Dear Arthur Love John by Roy Smiles, Radio 4 Extra 20 Apr. 2017.docx

Dear Arthur … Love John by Roy Smiles (2012). Dir. Liz Anstee. Perf. Anton Lesser, Robert Daws, Kenny Ireland. BBC Radio 4 Extra, 20 Apr. 2017.

The Dad's Army story is a familiar one of a sitcom given no chance on its premiere that eventually became one of the BBCs biggest ratings successes of the Seventies. Running from 1968 to 1977, it made stars of actors who might otherwise have languished in the netherworld of supporting players – John le Mesurier, John Laurie, Arnold Ridley and the late James Beck. The comedy provided Arthur Lowe, hitherto best known as Leonard Swindley in Coronation Street with his greatest role.

Set in the late Seventies/ early Eighties after the series had come to end, Dear Arthur, Love John took the form of a letter written by Le Mesurier (Anton Lesser) to Lowe (Robert Daws), recalling the origins and progress of the sitcom, and how the cast managed to bind together off screen. Le Mesurier and Lowe were completely different personalities – Le Mesurier was laid back, letting most things wash over him with an air of indifference, while Lowe was an inveterate snob railing against the Labour government, immigrants, bad actors and anything else he could think of. Director Liz Anstee suggested that these were nothing more than public poses designed to compensate for chronic shyness. Lowe in particular abhorred being recognized in the street.

The sitcom began in undistinguished fashion with the entire cast being skeptical about the script. John Laurie (Kenny Ireland) continually denounced it as "a load of rubbish." Lowe and Le Mesurier accepted their roles, although they were once considered to play one another's parts, Le Mesurier as Mainwaring, Lowe as Wilson. That would not have worked, however, as Lowe would not have had the chance to play the grammar-school boy made good, relishing the chance to lord it over his public-school educated sergeant. As performed by Daws, Lowe came across as a mass of contradictions – a snob who got on extremely well with the Dad's Army cast, a talented performer who was nonetheless ashamed of his war record, where he could not participate fully due to eye problems, and a fundamentally generous person unable to express his true feelings. Le Mesurier's personal life was turbulent, to say the least; his first wife Hattie Jacques fell in love with a younger man, while his second wife Joan moved in with the late Tony Hancock. Yet Le Mesurier would not acknowledge the hurt these events had caused him, instead he cultivated the image of gentle absent-mindedness that endeared him to viewers.

This was a gentle play that reminded us of the well-loved characters in the series, while suggesting that the two main roles were little more than extensions of the actors' personalities. Daws made a thoroughly praiseworthy attempt to reproduce Lowe's idiosyncratic speech-rhythms. Lesser's voice was perhaps too high-pitched for Le Mesurier, but he communicated the actor's good-natured affection for his costar as he wrote the letter.

Laurence Raw
27 Apr. 2017