‘Arthur Lowe’s pomposity was a tactic to keep people away’
Ian Lavender, aka Private Pike in Dad’s Army, talks to Ben Lawrence about his memories of the show
When Ian Lavender was offered the role of naive, guileless Private Pike in Dad’s Army in 1968, his response was rather blasé. Only nine months out of drama school, the then 22-year-old decided to accept it as it meant he didn’t have to take a job in rep at Leicester. And he was paid in guineas.
“Can you imagine?” says Lavender, now 72, but still possessed of a sort of boyishness, and now the only surviving principal member of the cast. “That was an attempt to make us respectable. Doctors, lawyers and ministers were paid in guineas. For my first episode I was paid 60 guineas [a little over £1,000 in today’s money].”
The young actor soon found himself on the coach to Thetford with a cast of ageing actors then in the twilight of their careers. Too green, he says, to be intimidated, he formed an immediate bond with John Laurie. The older actor taught him the art of the cryptic crossword and on one occasion recited to him the whole of Robert Burns’s Tam o’ Shanter on a journey back from Brighton in Lavender’s little red car.
“That moment is mine and mine alone,” says Lavender. “If I could choose one member of the cast to survive it would be John,” says Lavender. “I loved him, actually. He was naughty, he was impish and he suffered no fools.”
I assume that he had more trouble with Arthur Lowe, who as Captain Mainwaring, bestowed Pike with the immortal moniker “You stupid boy”. Lowe had a reputation for being difficult on set; Lavender, however, takes exception.
“He was little and pompous, but he was also very shy and private, and he used the pomposity to keep people away. When he decided to let you in, he pricked his own bubble and then you were welcomed with open arms.”
There were also rumours concerning a fractious relationship between Lowe and John Le Mesurier, but Lavender denies these too – in fact, he had to set the makers of a 2015 docudrama about the show straight on the matter. “I think I would have known had there been a feud,” says Lavender. “They weren’t best mates, but you wouldn’t get performances like that if you hated each other. They were just very different people.”
I meet Lavender in the beautiful former post office he shares with Miki, his second wife, in rural Suffolk. He’s generous about the past, and I concede that it must be difficult to think of anything new to say. “I don’t talk about it unless people ask me. But it meant that I’ve worked for 50 years.”
Lavender points out that the success
‘I don’t talk about it [Dad’s Army] unless people ask me. But it meant that I’ve worked for 50 years’
of Dad’s Army was not instant. With boyish arrogance, he expected to be mobbed in supermarkets after the first episode aired, but found no one recognised him. The first reviews were mixed, too, with several suggesting that the BBC ought not to be making comedies about the war. I wonder whether its quintessential Englishness is behind its enduring success: it is still a mainstay on BBC Two.
“I think it is very English to take the p--- out of ourselves,” says Lavender. “They remade it in America as The Rear Guard with Lou Jacobi. It was actually very funny, but [audiences] couldn’t work out why [they] would want to laugh at ourselves.” It never made it past a pilot.
Remakes are a thorny issue when it comes to Dad’s Army. The recent feature film reboot starring Toby Jones and Bill Nighy was mauled by critics. It featured Lavender in a cameo role as a brigadier. “I didn’t think it was a ground-breaking film but it was affectionate with some lovely performances.” He pauses. “But I don’t really know why it was made.”
Lavender is also critical of today’s sitcoms – because, he says, there is an obsession with a youth demographic. “They are not producing things for us. They are producing things for 30-year olds. And yet soon [pensioners] will make up 50 per cent of the population.”
Comedy has been the backbone of Lavender’s career ever since, though he has occasionally tried to broaden his range – sometimes with unfortunate results. When he appeared in a play set during the Siege of Leningrad, an audience member came up to him afterwards. Lavender asked whether he had enjoyed it.
“Not really,” was the response. “I thought it was going to be a comedy. We buried my mother this morning and could have done with a laugh.”