Harold Snoad joined the BBC in 1957, after having worked in the theatre and had numerous roles, including as a "call boy" for an episode of Hancock's Half Hour in 1960.

His first directing role came with Dad's Army starring Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier and Clive Dunn.

Snoad had already served as production assistant for the first two series and was responsible for choosing the town of Thetford in Norfolk as the site for the location filming.

[2] In 1973, Snoad directed the sitcom Casanova '73 starring Leslie Phillips, but the series was not a success and received criticism from Mary Whitehouse.

In 1976, Snoad directed with Ray Cooney his first feature film Not Now, Comrade which starred Leslie Phillips, Windsor Davies, Don Estelle and Ian Lavender.

In the 1980s, Snoad worked on all six series of Don't Wait Up, starring Tony Britton, Nigel Havers and Dinah Sheridan, which ran from 1983 to 1990.

In 2009, Snoad recalled a joke that the cast played on him while he was having dinner with Patricia Routledge, he said: "Tony Britton - who, by his own admission, did not always arrive at rehearsals dead on time - stopped and knelt down in front of me and asked whether I would be kind enough to allow him another forty-eight hours to complete the five hundred lines I had given him for being late the previous morning!

Tony moved on and was replaced by Nigel Havers and Dinah Sheridan who begged forgiveness for chatting during rehearsals.

By February 2016, the show had been sold almost 1,000 times to overseas broadcaster making it the BBC's most exported television programme.

In 1981, Snoad and Knowles created the Dad's Army spinoff radio series It Sticks Out Half a Mile.

In 1985, they again worked together to create the television adaptation of It Sticks Out Half a Mile with the pilot "Walking the Plank", starring Bernard Cribbins, Richard Wilson and Angus Barnett.

The series was short-lived, with criticism aimed at its lack of location filming which was due to a technicality with union rules.

For his work on Keeping Up Appearances, he reserved two further BAFTA nominations and the prestigious Dutch award, the Silver Tulip.

[10] Snoad was always a great supporter of the studio audience, saying that "when you watch comedy in a theatre or a cinema you are with other people and laughter is infectious.