change before one can continue with the correct one. But it is rather like learning and performing music: we listen carefully to each other and let the words flow out with accuracy but also in the immediacy of the moment. The audience make the vital contribution with their listening and their response.

How has the original Dad’s Army comedy series inspired you?

Both of us are life-long Dad’s Army devotees. David is old enough to remember the original broadcasts and survived his schooldays by pretending to be John Le Mesurier. Jack is twenty-five years younger than David but is equally besotted with Dad’s Army and its company of characters. So to have ‘permission to speak’ as Mainwaring, Wilson, Jones, Pike and all the others is, for us, a huge honour and also a chance to work with top-notch scripts by the best writers: David Croft and Jimmy Perry.

Who are your favourite characters to play and why?

Jack’s favourite characters are Captain Mainwaring and Lance Corporal Jones; ‘I love Clive Dunn’s vocal rhythms, they’re a joy to recreate. Mainwaring’s sheer pomposity and class struggle are equally a comedy delight’

David’s favourite is Sargent Wilson. ‘John Le Mesurier was always a school boy favourite of mine, I’d often pretend to be him. The light finger gestures and touching of the face all go into the performance. It’s an honour to recreate such an iconic character’

Describe the show in three words.

Fast, funny and nostalgic

What if you’ve never seen Dad’s Army, will you enjoy it?

If you love Dad’s Army as much as we do, we promise you will love our show. But you don’t have to be a Dad’s Army fan to like Dad’s Army Radio Show. Our aim is to give the audience a unique theatre experience in which their own imaginations are engaged to create a vivid mindscape of changing places and people, of music and voices – a sort of collective dream, if you like.

The show has received rave reviews by some of the big national papers – what do you think audiences here in Pembrokeshire will think of it?

We really enjoy touring, not only to venues which have become old favourites for us but to new ones in towns that we may be visiting for the first time.

We have performed the show in its various versions in such diverse venues as an outdoor amphitheatre, in a barn with birds flitting over our heads like Luftwaffe, in remote Aberdeenshire village halls, in stately Victorian theatres and aboard cruise ships during Force Nine gales. In all these settings, we have tried to transport the audiences’ imaginations away to the safety of Walmington-On-Sea and to the characters who are as familiar as family.