Don’t panic Mr Mainwaring! It’s only an old film!

Comedian Phil Evans from Ammanford is known as the man who puts the “cwtsh” into comedy

IN 1919, the three biggest stars in Hollywood – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – formed, with director DW Griffith, their own film company called United Artists.

When Richard A Rowan, head of Metro Pictures, heard the news, he famously commented: “The inmates have taken over the asylum!”

Here’s proof that it’s just as true today.

A recent BBC2 screening of the 1971 film Dad’s Army, a spin-off from the long-running TV series, was preceded by the warning ‘Contains discriminatory language that some might find offensive’.

This film did the cinema rounds at least twice before it made its television debut, since when it’s been shown dozens of times.

But until Christmas 2020, neither cinemagoers nor TV viewers needed to be ‘warned’ before they settled down to watch 90 minutes of military mayhem and madcap manoeuvres. When Dad’s Army fans complained about this over-sensitive ‘warning’, the BBC’S response was: “Since the film was made, attitudes have changed significantly and guidance was given due to a specific discriminatory remark.”

This was presumably a reference to Corporal Jones’s description of the formidable Hadendoa warriors (whose bravery Rudyard Kipling wrote about in his Barrack Room Ballads) he faced in the Sudan campaign more than 100 years ago.

Corporal Jones uses this term in almost every TV episode at some point, yet the BBC has never bothered to ‘warn’ us about this since they started filling their Saturday night schedules with repeats of Dads Army 52 weeks of the year!

Which makes the ‘warning’ about the film all the more puzzling. Then, last week on a lunch-time TV chat show, a highly ‘woke’ lady was given a chunk of airtime to defend the BBC’S warning about the Dad’s Army film.

Everyone’s opinion.

But then she shot herself in the foot by declaring Dad’s Army wasn’t funny and she preferred ‘quality’ shows . . . like The Masked Singer!

Not only have the inmates taken over . . . some of them appear to have escaped!

I’d just like to add that IMHO every TV screening of the 2016 Dad’s Army film should be preceded by this warning: “May offend fans of great comedy!” entitled to their

Picture: Douglas Miller A recent Dad’s Army screening was preceeded by warnings about language that some may find offensive.