Getting the Bird

"Getting the Bird"
Dad's Army episode
Episode no.	Series Five Episode 044
Directed by	David Croft
Story by	Jimmy Perry and David Croft
Produced by	David Croft
Original air date	27/10/72 6.50pm (recorded Friday 2/6/72)
Running time	30 minutes

"Getting the Bird" is the fourth episode of the fifth series of the British television situation comedy Dad's Army and was originally transmitted on 27 October 1972.

Synopsis

Wilson is missing from the platoon, and Frazer assumes there has been an argument between him and Mrs Pike. Godfrey comments that he spotted the Sergeant with his arm around an attractive and much younger woman.

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 woman (a Wren) on his arm. Pike reveals that Wilson and his mother had an argument about something, so he is not calling Wilson "Uncle Arthur", and will not take orders from him. 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 Mainwaring'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's 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.

Just ahead of a church service we hear a conversation between Wilson and the young woman, where we discover that she is his daughter, from a failed marriage before Wilson moved to Walmington-on-Sea. This is reason for the argument between him and Mrs Pike. Frazer is the only person to overhear this, but he says he will keep quiet about it.

The hymns are ruined when the organ begins to play and dead pigeons are fired across the church: Walker is exposed as having hidden the pigeons in the organ pipes.

Cast

References

Croft, David; Perry, Jimmy; Webber, Richard (2000). The Complete A-Z of Dad’s Army. Orion. ISBN 0-7528-4637-X.

External links

"Getting the Bird" at the Internet Movie Database
"Getting the Bird" at TV.com

Dad's Army

Characters

Cast

Crew

Television
episodes

Series 1	"The Man and the Hour" "Museum Piece" "Command Decision" "The Enemy Within the Gates" "The Showing Up of Corporal Jones" "Shooting Pains"

Series 2	"Operation Kilt" "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage" "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker" "Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret" "A Stripe for Frazer" "Under Fire"

Series 3	"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"

Series 4	"The Big Parade" "Don't Forget the Diver" "Boots, Boots, Boots" "Sgt – Save My Boy!" "Don't Fence Me In" "Absent Friends" "Put That Light Out!" "The Two and a Half Feathers" "Mum's Army" "The Test" "A. Wilson (Manager)?" "Uninvited Guests" "Fallen Idol"

Series 5	"Asleep in the Deep" "Keep Young and Beautiful" "A Soldier's Farewell" "Getting the Bird" "The Desperate Drive of Corporal Jones" "If the Cap Fits..." "The King was in his Counting House" "All is Safely Gathered In" "When Did You Last See Your Money?" "Brain Versus Brawn" "A Brush with the Law" "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel" "Time on My Hands"

Series 6	"The Deadly Attachment" "My British Buddy" "The Royal Train" "We Know Our Onions" "The Honourable Man" "Things that Go Bump in the Night" "The Recruit"

Series 7	"Everybody's Trucking" "A Man of Action" "Gorilla Warfare" "The Godiva Affair" "The Captain's Car" "Turkey Dinner"

Series 8	"Ring Dem Bells" "When You've Got to Go" "Is There Honey Still for Tea?" "Come In, Your Time Is Up" "High Finance" "The Face on the Poster"

Series 9	"Wake Up Walmington" "The Making of Private Pike" "Knights of Madness" "The Miser's Hoard" "Number Engaged" "Never Too Old"

Specials	"Untitled Sketch" "Broadcast to the Empire" "Battle of the Giants!" "My Brother and I" "The Love of Three Oranges"