On the other hand, given the number of shows Croft produced and co-wrote with Perry and Lloyd, the huge casts of characters involved and the numerous plots (there were 58 episodes of Hi-de-Hi! alone), Croft tells enough --stories and reveals enough secrets to satisfy the keenest fans.
How many know, for example, that Mainwaring was originally conceived as a conventional-British officer and silly ass, to be played by Jon Pertwee, and Arthur Lowe was going to be the dynamic sergeant in Dad's Army?
There are some excellent snapshots of all the leading actors and their behaviour on and off the set: Arthur Lowe never quite remembering his lines; John le Mesurier charming the make-up and wardrobe girls; Mollie Sugden being prepared to suffer any amount of indignity if it helped the comedy; and Su Pollard being so short-sighted that if she put her glasses down on a table 'she could only find them by imitating a helicopter at the height of 10 inches from any likely surface. She would hover to and fro until they came into view'.
Croft and his writing partners would seem to have had an amazingly trouble-free ride with the BBC comedy department, but those were the days when heads of departments followed their instincts, took risks and gave new comedies time to find their feet.
Michael Mills, for instance, who immediately saw the comic possibilities of Dad's Army and gave it the go-ahead, is remembered as being 'a great head of comedy with boundless enthusiasm. Forget budgets and technical problems. These were difficulties that could be overcome. Anything was possible in Michael's world.'
Given that Croft's BBC career flourished at a time when the responsibility for producing great comedy lay with the heads of department, who decided whether to commission a series, and the producers, who hired the writers, found the cast, handled the actors and dealt with the script, the arrival of John Birt ('the Demon King') was a complete disaster.
Croft makes no bones about his distaste for the Birtian BBC, with its management re-structures, focus groups, business plans, schemes such as 'total costing' and 'producer choice', hordes of management consultants, endless committees and 'hopelessly cumbersome decision making'.
But, then, as the producer of many Morecambe and Wise shows, Ernest Maxim, once said to him: 'I think we had the best of it, Dave.' After reading these engaging and entertaining memoirs by this generous giant of British comedy, I think many will agree.
