David Croft

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety three and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is a television writer and producer. He comes from a show business family and was brought up with musicals, summer shows and pantomimes, always itching to take part in them himself. His chance came after the war, in which he'd served in the Royal Artillery in North Africa. Eventually he became a script editor in one of the newly formed IT V companies, Rediffusion.

Presenter0:48

And since then the shows he's produced and co-written add up to a roll call of the most popular situation comedies shown on British television. They include Dad's Army, It Ain't Off Hot Mum, Heidi High, and Alow Alo, to name but four. He's been awarded the OBE and honoured by BAFTA. Now seventy, he's almost retired, but keeps a watchful eye on the latest series he's given the BBC, You Rang Me Lord. He is David Croft.

Presenter1:14

So, David, the nation has hundreds of hours of television comedy to thank you for. Have you got a favorite or are you always in love with your latest creation?

David Croft1:23

I'm usually in love with the latest creation. Um I think uh w they're all favourites in their own way. Dad's army, of course, obviously was a great

David Croft1:31

A pleasure to do and uh I think it r represented a sort of a very important time when we were all very brave and behaved very well. I loved it, Ain't Half Hot Mum. That um was a representative of a very important time in our imperial history and a time when I was in the army as well uh in India, and so was Jimmy Perry, my co-author in that one. In their own way, they're all terrific favourites. Heidi High was enormous fun because

David Croft1:53

So we used to have a a huge huge amount of fun when we did that.

Presenter1:55

But that's what they all have in common, really, isn't it? That they're all based on kind of teams, strong characterization and large teams of people working together time and time again. Is that their strength? Is that the secret of their success?

David Croft2:07

Oh yes, and I don't like the name sitcom radio. Uh they're they're all character comedies really. There's a sort of a situation in them, but it's really their reaction and the way they behave as people that we're interested in and uh I think that's why they work.

Presenter2:18

Which comes first then when you're writing them? Is is it the character or the actor? And do you take someone like John Inman and think I'd like to create something for him? Or do you think of the character and then cast it?

David Croft2:26

Or do you think of the case?

David Croft2:28

Well, it increasingly it has worked out far more like that than l latterly. I think with um Dad's Army, naturally it was our first show and we took some pretty well established actors. Once you get together, uh particularly on a pilot, uh you can start writing for their own particular idiosyncrasies and their the the things that they're good at.

Presenter2:45

So so that once Arthur Lowe has given flesh and blood to Captain Mannering, as it were, you you almost begin to know what he would say in a given situation.

David Croft2:53

Absolutely. Absolutely like that. And and Arthur became more and more like Captain Mannering as as the series progressed really.

Presenter2:57

Did he?

Presenter2:59

But what happens, and it must have happened sometimes, when the actor thinks he knows the character better than you do because he is that person and he starts wanting to add lib or argue with you as to what the character would say next.

David Croft3:10

I very rarely suffer from that actually. Um I think the actor is happiest when he's interpreting really. Uh it isn't any part of his job to make funny lines and if if he does he's usually remembering rather than creating. So we had very little conflict about that sort of thing. We wrote the part and they played it.

Presenter3:28

They were well behaved.

David Croft3:29

Uh yes, in in that way, anyway.

Presenter3:31

We're going to talk about the other way in a minute, but let's pause there for your first desert island disc. What is it?

David Croft3:37

I used to be a lyric writer before I was a producer, and um I'm very fond of good lyrics. Of course Nell Card is an absolute master. My first record is If Love Were All.

David Croft3:47

From Bittersweet, and it's sung by Barbara Cook, who I think is one of the most beautiful and pure voices in the musical theatre.

Presenter3:54

I believe in doing what I can.

Presenter4:00

Crying when I must.

Speaker 14:03

Laughing when I chew

Speaker 14:08

Hey ho, if love were wrong.

Speaker 14:16

Yeah.

Presenter4:16

I should be lone.

Presenter4:19

Barbara Cook and If Love Were All.

Presenter4:22

All of the programmes we've mentioned, David, you've written with somebody else. Do you not like writing alone?

David Croft4:28

Uh well, I did it once upon a time when I was at uh Time Tease. It's very hard work and it's very lonely. You know, it's a lonely life that way and there's all all all you see in front of you is a great big blank page and there's all thousands of excuses for not getting on with it really.

Presenter4:38

True.

