It’s doomed!

The TV sitcom Dad’s Army ran on the BBC from 1968 to 1977 (nine series, 80 episodes) with repeats still running to this day (Saturday, BBC2, 8.25 p.m.) and I sometimes watch these repeats with my dad (92) and we laugh like idiots and I sometimes watch with my son (23) and we laugh like idiots and sometimes the three of us watch together (combined age 169, should that be of interest) and we all laugh like idiots but I was not minded to laugh like an idiot during this film, possibly because I was not minded to laugh at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, goes the saying, and while this isn’t something you’re ever told by Carphone Warehouse when it’s begging you to upgrade, it would have proved good advice in this instance, should anyone have wished to hear.

I had my initial reservations, as did we all, I expect. Indeed, when I first heard there was going to be a big-screen update my gut reaction said, ‘No, no, no’. And also, ‘No’. Followed by, ‘No’. But then, fool that I am, the cast list was announced and I perked up enormously. The casting is a dream as it’s Toby Jones (Mainwaring), Bill Nighy (Wilson), Tom Courtenay (Jones), Michael Gambon (Godfrey), Bill Paterson (Frazer), Daniel Mays (Walker) and Blake Harrison (Pike). It could work, became my thinking. You can’t gather all that talent — Gambon! As Private Godfrey! — and have it come to nothing, became my thinking. But then, fool that I am, I did not factor in a feeble script, endless pointless slapstick and the sort of ooh-er-missus humour that wrings every double entendre it can from ‘roly-poly’ and then returns for more. (I like roly-poly, but not that much.)

Directed by Oliver Parker (Johnny English Reborn), and written by Hamish McColl (Johnny English Reborn, Paddington and, for theatre, The Play What I Wrote), the film takes us back to Walmington-on-Sea, 1944, and our home guard platoon, as led by Captain Mainwaring.