The Lion Has Phones

"The Lion Has Phones"
Dad's Army episode
Episode no.	Series Three Episode 015
Directed by	David Croft
Story by	Jimmy Perry and David Croft
Produced by	David Croft
Original air date	Thursday 25/9/69 7.30pm (recorded Sunday 8/6/69)
Running time	30 minutes
Episode chronology
← Previous "Battle School" Next → "The Bullet is Not for Firing"

The Lion Has 'Phones is the third episode of the third series of the British comedy series Dad's Army that was originally transmitted on Thursday 25 September 1969.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Plot 3 Notes 4 Cast 5 Radio episode 6 References 7 External links

Synopsis

When an enemy aircraft crashes in the town's reservoir, the platoon have to capture some real-life prisoners.

Plot

After a successful exercise in camouflage, Mainwaring delivers a lecture on communications. Apparently, the four main targets are the Gasometer, the railway bridge, the telephone exchange and the reservoir. They are vital to the town's survival, so two men will be posted at each location. If they see anything suspicious, they will phone Mainwaring via the nearest telephone box. Frazer asks Mainwaring what will happen if the telephone boxes are out of action, and many alternatives are suggested, including a heliograph, tick-tacking, Shooting a hole in the top of the Gasometer and setting fire to it, and tapping the railway line and laying your ear onto it (Pike dismisses this idea by telling Jones that a train may come and run over your ear)

Pike and Godfrey admit they do not know how to use a telephone box; Mrs Pike believes they are unhygienic and Godfrey is hopeless with machines. After a hilarious practical demonstration, they march down to the telephone box nearest the reservoir. Pike is the first to get the lesson, but the recipient of the call is Mrs Pike, who gives Mainwaring and Wilson an earful. When a queue begins to form, Walker cons them into believing that telephone calls are going on ration from tomorrow!

That evening, while out on patrol, Frazer and Walker spot a plane crash into the reservoir. Walker phones Mainwaring, then mysteriously vanishes. Mainwaring and the rest of the platoon arrive, and their verbal attempts to persuade the Germans to surrender results in heavy gunfire. Mainwaring tells Jones to memorise and destroy the paper when he phones GHQ, but Jones' muddleheadedness as he says "Memorise and destroy the phone" results in him ringing the Embassy Cinema instead, and ends up believing that Googie Withers and Eric Portman are aboard the plane. He gets no joy from emergency services either, so the ARP Warden helps Jones get through.

Eventually, Lieutenant Hope-Bruce of the Coldstream Guards arrives and tells Mainwaring that they've surrounded the reservoir. He pompously tries to get Mainwaring to leave the situation in the hands of the regular army, but is quick to cancel an order for mortar bombs under Mainwaring's persuasion. Walker returns and tells Mainwaring that he's talked to the man in charge of the reservoir: he has opened the sluices, and the Germans will have to swim for it in less than two hours. Laughing, Mainwaring says they should leave the mopping up to the Coldstream Guards.

Notes

1. The working title for this episode was 'Sorry, Wrong Number', which was the title used for the later radio episode.
2. The episode title is a reference to the 1939 propaganda film The Lion Has Wings.
3. When Jones accidentally rings up the cinema, they mistakenly believe he is enquiring about the 1941 film One of Our Aircraft Is Missing starring, as they tell him, Googie Withers. A poster for this film can be seen on the wall of the box office.

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
Janet Davies	Mrs Pike
Bill Pertwee	ARP Warden Hodges
Avril Angers	Telephone Operator
Timothy Carlton	Lieutenant Hope-Bruce
Stanley McGeagh	Sergeant Waller
Pamela Cundell, Olive Mercer, Bernadette Milnes	Ladies in the Queue
Gilda Perry	Doreen
Linda James	Betty
Richard Jacques	Mr Cheesewright
Colin Daniels and Carson Green	Boys

Radio episode

"Sorry, Wrong Number"
Dad's Army episode
Episode no.	Series One Episode 015
Story by	Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles
Produced by	John Dyas
Original air date	Monday 6/5/74, 6.15pm (recorded Friday 27/7/73)
Running time	30 minutes
Episode chronology
← Previous "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Walker" Next → "The Bullet is Not for Firing"

References

• Croft, David; Perry, Jimmy; Webber, Richard (2000). The Complete A-Z of Dad’s Army. Orion. ISBN 0-75284-637-X. 

External links

• "The Lion Has Phones" at BBC Programmes
• "The Lion Has Phones" at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Lion Has Phones" at TV.com

Dad's Army series 3 episodes "The Armoured Might of Lance Corporal Jones" "Battle School" "The Lion Has Phones" "The Bullet is Not for Firing" "Something Nasty in the Vault" "Room at the Bottom" "Big Guns" "The Day the Balloon Went Up" "War Dance" "Menace from the Deep" "Branded" "Man Hunt" "No Spring for Frazer" "Sons of the Sea"