Presenter4:40

How does it work then doing it with somebody else? Take working with Jeremy Lloyd, for example, with whom you wrote Are You Being Served Under Low or Low? Do you literally sit down side by side and stare at the blank sheet of paper together?

David Croft4:51

Uh no, we sit opposite each other rather than side by side and and shoot it off, line for line really. And it's it's hilarious and great fun.

Presenter4:59

But laughing at each other's jokes as you go.

David Croft5:00

Yeah.

Presenter5:01

And do you write them down? Do you dictate them or?

David Croft5:03

Um I'll write'em down in long hand, as Jeremy does. U usually um we take it in turns. Uh you each write one'cause it's um hard work just writing it and you can't be quite so creative when you're doing the actual physical writing down.

David Croft5:16

You know, you sort of get behind hand, as it were,'cause you're doing your writing.

Presenter5:18

When you light

Presenter5:19

And you're thinking ahead and trying to think of the next year.

David Croft5:20

I suppose that

Presenter5:21

I suppose that's the point, isn't it? It's the interaction that you're trying to beat your partner to the next good joke.

David Croft5:26

In a way, yes, yes. Not going to be deal with jokes, but anyway, the funny bits.

Presenter5:29

Yeah.

Presenter5:32

Is it is it any different writing with Jimmy Perry?

David Croft5:34

Well, it used to be w when we first started Dad's Army, we would get together for a couple of days and we would sort out two episodes in broad outline and some detail as well. Um w we'd fill in if we thought of something funny we'd sort of take it down. And we'd go away and write one each. An episode each. Yeah. And so uh with Dad's Army he's written

Presenter5:48

An episode each.

David Croft5:53

Fourteen I've written forty.

David Croft5:55

It was a good way of working. You got sort of proud of your own episode, you know.

Presenter5:59

Dad's army was originally his idea, wasn't it?

David Croft6:01

It was indeed, yes.

Presenter6:02

How did he come by it?

David Croft6:04

I think um legend has it that Jimmy was going actually past Buckingham Palace and uh the Home Guard were on guard there. It was a sort of great honour that they should guard Buckingham Palace. And uh he thought what a good idea this would be the Home Guard for a comedy show and uh of course he was in the Home Guard and he was working for me at the time actually on a Judge of Arnie's show and uh my wife was his agent.

David Croft6:24

And so he said to her in great trepidation, Do you think David would mind if I sort of gave him a script? and she said, Well, try it out, you know And uh he did and I was uh I was lucky enough to be able to get the thing through into the B B C and they suggested collaboration'cause Jimmy hadn't done any television by then and uh

David Croft6:40

That's how it all happened.

Presenter6:41

That was about nineteen sixty-eight.

Presenter6:44

But but the B B C didn't like it at first.

David Croft6:44

Uh

David Croft6:46

I came up against the controller actually, old Paul Fox. Um and he uh he thought it was a uh a terrible mistake. He thought we were taking the Mickey out of fi uh England's finest hour. And um I think it was Bill Cotton actually who finally persuaded him by reason of sort of trying not to drive him into a corner, but uh a compromise was arrived at where if we had a an introduction before the programme started he would agree to it going ahead.

Presenter7:07

I thought the story was that you ran a pilot and invited in an audience and they agreed with Paul Fox, so you suppressed what you found.

David Croft7:14

Oh, that is quite true because the the BBC had at that time an audience research department and Tom Sloan said, Look, we got this department, let's use it So we showed it to three separate audiences and they were very tepid indeed about it. I mean the best we had was the one little bloke in one of the audiences says well I quite liked it but aside from that the reaction was really pretty rough.

Presenter7:34

But you hung on in there.

David Croft7:35

No, I hung in and yes, I I supp I did suppress the result and uh

David Croft7:40

We might we manage we managed to get through.

Presenter7:41

And nine years later it was still running in a highly successful case.

David Croft7:44

Yes, and much longer than the warm.

Presenter7:46

Well, there you are, you were right all the time.

Presenter7:48

Second record

David Croft7:49

In my early

David Croft7:51

Childhood, when I was eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, I was very often on tour with my mother, who was in musicals with my father as well as well.

David Croft7:59

And uh but she went into management and she did a show called The Chocolate Soldier and uh my next record is

David Croft8:05

My Hero sung by John Sutherland.

Speaker 18:13

Father to and noble lover, Be is my sweetheart all my own.

