When I started watching The Lion Has 'Phones, my first thought was Oh no! You see, I remembered the opening gags of this episode, which involve the platoon learning the art of camouflage. The first gag involves a field filled with several hay bales. Mainwaring calls the platoon to attention and the bales suddenly stand up. Broad, yes, but passably funny. Then we cut to a street lined with several conveniently positioned dustbins. Mainwaring calls the troops to attention and the dustbins all stand up. OK, I thought, Enough now! Next we see a churchyard littered with suspiciously flimsy looking gravestones. Surely not, I thought. Yep, they did it again, the gravestones stand up! Next we cut to a yard with several milk churns... At this point, watching as a child, I vividly remember turning the TV off. I loved Dad's Army but that was too ridiculous even for me, I thought. All these years later, I'd still not seen this episode, so I never knew that in my haste, I missed the whole point of the gag. Because the final time Mainwaring calls the platoon to attention, the milk churns stay in place and the troops emerge from behind a previously unnoticed barn wall in the background. In my demand for instant gratification, I mistook the setup for the punchline.
Patience is something that is so often rewarded when watching Dad's Army. Those more used to the rapid pace of modern comedies may find some episodes slow but there's nearly always a point to the build-up, and laying that groundwork ultimately makes the payoff more satisfying. I'm glad I returned to The Lion Has 'Phones all these years later, because aptly enough it was worth the wait. The only thing that doesn't work about the episode is the odd title (a non-pun on the title of the War film The Lion Has Wings, which was wisely replaced with the snappier title Sorry, Wrong Number for the later radio version). OK, so there's a couple of very fake outdoor sets which look particularly shoddy after the good location work in previous episode Battle School, but that's part of the charm. After that episode's bigger slapstick moments, The Lion Has 'Phones works on a smaller canvas, with some effective small scale physical stuff involving Mainwaring, Pike and Godfrey trying to cram into a small telephone box, and a moment in which Mainwaring forgets a telephone number which showcases Arthur Lowe's exceptional comic timing splendidly.
What begins as an episode with a more modest story about learning how to use telephone boxes gradually builds to a more dramatic finale with a downed German plane in a reservoir. There's some real peril, including gunfire, and a very nicely orchestrated farcical series of phone calls between Jones, a cinema employee and an inappropriately laidback emergency operator (a scene-stealing Avril Angers, one of the pioneering female stand-ups). It's a great example of the Dad's Army slow-build, with the episode getting more packed and engaging as it goes along, building on the strong foundation it took the time to lay. The first great episode of series 3.
1 out of 1 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
