The Army Game

Did You Know?

• In June 1959, Michael Medwin, Alfie Bass, Norman Rossington, Bill Fraser and Ted Lune performed a short The Army Game scene at the Royal Variety Performance in front of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
• On 6 June 2005, Network released the first 26 episodes from series 3 on DVD under the title The Army Game – Volume 1.

Background

The 1956 film Private's Progress, featuring Ian Carmichael, Richard Attenborough, and Terry-Thomas, sparked Sid Colin's idea for The Army Game. William Hartnell played a supporting role in that film similar to his later character Sergeant-Major Bullimore. A large team wrote the series, including Sid Colin, Larry Stephens, Maurice Wiltshire, Lew Schwarz, John Jowett, John Antrobus, John Foley, Marty Feldman, Barry Took, David Climie, David Cumming, Derek Collyer, Brad Ashton, John Junkin, Talbot Rothwell, Sidney Nelson, Stan Mars, Bob Perkins, and Alan MacKinnon. No writer is credited for at least three episodes.

Plot and characters

The show centres on a group of conscripts assigned to the Surplus Ordnance Department at Nether Hopping, Staffordshire. Billeted in Hut 29, the men are determined to work little and have fun. Geoffrey Sumner played Major 'Piggy' Upshot-Bagley, the commanding officer, with William Hartnell as Company Sergeant Major (CSM) Percy Bullimore, the bane of Hut 29's army life. Michael Medwin was the spiv-like Corporal Springer in charge of Hut 29, with the original conscripts consisting of Bernard Bresslaw's IQ deficient Private (Pre) Popplewell, Alfie Bass's Pte 'Excused Boots' Bisley, Charles Hawtrey's Pte 'Professor' Hatchett and Norman Rossington's Pte 'Cupcake' Cook. Later series saw Frank Williams as Captain T. R. Pockett take over the running of the camp, with Bill Fraser's Sgt Claude Snudge replacing Bullimore; although Sumner and Hartnell would return for the final series. Other popular characters included Harry Fowler's Cpl 'Flogger' Hoskins (a replacement for Medwin's Springer) and Ted Lune's Pte Leonard Bone, a sort of northern England variation on Bresslaw's Popplewell. Arguably the break-out character of the series was Bresslaw's Popplewell who would go on to be the lead of the film version, I Only Arsked! (1958), which used his catch-phrase as its title. On the back of the series Bresslaw became a star of the late fifties and would also use the Popplewell characteristics for other roles of the period, such as the 1959 films Too Many Crooks and The Ugly Duckling. After Bresslaw left, Bass and Fraser's Bootsie and Snudge would become the most popular characters, and would get their own spin-off series, Bootsie and Snudge, which aired in September 1960, whilst the final series of The Army Game started.

Other media

The 1958 film I Only Arsked!, produced by Hammer Film Productions, centered on Bernard Bresslaw's character and featured Michael Medwin, Alfie Bass, Geoffrey Sumner, Charles Hawtrey, and Norman Rossington reprising their roles. Bresslaw's catchphrase "I Only Arsked" originated from the series. A single of the same name, performed by Medwin, Bresslaw, Bass, and Leslie Fyson, reached number five on the UK Singles Chart in June 1958. Bresslaw also charted with "Mad Passionate Love," delivered in his Private Popplewell persona. A paperback edition and a Granada board game followed in 1959. Characters played by Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser later appeared in the spin-off Bootsie and Snudge, which ran from 1960 to 1963 and returned in 1974. These same characters also featured in the 1964 sitcom Foreign Affairs. The first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant (1958), debuted a year after the series and shared similarities, with Hartnell, Hawtrey, and Rossington appearing in both.