Dad's Army sequel a-piers again

'Lost' recording returned to BBC

A previously unheard episode of a Dad's Army spin-off, which featured the last performance of star Arthur Lowe, has been unearthed.

The BBC lost the pilot episode of It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which featured Captain Mainwaring and his men trying to restore a pier, after it was recorded in 1982.

Lowe died of a stroke just weeks later, and the radio show was never broadcast.

It was though that the tape was lost forever, until the comedy's creator, Harold Snoad, discovered a copy at home.

The pilot did spawn a little-remembered series starring Bill Pertwee.

Mr Snoad told the Independent on Sunday: "Arthur was suffering from narcolepsy, and he would start to doze off part-way through the recordings.

"We got it in the can in the end, but before we could transmit it, Arthur sadly died."

The idea made it to TV as a BBC1 comedy play, Walking the Planks with Michael Elphick and Richard Wilson, and as a short-lived ITV1 sitcom High and Dry, starring Bernard Cribbins and Wilson again. But he characters names were changed to avoid links with Dad's Army.

Published: 19 Oct 2003

Live comedy picks

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.