Speaker 18:23

He's like on earth whose shadow is gone. His heart is mine and morning.

Speaker 18:33

Where makes a tone each toll behind us. Our lives belong to one uno.

Speaker 38:44

Yeah.

Presenter9:08

Joan Sutherland singing My Hero from Oscar Strauss's The Chocolate Soldier, with a new Philharmonia orchestra conducted by Richard Bonning, and part of David Croft's show business background. Did your mother actually sing that song?

David Croft9:19

Uh yes, indeed she did if you was in management and uh

David Croft9:22

She put it on about nineteen thirty one. I think very shortly after that we came off the gold standard and the business fell apart. And so she had the bright idea that instead of doing it once nightly, she'd do it twice nightly. And so she sang My Hero twice nightly, but she didn't take the top C every night. She only took it at the one of the second house. And she had a a lady called Titty Filoy who was uh in the chorus and had a face like the back of a well, she wasn't very pretty. And so she s she was a It's you tonight, Kitty and she would be right behind me, Mum, and she'd take the top note'cause she had a heavenly voice.

Presenter9:51

So your mother would just stay at the Panama.

David Croft9:52

And yes, I'm going to open my mouth and look big.

Presenter9:55

I thought that your mother and father were a double act.

David Croft9:57

They were, um until they went to Australia and then um

David Croft10:01

They went in the girlfriend and hit the deck, and then they split up actually, and they divorced.

Presenter10:05

So how old were you then?

David Croft10:05

So how old were you then? Oh, about seven, I think.

Presenter10:07

But apparently your nanny was part of this act as well.

David Croft10:10

No, she goes back further than that. Her mum ran a drama school in in Hull and uh the nanny came and played the piano, uh slightly insensitively but very very loud. And uh my mother used to say she came for a fortnight and stayed for forty years and she in point of fact she was with us until she was ninety six.

Presenter10:27

And legend has it that you, as a small boy, standing in the wings, I think of the Shaftesbury Theatre, was it, you suddenly wandered on the stage?

David Croft10:34

Indeed, yes, that was during uh my son John and uh I usually used to have a box but uh this particular time I was sitting on the side of the stage and uh I sort of started to dance with him and I wandered on dancing on the stage, got a big laugh and I think I was hooked from then on actually.

Presenter10:47

Stage track

David Croft10:48

La yes, and particularly laughter.

Presenter10:50

How old were you then?

David Croft10:51

Follow.

Presenter10:52

Really that little?

David Croft10:52

Yeah.

Presenter10:54

So you always wanted to be on the stage, not behind it. You didn't think about writing in the first place. You wanted to sing, did you?

David Croft10:59

Yes, indeed. Yes, I I had a great ambition to be something like Bobby Howard, you know, and be a funny character and'cause I always liked comedy and uh to sing

David Croft11:08

the sort of light roles that were the the genre then.

David Croft11:12

Unfortunately Hard Keel came on and leapt over that fence and sang, Oh, what a beautiful morning. And that was the end of that, really.

Presenter11:18

Brilliant. But I you made some records, didn't you, at some point? Yes.

David Croft11:20

Yes, I did, yes. I was lucky enough to be associated with the early days of uh the World Record Company and um well I made about five or six uh long playing records.

Presenter11:29

Have we still got them?

David Croft11:30

Yes, they're collector species. So are the people that collect them?

Presenter11:34

But you're not taking them to your desert island.

David Croft11:36

I don't think so, I think that'd be a little self-indulgent, really.

Presenter11:40

Right. What's the next one you are taking?

David Croft11:41

Uh it is, in fact, Bobby Howes singing She Is My Lovely, he was a lovely artist, and uh it's a good record.

Speaker 311:47

Here's my lovely

Speaker 311:51

My Venus and don't you agree?

Speaker 311:57

She's my lovely.

Speaker 312:00

Sorry now.

David Croft12:02

Any mounalizer?

David Croft12:06

She's the sunsetter.

David Croft12:09

When off

Presenter12:10

Everything looks great.

Presenter12:14

Bobby Howe singing She's My Lovely. You were sent to rugby school in the second half of the thirties, sang your heart out in the chapel, but then you had to leave suddenly. What went wrong?

David Croft12:26

Well, the money ran out, actually. It was the I was not a bit upset about it,'cause I couldn't wait to leave and get into the show business. But uh I was only about fifteen and a half, I had to go. And so so I went and studied typing, Pittmans, and dancing with all sorts of people and singing and uh generally reading myself for the business, you know.

