Jack Lane and David Benson are bringing the beloved Dad’s Army Radio Show to Wilton’s Music Hall, offering fans a chance to experience three new episodes of the classic sitcom in a unique radio show format.
This highly acclaimed stage production features two actors performing over 25 characters, complete with sound effects and vintage music, capturing the essence of Perry and Croft’s iconic BBC comedy.
Don’t miss this special engagement from Monday, 17 June to Saturday, 22 June 2024. Book your tickets now.
You are bringing Dad’s Army Radio Show to Wilton’s Music Hall. What can you tell us about the show?
Dad’s Army radio Show is two actors performing ‘radio’ versions of three classic episodes of the cherished BBC television series.
With recorded sound effects and vintage music, we use our voices to evoke all the characters from Dad’s Army, switching from voice to voice with lightning speed to give the impression of the entire cast on stage. Jack Lane, the younger half of the duo by twenty-five years, age-shifts in an instant from Captain Mainwaring or Corporal Jones to young Private Pike. David Benson jumps from Vicar to Verger, Godfrey to Fraser, Hodges to Mrs. Fox with equal deftness.
How did you both get involved in creating this radio show adaptation of Dad’s Army?
It was David’s idea to do Dad’s Army on stage as a radio-style performance, initially as a solo show. But he decided it would be more fun for himself and the audience to see two actors giving voice to the familiar characters. Jack Lane, whose show Norman Wisdom – Wisdom of a Fool deeply impressed Benson, was the obvious choice to take on the challenge. ‘There was no audition process,’ says Benson. ‘I just called Jack up and asked him if he’d like to do it; he said “Yes”. We have been touring with it together since 2017 and enjoying every minute of it.’
What are some of the challenges and joys of performing over 25 characters between just two actors?
We do have to concentrate very hard when performing the scripts otherwise we can easily veer off the road. It is very easy, when we are on a roll, for one of us to lurch into the wrong voice. It requires a quick reverse and gear change before one can continue with the correct one. But it is rather like learning and performing music: we listen carefully to each other and let the words flow out with accuracy but also in the immediacy of the moment. The audience make the vital contribution with their listening and their response.
Can you share any memorable moments or audience reactions from your previous tours and performances?
We have performed the show in its various versions in such diverse venues as an outdoor amphitheatre, in a barn with birds flitting over our heads like Luftwaffe, in remote Aberdeenshire village halls, in stately Edwardian theatres and aboard cruise ships during Force Nine gales.
In all these settings, we have tried to transport the audiences’ imaginations away to Walmington-On-Sea and to the characters who are as familiar as family.
The worst thing that ever happened to us was when we were performing the famous episode The Deadly Attachment at Greenwich Theatre – the one where the platoon have to guard a surly Nazi U-boat captain and his crew overnight. Some darned fool shouted out ‘Don’t tell him your name, Pike!’ a second before Jack was able to give the correct line, which is ‘Don’t tell him, Pike’. There was a stunned silence from the audience; the poor man must have felt death rays coming towards him from all sides.
How do you incorporate sound effects and vintage music to bring the classic episodes to life on stage?
We decided from the start not to have a ‘foley’ sound effect style for Dad’s Army Radio
Show. ‘Foley’ is where a performer uses props to mimic the sounds – doors, footsteps, tea cups, rainstorms – which can be a hugely entertaining spectacle for the audience to watch especially when badly done. We wanted to concentrate on the characters and situations so elected to use our own sound effects and carefully chosen music, triggered onstage by Jack with expert timing alongside his vocal gymnastics.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Dad’s Army Radio Show?
If you love Dad’s Army as much as we do, we promise you will love our show. But you don’t have to be a Dad’s Army fan to like Dad’s Army Radio Show. Our aim is to give the audience a unique theatre experience in which their own imaginations are engaged to create a vivid mindscape of changing places and people, of music and voices – a sort of collective dream, if you like.
