They DO like it up ’em..
Dad’s Army audience told not to cheer anti-German jibe
AN audience invited to watch the remake of a lost episode of Dad’s Army had to be told not to stand up and cheer at the anti-German joke: “They don’t like it up ‘em!”
David Hayman, who plays doomladen Private Frazer in the Gold remake, was stunned by their reaction and compared them to Brexiteers.
He said: “I’d never seen anything like it. They were on their feet. They unleashed the beast. No wonder we are heading for Brexit.”
The original 1960s sitcom – still repeated on BBC – has come under fire for influencing people to vote to leave the EU because of its jibes against foreigners. Three episodes of the show about the wartime Home Guard are being remade with a new cast after being wiped from archives. But chaos erupted in the studio during filming of the missing 1968 episode called A Stripe For Frazer. When Alan Partridge star Kevin Eldon shouted Corporal Jones’s anti-Nazi catchphrase, people stood up, applauded and cheered.
Panicking producers had to stop the recording twice and order everyone to calm down.
Scottish actor David Hayman said the cast were shocked by the reaction.
He said: “Joe, our floor manager, had to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, can we ask you not to cheer when Kevin says, ‘Get it up the Nazis?’. It certainly is a Brexit age.”
It comes after Daisy Goodwin, the creator of ITV drama Victoria, said the BBC should “retire” the show because it makes them look pro-Brexit.
The cast have said even if the three episodes – shown next month – are a hit they will not make any more as the original writers are dead.
Kevin McNally, who plays Captain Mainwaring, said: “You cannot recreate something that was already nostalgic when it was being made.”