Presenter12:43

But then the war broke out.

David Croft12:45

Then the war broke out, yes.

Presenter12:46

What did you do?

David Croft12:47

I sort of organized the Fire Watchers and they were so impressed that at the age of seventeen they made me an aerodyborn, and that was done in Bournemouth.

Presenter12:53

Was it anything at all like looking back on it, do you think, was it anything like Warmington on Sea? I mean, did you know a kind of Captain Mannering figure?

David Croft13:01

No, I didn't come into contact with the um dad's army lottery, the the uh home guard very much. But um I used to go round and check people's gas masks and make sure they had them and they're blackouts and that sort of thing.

Presenter13:14

And then you went into the army later on. Yes, I did, yes.

David Croft13:15

Yes, I did, yes. I went into this I funnily enough, ha not having stayed very long at school, um I couldn't get a commission early on, so I was two and a half years in the ranks and went to North Africa.

Presenter13:25

And then later on you you um achieve the rank of major.

David Croft13:28

Indeed, when I came back I got a rheumatic fever um in North Africa and I came back and thought I was going to come out of the army actually. I was getting all ready to sort of dive into show business again. But um I was past A one. But uh of course having come back I was the only person that everyone ever met with a medal'cause, you know, we weren't very free with them and I had the Africa Star. So I had no trouble getting commission there at all'cause I was the only one on the board, including all the officers, who had a medal.

Presenter13:51

So then they sent you to India?

David Croft13:52

Uh

David Croft13:53

Yes, India, Malaya, and uh

Presenter13:55

So did you then have concert parties like they did in May Dark Marketing?

David Croft13:58

No, I didn't actually. I I was sort of uh entertainment officer for the brigade, but I didn't get actually involved with any of that sort of side of it.

Presenter14:06

So when all of that was over, you then started writing lyrics back at home, and you were writing sort of gentl you you found you had a talent for writing sort of light sketches and sort of

David Croft14:14

Well yeah, I was I was in shows by that time, came round on tour, and um I would find that if for instance they needed a scene because they couldn't quite make the changes and that sort of thing, I would dive in and and and write it, or if there was any suspicion that they might need a song, uh I would dive in and write it with my very good friend and and partner, Cyril Ornadale.

Presenter14:32

So did you begin to admit to yourself that perhaps your future was not going to be on the stage, but behind it somewhere?

David Croft14:38

Yes, I think so, because uh I I didn't come across very well actually on the stage. I wasn't a bad television actor, but um I wasn't too hot on the stage, I think really.

Presenter14:42

Uh

Presenter14:46

Next record.

David Croft14:47

My next record springs from the fact that when I was at rugby we had a marvellous music department and uh on occasion we used to bring over the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Uh we had a thing called the Concert Chorus which I was in and we uh rehearsed for the whole term of this thing. And then the great occasion arose when the orchestra came here and we sang this song which I've o always been a great favourite of mine and is not very often heard. It's Parry's Blessed Pair of Sirens.

Presenter16:00

Tell me

Presenter16:13

Hubert Parry's Blessed Pair of Sirens, sung by the London Philharmonic Choir with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boat.

Presenter16:20

So by the fifties, David Croft, you were writing material for summer shows and you collaborated on early television shows. At what point did you start getting frustrated with other people taking over your script and directing it? And what didn't you like about it?

David Croft16:35

Well, I th suppose it was um

David Croft16:38

During the time when I was writing uh songs particularly, I remember we did a show with Pat Kirkwood and uh she was up in Blackpool'cause she was in summer season up in Blackpool. The show was sort of done up there, but they couldn't couldn't get a good orchestra to go up to Blackpool because it was too expensive to travel them and to keep them in hotels and so she sung the song, she sang it live to a taped recording.

David Croft16:58

That was synchronized by

David Croft17:01

An orchestra in London.

David Croft17:03

trying to keep in time with her singing in Blackpool, and it was an absolute chaos uh and they neither of them could hear each other, and it was a quite awful event, and so I thought, well

David Croft17:13

The only way to uh overcome this is to sort of be responsible for the whole thing, really.

Presenter17:17

Mm-hmm.

David Croft17:17

So I started to move towards, uh with my wife's very firm encouragement, towards uh directing and producing.

