Harold Snoad, BBC stalwart who produced Keeping Up Appearances and scripted Dad’s Army on the radio – obituary

Harold Snoad: when he dared to rebuke the ensemble cast of Dad's Army for failing to learn their lines properly, Jimmy Perry called him 'the bravest man I know' - alamy

Harold Snoad, who has died aged 88, was a hands-on BBC producer and director whose name became familiar to television viewers from numerous sitcom credits, from Oh, Brother! (1969), starring Derek Nimmo, to Keeping Up Appearances (1990-95), starring Patricia Routledge as the social-climbing Hyacinth Bucket (“pronounced Bouquet”). In addition, with the actor Michael Knowles, he scripted and directed 67 radio adaptations of episodes of Dad’s Army (1974-76).

Keeping Up Appearances was probably his greatest hit, the comedy hingeing on Hyacinth Bucket’s aspirations to join the ranks of the upper-middle class, with their “candlelight suppers”, being constantly brought down to earth by her hen-pecked husband, Richard (Clive Swift) and sabotaged by intrusive reminders of her less-than-refined roots in the form of her beer-swilling, vest-wearing brother-in-law Onslow (Geoffrey Hughes) and her sex-obsessed sisters.

Hyacinth Bucket was desperate not to let the outside world see what went on behind closed doors. But no such concerns seem to have bothered Snoad in his memoir of the series, It’s Bouquet – Not Bucket! (2009).

Patricia Routledge with Clive Swift in Keeping Up Appearances (1990) - Alamy

It was Snoad who picked Patricia Routledge for the lead role, but in his book he complained that the actress was so tight-fisted that she was reluctant to chip in a fiver for the cast party at the end of the first series, and by the end of the second series allegedly flatly refused to contribute. He regarded as inordinate the amount of time it took her to complete a costume change and resented the way she quit the role in 1995.

The BBC had wanted Keeping Up Appearances to go on longer and the actress’s departure was, perhaps, not the only problem as the production had also been bedevilled by creative differences between Snoad and the series creator and scriptwriter Roy Clarke. “I watched Keeping Up Appearances on occasion and found scenes I hadn’t written,” Clarke complained later. “That’s death to a writer. You can’t have that.”

Snoad admitted that he and Clarke did not see eye to eye: “At times we weren’t the best of mates. He could never accept that anything was wrong with his scripts. When I found a bit that didn’t work, I had no alternative but to rewrite large chunks myself, with the blessing of the BBC.”

The 1971 film of Dad's Army – Snoad had been production assistant on the first four series and directed five episodes - alamy

Earlier in his career Snoad had been a production assistant on the first four series of Dad’s Army (1968-70), and he was credited with choosing the location for filming the fictional south coast town of Walmington-on-Sea. “I wanted a battle area we could have control over and narrowed it down to Stanford [the military training area near Thetford in Norfolk]. Thetford, he recalled, “was very good for places we could film period-wise, and everything went from there”.

During that time the producer David Croft – who created the comedy with Jimmy Perry – allowed Snoad to direct five episodes, and when Snoad dared to rebuke the ensemble cast for failing to learn their lines properly, Perry called him “the bravest man I know”.

Following the success of the television series, in 1973 the BBC commissioned a radio series based on the TV original. Since Perry and Croft were busy on a sixth television series, the radio adaptations were written by Snoad and Michael Knowles but acted by the same cast.

Snoad's memoir

While the radio version was familiar from the television productions, the writers cleverly reshaped the visual jokes to work by ear. Another difference was that Arthur Lowe’s Captain Mainwaring was suddenly much less hesitant and stuttering, the simple result of his reading directly from a script which, for the television shows, he had been famously reluctant to learn.

Harold Edward Snoad was born in Mill Hill, Middlesex, on August 28 1935 to Sydney Snoad and Irene, née James. When he was 12 the family moved to Eastbourne, where his parents ran a hotel, and he attended Eastbourne College. He enjoyed acting at school and went on to train at the Florence Moore Theatre Studios in Brighton.

During National Service with the RAF, Snoad staged dramatic productions and on one occasion was asked to design an entry for the service’s annual window display competition. He had the idea of basing it round the BBC game show What’s My Line? and contacted Gilbert Harding, who supplied photographs of himself and fellow panellists. When the display won, Harding suggested that Snoad find a job at the BBC after demob.

Snoad joined the Corporation as a floor assistant in 1957 and was soon busy working on comedy series such as Hancock’s Half Hour.

Richard Briers, Penelope Wilton and Peter Egan in Ever-Decreasing Circles (1984) - Alamy

He made his debut as a director in 1968 on Hugh and I Spy, an espionage sitcom starring Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd, and his debut as both producer and director the following year with the clerical sitcom Oh, Brother!

His long list of credits over the ensuing years included His Lordship Entertains (1972), starring Ronnie Barker; Casanova ’73, with Leslie Phillips; the second series of the Grace Bros department store comedy Are You Being Served? (1974); The Dick Emery Show (1974-81); Rings on Their Fingers (1978-80); The New Adventures of Lucky Jim (1982); Tears Before Bedtime (1983); the third series of Brush Strokes (1989); Ever Decreasing Circles (1986-89); and Don’t Wait Up (1983-90), starring Dinah Sheridan, Tony Britton and Nigel Havers.

In 1976 he made his only feature film, Not Now, Comrade, starring Leslie Phillips and featuring Dad’s Army’s Ian Lavender and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’s Don Estelle and Windsor Davies, but it was flop.

In 1981 he and Michael Knowles wrote a pilot episode of a Dad’s Army radio sequel called It Sticks Out Half a Mile, with Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier reprising their roles of Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson. The show was recorded in 1982 but not broadcast at the time out of respect for Lowe, who died of a stroke just weeks later.

Snoad directing his only feature film, Not Now, Comrade (1976) - alamy

Instead the writers refashioned their original idea into a 13-episode series (1983-84) in which members of the Dad’s Army ensemble – John Le Mesurier, Ian Lavender, Bill Pertwee and Vivienne Martin, minus Captain Mainwaring – attempt to renovate a decrepit pier in the seaside town of Frambourne-on-Sea. Although a second series was commissioned, John Le Mesurier’s death in November 1983 brought it to an end.

In 1985 Snoad and Knowles piloted a television episode based on the series, entitled Walking the Plank and starring Michael Elphick, with Richard Wilson in the bank manager role, though the names of their characters were changed to avoid upsetting Dad’s Army fans.

The BBC decided to turn it down but agreed to let Snoad take it elsewhere. The series was eventually taken up by Yorkshire TV and broadcast for seven episodes in 1987 as the sitcom High and Dry, with Snoad listed in the credits under the nom de plume Alan Sherwood.

In 1957 Harold Snoad married Anne Cadwallader. The marriage was dissolved, and in 1963 he married Jean Green, who survives him with their two daughters.

Harold Snoad, born August 28 1935, died June 2 2024

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