Department of English and American Studies English Language And

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Gabriela Gogelová The Home Guard and the French Resistance in Situation Comedies by David Croft Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D. 2015 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………… Author‟s signature I would like to thank my supervisor, Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D., for his professional advice, encouragement and patience. Table of Contents General Introduction 5 Chapter I: Situation Comedy and the BBC 8 Chapter II: Analysis of Dad’s Army 12 Description of the Characters 12 The British Home Guard vs. Croft and Perry‟s Dad’s Army 25 Chapter III: Analysis of ‘Allo ‘Allo! 30 Description of the Characters 30 The French Resistance vs. Croft and Lloyd‟s ‘Allo ‘Allo! 41 Conclusion 46 Works Cited 52 English Resume 55 Czech Resume 56 General Introduction The Second World War was undoubtedly the most terrible conflict of the twentieth century and one of the most destructive wars in history. It may therefore seem surprising that comedy writer David Croft chose exactly this period as a background for his most successful situation comedies. However, the huge success of the series Dad’s Army and ‘Allo ‘Allo! suggests that he managed to create sitcoms that are entertaining for wide audience and not offensive despite their connection to the Second World War. This thesis focuses on two of David Croft‟s sitcoms, Dad’s Army and ‘Allo ‘Allo!. The firstly mentioned sitcom was created in cooperation with Jimmy Perry and ran on BBC1 almost ten years from 1968 to 1977. The series follows the story of members of the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) in a small town of Walmington-on Sea that are under the lead of a pompous bank manager. ‘Allo ‘Allo! was written by Croft and Jeremy Lloyd. This TV series was originally broadcast from 1984 to 1992 and describes the troubles of French café owner René Artois. The story takes place in a small French town of Nouvion that is occupied by Germans. René has to put up with German officers, that are regularly visiting his Café René, and with the French Resistance member Michelle, who chose René‟s café as a place from which she contacts British allies and where she hides two English airmen. He furthermore has secret affairs with his two waitresses that he tries to hide from his wife and annoying mother-in-law. My aim is to show how David Croft creates a unique relationship between characters in his sitcoms Dad’s Army and ‘Allo ‘Allo! and places the dynamic of their interactions into the context of the Second World War. This thesis also focuses on the way in which David Croft represents British Home Guard in Dad’s Army and The 5 French Resistance in ‘Allo ‘Allo! and how he derives comedy from this potentially sensitive subject connected with the Second World War. The first chapter of the thesis is a short introduction of situation comedy as a TV genre and its basic characteristics. The chapter provides a general background for my thesis. It gives the definition of situation comedy as it is described by Stephen Neale, Frank Krutnik and Brett Mills in their works to present the most basic characteristics of David Croft‟s works. The chapter involves a brief commentary on the history of the BBC sitcom production to introduce the context for Dad’s Army and ‘Allo ‘Allo!. The second chapter is devoted to Dad’s Army. It focuses on detailed analysis of the main characters and especially on their relationship to the Captain Mainwaring. This chapter further focuses on a brief introduction of the real Home Guard history and situation during the Second World War as well as on the comparison of the realms of the war and its portrayal in the sitcom. The third chapter focuses on ‘Allo ‘Allo! and provides an analysis of the main characters, description of their relationships and description of the sitcom‟s comical elements. The second part of the chapter compares the actual French Resistance during the war to its depiction in the sitcom. The conclusion provides a comparison of the two sitcoms and description of what characteristics of Croft style they share and in what aspects they are different. The conclusion presents a summary of the previous findings and stresses the most profound aspects of David Croft‟s comedies. A number of books have been especially helpful as secondary sources. One of the books that I used to support my comments was David Croft‟s biography You Have Been Watching. Croft provides readers with detailed narrative about his life, from his first memories to the description of the process of casting actors to his sitcoms. 