Presenter17:23

Because the other thing that presumably happens with comedy scripts is that

Presenter17:27

In rehearsal the jokes get worn out and uh so that people stop laughing and they think they'll change the line.

David Croft17:33

Oh, that happens about Tuesday lunchtime actually. Uh you go fine until then. And it used to particularly happen when I d was doing the Decamerony show. Um he's a very funny man, but he'd lose confidence by about lunchtime on Tuesday and w and want to do something else. And uh half the skill of doing a show with him was simply persuading him that he was to continue to be funny.

Presenter17:46

Um

Presenter17:51

That's the writer's talent then, is it? Sort of knowing even sitting cold at your typewriter that this line is good and we've got to stick with it.

David Croft17:59

Yes, you must have that confidence, I think, or appear to have it.

Presenter18:03

So you decided to try to get to produce and direct your material yourself. Where did you cut your directing teeth?

David Croft18:06

Yeah.

David Croft18:09

I went up to Newcastle, um, to uh Tyne Tees television and uh was sort of pit pitched into the Deep End. I was doing five shows a week there in no time at all, and I did a couple of hundred shows before I ever came to the BBC. So you get it out of your system really, also you get confident that you can do it, and uh or run shows a time as well.

Presenter18:24

Hmm.

David Croft18:25

'Cause they're all live.

Presenter18:26

And then you transferred to the BBC and you were directing shows like Hugh and I and Dick Emery, as you say, Steptoe and Till Death to Us Park and Up on Page.

David Croft18:32

Yeah.

David Croft18:34

Yeah.

Presenter18:35

But you weren't writing any of these shows?

David Croft18:38

No, no.

Presenter18:38

Why not?

David Croft18:39

Tom Sloan, who was there at the time, as the head of the department, said, Look, this man's got to make up his mind, either he's a director or he's a writer, and he can't be both.

Presenter18:46

Why w why wouldn't we be seen at both?

David Croft18:49

I I think they like things in compartments. Uh everybody does. It's tidy. And uh nobody wants a genius on their hands, you know. Difficult to deal with.

Presenter18:58

So how did you manage to get round to writing then if if the confines of the BBC banned you from doing that?

David Croft19:03

Well, uh time went by and uh a marvellous man called Michael Mills came along and uh when I took him Dad's army he was very happy for me to write it because I knew something about television and uh

David Croft19:15

He gave an enormous encouragement, and act in point of fact invented the title.

David Croft19:19

And uh you know that's how that started.

Presenter19:22

Beckle number five.

David Croft19:23

Just about the earliest t time that I was going into Read Fusion uh as a script editor, Sir Silong and myself were commissioned by Bernie Delphant to write a musical for Jack Halbert and Sisty Cornage. We wrote a song called Friends for Jack Halbert and uh

David Croft19:37

We tried to get a record of it, and along came Billy Cotton.

David Croft19:40

Who said uh

David Croft19:42

I'll record this for you, but uh

David Croft19:45

I tell you, son, I want fifty per cent of your royalties. We thought this was a bit strong.

David Croft19:49

And uh I think we sort of our faces fell when this uh meeting and this statement was made.

David Croft19:55

But Bill said, Well, I'll I'll tell you one thing, it'll be very useful to you for the rest of your life. It's better to have fifty per cent of something than a hundred per cent of nothing.

David Croft20:03

In point of fact he's a very strong spoken gentleman, and he didn't say nothing but

David Croft20:07

I I always remembered that and uh you know you always got to do a deal I think.

Speaker 320:10

I don't try to buy friends, although it seems funny, No amount of money buys friends.

Speaker 320:20

Nothing is quite complete without friends.

Speaker 320:24

And if you ever meet the one who will be part of life right from the start of life until the end then my friend, you've made a friend.

Presenter20:42

Friend, sung by Billy Cotton and written by my castaway, David Croft.

Presenter20:46

Moving on now to talk about Hello Allo, the BBC didn't much like that when it was first written, either, did they?

David Croft20:52

Uh well, they were justifiably a little wide about it, but um I was I was got a lot of backing from them on on that one. In point of fact, the main voice against it again came from uh Paul Fox, uh who sort of denounced it from the pulpit at the Edinburgh Festival and and uh said what's the the BBC coming to doing this travesty?

David Croft21:11

Good term.

Presenter21:12

Because it was m making fun of the French resistance.

