Posted: Mon 10 Dec 2007 05:33 am Post subject: The Test
Hi all,
Well Cricket season is well and truly upon us down here in Australia
and that always gets me thinking about one of my all time favourite Dad's Army episodes; 'The Test'.
It seldom gets a mention around the DA forums, but it really is a classic episode featuring of course that cricketing legend and top bloke, Freddie Trueman.
Appears that Freddie could have had a career as an actor as well as a cricketer!
Love the bit were Cpt Mainwaring faces up to E.C. Egan and almost gets skittled!
And that name, E.C. Egan! The writers could not have come up with a more 'crickety' sounding name could they??
I have to say that I have mixed feelings on this one.
I adore Mainwaring attempting to teach the rest of the platoon to bat - and Pike bowling him out! You can see it coming a mile away but it never fails to make me smile. It's also nice to see Mainwaring and Hodges desperately trying to get the better of each other through sporting prowess!
However, I also think the episode suffers from Jones being at his most irritating. His idiotic jumping around and continual ' how waz zat?' really gets up my nose!
I have to say that I have mixed feelings on this one.
I adore Mainwaring attempting to teach the rest of the platoon to bat - and Pike bowling him out! You can see it coming a mile away but it never fails to make me smile. It's also nice to see Mainwaring and Hodges desperately trying to get the better of each other through sporting prowess!
However, I also think the episode suffers from Jones being at his most irritating. His idiotic jumping around and continual ' how waz zat?' really gets up my nose!
James
Hi James,
Yes, I agree, there are a few silly, very irritating bits from Jonesy.
I guess being a cricket buff and a big fan of the late great Mr Trueman helps.
I'm also a big fan of Don Estelle. He is always fantastic value too.
Warden: 'Just keep running Gerald'
Gerald: 'but my legs are shorter than yours'
And the bit from Jones when the warden again yells; 'run Gerald' and finds that Wicket Keeper, Jonesy has started heading down the pitch too! To which Hodges yells; 'Not You, Not You!'.
It also manages to capture some of the warmth and tradition of the local friendly cricket match, spirit of the game, simpler times, what we are fighting for and all that.
I also think it is one of the less watched episodes in my collection.
I think the writers/Bill Pertwee let their love of cricket overshadow the usual comic element of the series and it is relatively dull. But each to their own.
I particularly love how they say they are playing a summer cricket game and it looks overcast, grey and freezing cold - at times you can see steam coming out their mouths when they are talking! I know British summers are bad, but they're not that bad!!
This episode had what I thought was an odd effect on me. It left the song "There'll Always Be An England" rattling around in my head for days afterward.
Considering that I recently bought 5 Dad's Army DVDs simultaneously and watched them all one right after another, I would have thought if any of the music got stuck in my head it would be the theme song. But no, it was background music that was playing during The Test.
By the way, I'm not British. I'm a Yank -- if you think that has any bearing on this oddity.
By the way, I'm not British. I'm a Yank -- if you think that has any bearing on this oddity.
Not sure if you have got around to watching series 6 yet, but I'd be interested in your thoughts on 'My British Buddy'! _________________ The Dad's Army podcast - a fortnightly downloadable radio show about Dad's Army www.dadsarmy.podomatic.com
Don't forget to check out the Dad's Army Podcast blog - www.dadsarmypodcast.blogspot.com
Not sure if you have got around to watching series 6 yet, but I'd be interested in your thoughts on 'My British Buddy'!
The ending was hilarious -- though I don't know if it could be called realistic to make the American THAT QUICK with a punch a second time. After all, you just knew as soon as he showed up to apologize that he had been listening to the same things from the American higher-ups that Mainwaring had just heard: We can't have newspaper photos of the Allies already fighting among themselves; Goebbels will have a field day. So to make the same mistake again that soon after a dressing-down ... hmmmm ... only if he didn't much care about keeping the rank of colonel or getting transferred to the worst posting the boys back in D.C. could dream up.
Of course, he WAS a hotheaded individual, on top of the fact that he was ungracious about English customs and insensitive about what Britons had been through by that time. I guess they needed a hothead as the lead American so that when he encountered (what was more/less his counterpart in) Hodges, a brawl would rapidly ensue. Loved everybody's account of what they were doing during the fight. My favorite was Pike's "Two Americans were clinging to my Ivy ... He chased me around the table twice till Mr. Godfrey hit him over the head with a chair." And Godfrey's justification: "He'd trodden on my sister Dolly's upside-down cakes."
Other moments I found especially funny:
Walker's "They don't want to buy anything, and now they've pinched our girls. This war has just taken a very nasty turn."
Walker's announcement that what was left of the welcome banner after cost-cutting and space-saving would be "Yanks go home."
Mainwaring's "They're fighting on our side with German names?? We were better off on our own. At least we knew who was who and what was what."
And my absolute favorite: Mainwaring's "I don't think Elizabeth would do much for Anglo-American relations."
I did think they overdid it a little bit with the American expressions in the Yanks' dialogue. Especially in the pub scene, there were few lines spoken by any American that sounded ... what's the right word? ... neutral? nonspecific to either country? a different accent, yes, but a thought expressed in the same words by either a Brit or a Yank. On the other hand, I wasn't alive in the 1940s. Maybe we really did sound like that ....
Anything else you were hoping to hear a comment on and I failed to do so? Or was this long-winded enough?
I noticed that you joined this thread TWO months after it had started. Still, better than TWO years after the war had started...
What about Frazer's brilliant unintelligible Scottish welcome speech to the US officer and the hilarious face he pulls at the end of it, to which the US officer says 'Geez, I didn't know you had foreigners in this outfit'!!
Of course, the whole premise of the story is wrong and means it would never have happened. Wartime newspaper censorship was so strict that the US/Brit fighting photos would never have made it into the newspaper, as it would have threatened US/Brit relations and would have handed a propaganda opportunity over to the Germans.
A day late and a dollar short -- that's the story of my life, Oz. Thanks for going easy on me and only mentioning that it took the Yank 2 months to join this particular thread. You could have easily pointed out that it was a year and a half after this forum started before I showed up!
I had forgotten all about the matter of wartime censorship, but you're right of course. Letting a picture like that get into the papers at all would have been handing ammo to Goebbels & Co.
Yes, Frazer's speech and Schultz's reaction to it were another high point. Frazer's was the best, but I enjoyed that whole sequence where Mainwaring went down the line introducing the platoon members -- especially watching the expressions on the face of not only Schultz but also Mainwaring as each of his men had his say.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
I also think it is one of the less watched episodes in my collection.