6 Graham McCann‟s Dad’s Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show and Simon Morgan-Russell‟s Jimmy Perry and David Croft have been very useful since they focus on detailed analysis of Croft‟s work. McCann presents a very thorough description of every aspect of Croft‟s sitcom Dad’s Army and Morgan-Russell focuses on several selected aspects, such as a class dynamics or gender relationships within the sitcoms written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, including Dad’s Army. All those works are primarily descriptive and not analytical as there are not many sources that focus on the analysis of the two sitcoms. The first chapter of my thesis relies on the books by Brett Mills and Stephen Neale and Frank Krutnik because of their analytical approach to the themes of sitcom and television comedy. 7 Chapter I: Situation Comedy and the BBC David Croft‟s series, Dad’s Army and ‘Allo ‘Allo!, are defined as sitcoms - situation comedies - a popular television genre which “has its roots in music hall and radio” as Wendy Phillips notes in her dissertation Television Sitcom Production at the BBC 1973-1984.1 According to Mills, however, to define sitcom and decide which series are sitcoms and which are not “is a problematic and ongoing task”.2 In his book, The Sitcom, he presents the theory that to find an accurate description of sitcom, factors as entire sitcom industry, the process of creating of a sitcom and its audience have to be taken into consideration. Nevertheless, he agrees with the general sitcom‟s characteristics that Neale and Krutnik introduce in their book Popular Film and Television Comedy that focuses on aspects of television comedies. Neale and Krutnik define situation comedy in their book as “a short narrative- series comedy, generally between twenty-four and thirty minutes long, with regular characters and setting”.3 The plot of every episode is thus expected to be set in the same environment as in other episodes, the main characters are consistent and are part of a series from the beginning to its end and the duration of episodes should not exceed half an hour. The definition by Neale and Krutnik suggests that sitcom is largely based on repetitive features and to some extent on the predictability of characters‟ actions since they are presented to viewers in mostly every episode. It also implies that sitcom is primarily meant as a genre of light entertainment and its main purpose is to regularly provide a short and familiar form of entertainment. 1 Phillips, Wendy. Television Sitcom Production at the BBC 1973-1984: an Integrated Approach. Diss. University of Westminster, 2005. PDF file. p. 4. 2 Mills, Brett. The Sitcom. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009. ProQuest Ebrary. Web. 27 October 2014. TV Genres. p. 30. 3 Neale, Stephen, and Frank Krutnik. Popular Film and Television Comedy. London: Routledge, 1990. Print. Popular Fiction Series. p. 233. 8 Neale also mentions the feature of “continuity and „forgetting‟” as one of the crucial aspects that define sitcom.4 Unlike in other television genres in which the plot develops and evolves throughout all the episodes while characters as well as setting can change and the entire story comes to an end with the final episode, it is typical for sitcom that plots and actions from previous episodes are usually not significant for understanding following episodes. The goal of sitcom is to present a kind of disruption of the familiar environment either by external influences or by internal threats and following effort to return to the exact state of situation that was presented at the beginning of the episode. The authors of both books agree that what is typical of a sitcom is its involvement of the audience. In case of sitcoms “the viewer is imbricated as a „part of‟ the scene”.5 It is not only through the laugh tracks that majority of sitcoms features but also through the element of eavesdropping. Thanks to the familiar and mostly enclosed setting of many sitcoms, viewers tend to feel like they are part of a truly personal and private conversations and actions. David Croft uses all of the above mentioned features in his sitcoms and may thus seem conservative in terms of following general sitcom structure. His sitcoms, however, are distinctive for the thorough description and refinement of their leading characters as well as for their inclusion of wartime events and realms. Both Dad’s Army and ‘Allo ‘Allo! were produced by BBC1 and sitcoms in general have a considerably long tradition in Britain. As Wendy Phillips explains in her dissertation work, BBC1 produced many successful radio comedies and also several television sitcoms during the late 40s and early 50s and it was common that popular radio programmes were adapted to television and vice versa.

Load more