David Croft21:15

Yes. Uh see we didn't write it with that in mind at all. It was really to be a sort of send-up of the genre of uh of those sort of brave um resistance uh characters. Um

Presenter21:26

Some sort of secret army.

David Croft21:28

Yes, but and um I we just I just th thought we'd send the records straight because there must have been a lot of chaos with the thing and they must have been really rather frightened and also a lot of the population must have been very much against them doing it because they were trying to lead a quiet life and somebody would go and blow something up and they'd take out fifty people and shoot them. You know, there were it was a rough world in those days and those were the rules and

David Croft21:49

I suppose the BBC thought it was a funny thing to try to make comedy with, but um it worked wonderfully well.

Presenter21:54

Why do you think it works so well?

David Croft21:54

Why do you think

David Croft21:56

Well, of course it was very well done. Uh we had a marvellous cast.

David Croft22:00

Read by Gordon Kay.

David Croft22:01

They played it very seriously. I think maybe that's why a lot of people didn't like it, because they all took it seriously.

Presenter22:06

But you actually wrote every single mispronunciation, did you write down the last syllable?

David Croft22:11

Oh yes, yes, yeah.

Presenter22:13

That was presumably the only way to do it. If they tried to play it for laughs and exaggerated that, it would have.

David Croft22:19

I think all comedy falls apart if you try to play it for laughs. If you go on thinking you're funny, that doesn't work. It's just possible you might not get a laugh at all.

David Croft22:27

And people might not like you and if if you have that sort of approach, then I think uh the the public warm to you and come out to you, but

Presenter22:33

You've got to have great confidence then as an actor in your script, haven't you? Gets back to whether it's well written or not.

David Croft22:36

This battle.

David Croft22:38

Well, yes, well I always make a speech to them. I say, For God's sake, don't try and help the material. If it isn't funny, it's our fault.

Presenter22:43

The most amazing thing about Alo Alo is not just that it's sold to many, many, I think forty countries around the world, is that it's it's sold to France.

David Croft22:52

Yes.

Presenter22:52

How do you explain that?

David Croft22:54

Oh, well I think uh probably the uh the grandchildren that heard so many tales from grandpa about how brave the resistance were, they find it rather amusing that uh well we're sending it up.

Presenter23:05

Which of your shows have have sold in the States? Because that's always supposed to be the difficult thing, isn't it? That that British humour, and particularly that kind of knockabout situation humour, doesn't always go down well across the street.

David Croft23:16

Well, uh I'm being served as the the B B C's biggest seller now.

Presenter23:19

Is it really?

David Croft23:19

Uh yes, it's going to hundreds of stations and they have Mrs. Slocum lookalike competitions and and uh we get a lot of mail from them. And uh i th it's it's uh become a cult thing over there. And uh in San Francisco it was actually on from six o'clock in the evening until twelve o'clock at night. Solid.

David Croft23:36

Nothing else but I beg served.

Presenter23:38

What endless episodes

David Croft23:39

Continuous. Yeah. Continuous.

Presenter23:41

Even you might find that difficult.

David Croft23:42

I would find it difficult. Yes, I do enjoy my own shows, but I couldn't enjoy that much, I think.

Presenter23:47

What about Dad's army? Has that sold over there?

David Croft23:49

Um, yeah, it's l limited sale in in America. I mean, point of fact we went over there and did a a pilot of it, but it was a rather strange thing to try and do'cause they they had no comparable situation.

Presenter23:59

So all of these international s sales presumably means you're a millionaire.

David Croft24:03

I'm afraid not really, but I've very had a very nice life and uh I'm not complaining at all. If if I'd been in America I'd be a millionaire twenty five times over, but uh'cause the the money arrives in trucks at the end.

Presenter24:14

It was said in in the late seventies though that you had a I think it was your adjective a breathtaking offer, or if not several from from the other side, from IT V, who were desperate at that time to try and equal the very successful formulas that the BBC then had in light entertainment.

David Croft24:28

Yes, well I I I was never keen to take that sort of offer because um

David Croft24:33

It's very important, I think, in this world to do good work. And at the BBC I was able to do good work. They p gave me enough money, never too much, but enough money. And there was not the urge to make an instant success. They've always allowed a show to grow. And all my shows really have have started slowly and and and built up a big reputation as they went along. And God bless the BBC, they've always allowed me to do that.

Presenter24:57

Record number six.

David Croft24:59

When I was uh still struggling to be an actor, I was on a show called The Bell of New York. In fact, that's when I met my wife, and uh we toured around in that for um a long time, in fact for sixteen weeks.

