The Big Parade upholds what had by this point become a dubious tradition of opening each series of Dad's Army with a really silly episode. It begins well enough with a scene of several members of the platoon at the cinema watching Powell and Pressburger's The Spy in Black, in which Mainwaring complains about Conrad Veidt being "some sort of foreigner." But all too soon the focus shifts to an upcoming parade in which the Home Guard, the ARP Wardens and the Sea Scouts all want to lead. Mainwaring thinks a live mascot will help their chances, and in no time at all they're all running about a field chasing a ram. My heart sank when this sequence began, as it was so reminiscent of Series 2 opener Operation Kilt and its nonsense involving cows. As a Dad's Army fan, I accept and even occasionally celebrate the fact that slapstick is a part of the show's DNA. Sometimes it is executed well but at other times it is a tad too broad and repetitive for its own good. For the most point The Big Parade falls back on the latter, although it does culminate in quite an amusing punchline in which the titular parade descends into a juvenile race between the Home Guard and the ARP as each tries to claim pole position by force.
Review of The Big Parade
