Getting The Bird
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| 044 - Getting the Bird | |
|---|---|
| Script | Jimmy Perry and David Croft |
| Director | David Croft |
| Producer | David Croft |
| Recorded | Friday 2/6/72 |
| Original transmission | 27/10/72 6.50pm |
| Series | Five |
| Length | 30 minutes |
| Original Viewing Figures | ??? million |
| Preceded by | A Soldier's Farewell |
| Followed by | The Desperate Drive of Lance Corporal Jones |
"Getting The Bird" is the fourth episode of the fifth series of the British television sitcom Dad's Army and was originally transmitted on 27 October 1972.
[edit] Synopsis
Wilson is missing from the platoon, and Frazer assumes there has been an argument between him and Mainwairing. Godfrey comments that he spotted the Sergeant with his arm around an attractive and much younger woman...
[edit] Plot
The episode begins with rumours abounding that Sergeant Wilson has gone AWOL. The platoon inform Captain Mainwaring that after a particularly heavy night drinking, Wilson was seen about town with a young girl ( a Wren) on his arm. During this discussion Wilson is found in the church hall, asleep behind the stage curtain.
While Mainwaring berates the still tipsy Wilson in his office, Wilson begins to see pigeons on Manwaring's bookshelf. Both believe this to be the result of Wilson's drunken state until Pike enters the office and points them out. Immediately, the office is filled with pigeons.
It emerges that Walker had stored the birds in the boiler room and they had escaped. Walker secretly proposes to Jones - whose butcher shop is having trouble obtaining meat - to buy the pigeons from Walker to augment his supply of meat, and is persuaded to help Walker to hide them in the church.
However, Jones becomes suspicious when he hears on the radio that there is a sudden and unexplained shortage of pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and ends the agreement.
It is finally revealed during a mass ceremony that the young girl seen with Wilson is his daughter, born of an unsuccessful previous marriage before Wilson had moved to Walmington-on-Sea. The platoon apologise for shunning Wilson, but the mood is broken when the organ begins to play and dead pigeons are fired across the church. Walker and Jones are exposed as having hidden the pigoens in the organ pipes.
[edit] Cast
| Cast | Characters |
| Arthur Lowe | Captain Mainwaring |
| John Le Mesurier | Sergeant Wilson |
| Clive Dunn | Lance Corporal Jones |
| John Laurie | Private Frazer |
| James Beck | Private Walker |
| Arnold Ridley | Private Godfrey |
| Ian Lavender | Private Pike |
| Bill Pertwee | Chief Warden Hodges |
| Frank Williams | Vicar |
| Edward Sinclair | Verger |
| Pamela Cundell | Mrs Fox |
| Janet Davies | Mrs. Pike |
| Alvar Liddell | Newsreader |
| Seretta Wilson | Wren |