David Croft25:10

and I sang a song called When We Are Married, Why What Will You Do?

David Croft25:14

And didn't once get a giggle, and I thought it was a great triumph. And this one's Anne Siegel and Webster Booth singing when we are married.

Speaker 325:23

We are

Presenter25:24

Yeah.

Speaker 325:25

Why, what will you do?

Presenter25:29

I'll be a sweet hell I can be toy I will be

Speaker 125:36

Repender, and I will be true.

Speaker 125:43

When I am a man

Speaker 125:47

We hope.

Speaker 125:49

Oh yeah.

Presenter25:51

Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth singing When We Are Married from The Belle of New York. And you, David, have just celebrated your fortieth wedding anniversary with your wife.

David Croft25:59

Yes, indeed. Yes, seven children.

Presenter26:00

Seven children. No wonder you're not a millionaire.

David Croft26:02

Yep.

David Croft26:04

Well that's got something to do with it, because we're all privately educated.

Presenter26:05

BAH

Presenter26:07

And you're just seventy, but you're still not retired.

David Croft26:09

Yeah.

David Croft26:11

Not really, no, no, I'm sort of I've stopped a bit anyway.

Presenter26:13

But you don't want to stop complaining.

David Croft26:15

I I want to take a pause, you know. It's time I sat back and had had a look around and

David Croft26:20

A deep breath.

Presenter26:22

Do you think you've got another series in you yet?

David Croft26:24

Well

Presenter26:25

If not the same.

David Croft26:25

To produce and write a series it it does require an enormous amount of energy to k keep it all going,'cause if if the person at the top stops, then the whole thing flies to a halt. And uh I do find it difficult at the moment, having had various medical conditions, and I can't, I think, summon that energy for the way I want to anyway.

Presenter26:40

Your various medical conditions are heart problems, which is a very good question.

David Croft26:43

Yeah, yeah, so I had a

David Croft26:44

An open heart job about ten years ago, and uh quite a lot of other bits and pieces that have been renewed or or reconditioned or

Presenter26:53

Do you blame yourself in a sense for the heart problem? I mean, are you somebody who does?

Presenter26:58

Take it all on himself, as you say, the person at the top, and you bear all the worries.

David Croft27:02

I mean, nobody knows what causes the damn things. Um I think it's stress uh related really as much as anything. And although I'm uh a very calm person, I'm told obviously I must seethe inside. I'm not aware of it, but uh it must be something anyway.

Presenter27:15

So rest and relaxation on the desert island is exactly what you mean.

David Croft27:18

Oh yes, quite definitely, yes.

Presenter27:20

But will you enjoy it or will you get bored?

David Croft27:22

I don't know. I'm I'm quite happy with my own company for about forty eight hours. I don't know what shall do after that. I don't think I shall try to escape, because I'm a terrible sailor, and I I get sort of queasy when I'm going up the gangplank. Not that there'll be a gangplank, I mean it would be a

Presenter27:34

Yeah, this is a swimming job.

David Croft27:35

Yes, I do, yes. Well, I can't swim very well. I mean s the breaststroke.

David Croft27:40

About uh fifty yards, and I think that's about it really. So I think I'm stuck there.

Presenter27:42

I think I'm stuck.

David Croft27:45

Uh

Presenter27:46

Next piece of music.

David Croft27:48

About the time when I was at um the writ writing in Dad's Army, my wife, who was a very good agent, she'd always wanted me to write a musical, and so she managed to get the rights from the HT Wells estate of one of his novels called

David Croft28:01

Uh Ann Veronica. And um

David Croft28:04

I wrote uh score and done lyrics of this with my good friend.

David Croft28:08

It's a roundel.

David Croft28:10

And uh since I was doing Dance Army at the time, I managed to persuade Arthur Lowe to

David Croft28:15

play one of the leading parts and in this song he plays the part of Mr. Ramage and he's trying to seduce Anne Veronica who's a university student.

David Croft28:33

Yeah.

Speaker 328:40

Uh

David Croft28:40

Yeah.

Speaker 328:40

Yeah.

David Croft28:40

I couldn't play a trinket so sly.

