Harold Snoad was good at the unglamorous business of keeping a television comedy in working order. His judgement with performers earns our respect, though the familiar jokes can ask rather too much of them.
Fi1m perspective
In Are You Being Served? (1972), Frank Thornton, John Inman and Mollie Sugden keep a department-store comedy going when its jokes wear thin. We enjoyed their company because they gave the shop enough personality to make another visit worthwhile. This is where Harold Snoad's work makes sense: in studio comedy built around an ensemble, with the performers giving us a reason to return. He directed and produced the second series in 1974, so the programme's virtues cannot all be assigned to him.
His early contribution to Dad's Army included choosing Thetford for its exteriors and directing five episodes from 1969. Later, Don't Wait Up (1983) occupied him as director and producer for all six series. He also directed and produced the final two series of Ever Decreasing Circles (1986–1989), which he used as a case study in his directing manual. The pattern is of a practical director who stayed with a programme and knew its workings well enough to explain them.
On Keeping Up Appearances (1990), his most telling decision was choosing Patricia Routledge. He wanted Hyacinth to have physical and vocal weight, and produced and directed all five series. That is the kind of judgement we value in him: thinking about what an actor brings before the lines are spoken. His involvement with writing extended to 67 Dad's Army radio adaptations with Michael Knowles. Roy Clarke's objections to uncredited changes on Keeping Up Appearances are a reason not to praise that involvement without qualification.
The attraction of Are You Being Served? also helps explain his defence of studio audiences: he believed their laughter could make comedy more enjoyable at home. We recommend the programme for Thornton, Inman and Sugden, while accepting that some of its jokes have aged poorly. An audience enjoying itself is no guarantee that every line still works. Try a half-hour of his second series before settling in for a longer visit.
Biography
Harold Snoad was a British television producer, director and writer. He joined the BBC in 1957 and worked on programmes including Hancock’s Half Hour before becoming a production assistant on the early series of Dad’s Army (1968). He directed five episodes of the series from 1969 and later directed the second series of Are You Being Served? (1974).
Snoad’s other directing and producing credits included The Dick Emery Show, Ever Decreasing Circles, Don’t Wait Up and his best-known work, Keeping Up Appearances (1990–95). With Michael Knowles he adapted Dad’s Army for radio and co-wrote the sequel series It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which was adapted for ITV as High & Dry under the pseudonym Alan Sherwood. He wrote the BBC training manual Directing Situation Comedy (1988) and the memoir It’s Bouquet – Not Bucket! (2009). Snoad died in 2024.