David Croft28:44

Yet somehow, somewhere soon I mean to drive

Presenter28:53

Uh

Presenter28:53

Arthur Lowe, singing I Couldn't Do a Thing Like That from Ann Veronica. Many of your successes, David Croft, as we've seen, have been born of parts of your life, the war and the army, and indeed you were we worked at Butlin's for a time and we got high de high there. But they're also about class to an extent, aren't they?

David Croft29:12

Yes, I think it's a a very good feel for comedy in England. Uh we're a very class-ridden society and it's all very well trying to be classless, but it doesn't seem to work. Um

David Croft29:21

we still laugh at it and uh all my nearly all my shows anyway are sort of historical shows and so they can look back on that that particular aspect of British life and uh enjoy it and laugh at it.

Presenter29:32

They're sort of period pieces, right? Yes, they are.

David Croft29:37

Yes, yes. Are you being said it wasn't, but it's a strange little backwater of uh of modern life, a place of its own.

Presenter29:43

But very real all the same and hierarchical again.

David Croft29:46

Oh, absolutely, yes, all the way down. And the stores are like that. Jeremy Lloyd was the one who worked in the store and uh it was exactly like that.

Presenter29:48

And the business stores are like

Presenter29:54

In a gentleman's outfit as well.

David Croft29:54

Yeah, I think it's a very good idea.

Presenter29:59

But is it I mean, it's obviously something that that does fascinate you, you know, people who think that they're better or are trying to be better than others, and that's a common theme to most of your work, isn't it?

David Croft30:09

Yes, I think it is. Yes, I've always found it fun and uh pomposity and that sort of thing. It's a great feel for comedy. As is danger too. Um a lot of my shows have have taken advantage of the fact that there's a war on or you're gonna get shot at or something, you know.

Presenter30:21

Okay.

David Croft30:22

And uh that's a great help.

Presenter30:24

And what they also have proved that they have in common is durability. I mean, Dad's army is still making people laugh today.

David Croft30:31

Yes, indeed, more so than ever, I think, Reynie.

Presenter30:33

Well now do you think this is one of those impossible questions but from from the um

David Croft30:36

Questions?

Presenter30:38

Great position that you've reached. Do you think that today's comedy will be making people laugh in twenty-five years' time?

David Croft30:44

Uh I'm not sure about that. I think some of it's very funny, but I'm not sure that it will endure because I I think if a a show is done of today contemporarily it doesn't look so good when you see it in ten or fifteen years' time. It sort of it looks old fashioned whereas if you do it about uh something that happened ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, uh you seem to escape that somehow.

Presenter31:03

That's one of the secrets of the success, isn't it?

David Croft31:05

I think so, yes, yes. It's one of the secrets of the durability, certainly.

Presenter31:09

Last record.

David Croft31:10

As I said once before, I'm very fond of good lyrics, and I suppose the master at the moment is Stephen Sondheim.

David Croft31:17

And this is a song by Cleo Lane, who I think is a wonderful singer. I mean, nobody could sing this song better than she does. And also I like it because it it makes my wife cry.

David Croft31:29

It's called Not What I'm Ran.

Speaker 131:31

Others can desert you, not worry, we some I'll be there.

Speaker 131:39

Demons'll charm you with a smile.

Presenter31:39

Demons are charming.

Speaker 131:47

It turns nothing can harm you, not one.

Speaker 131:57

Alright

Presenter32:01

Cleo Lane singing Not While I'm Around by Stephen Songtime. So which of the eight is the most important to you, David?

David Croft32:07

I think it was that one.

David Croft32:09

It's a lovely song and it's beautifully sung.

Presenter32:11

Uh Yeah.

Presenter32:12

And your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

David Croft32:14

I think the collected poems of Tom Betcherman.

David Croft32:17

whose marvellous Englishman with great humour, I shall shout them at the waves.

Presenter32:23

And your luxury.

David Croft32:24

Well, I thought maybe it should be a typewriter or a

David Croft32:27

pen and paper, but on the end I in the end I plumped, I think, for a piano. Uh I don't play the piano very well, I I I don't play it at all. I did learn when I was a kid. I didn't practise enough. I have an admirable opportunity to practise a great deal.

David Croft32:40

and never be able to hear the terrible noise I make.

Presenter32:43

And we shall get some songs if we don't get another sitcom from him.

David Croft32:46

Well, that's a good idea, yes. It's a long time since I've read a song.

Presenter32:47

He is

Presenter32:50

David Croft, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear.

David Croft32:52

It's a very good product.

Speaker 133:01

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.