Yesterday I tweeted a list of television programmes that only I seem to remember:
It was a little exaggerated - there is a comment on this blog from the man who wrote the music for Gophers! - but largely true.Television programmes I remember that no one else does:— Jonathan Calder (@lordbonkers) July 27, 2019
Gophers!; Adventure Weekly; Well Anyway; Mystery Hall; Over Sea, Under Stone; American children's series that went on for ever in the 60s and had a water tower; Captain Zeppos; The Best of Football; If You Were Me
In reply, the novelist Jonathan Coe told me he remembered both Well Anyway and Adventure Weekly.
The former was a situation comedy with John Bird and John Fortune from 1976 - years after their fame in the original satire boom and more years before their rediscovery when they appeared with Rory Bremner.
The latter was a serial for children, shown on BBC1 at teatime in 1968 and 1969. In it a gang of children ran their own newspaper and I think it has links with the better remembered Here Come the Double Deckers.
But the programme that got most attention was one that no one else remembered: Over Sea, Under Stone.
This is the first book in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, but is very different in tone from the rest of the series. It starts as a children's holiday adventure of the Blyton or Saville variety, but later takes a supernatural turn.
And it really was dramatised by the BBC in 1969. Although it was, as far as I recall, a fully acted production, it was screened under the Jackanory brand. This was a show which otherwise featured an adult reading its young audience a story.
On Twitter, Matthew Kilburn said it was screened at a time when the BBC children's department wasn't meant to do drama, so badging it as Jackanory was a way of smuggling it past the suits.
Over Sea, Under Stone is on IMDB, but there is no entry for the series as a whole - here is the link for part 1.
The cast is notable, containing both Graham Crowden and Colin Jeavons. David Wood, recently in If...., is credited as "Storyteller", so maybe there was a gesture towards Jackanory's usual format before the drama broke out.
Of the children, only Roland Pickering who played Barney had much of a career as a child actor.
I have never heard anyone else mention this dramatisation and I fear the tapes were long ago wiped.
I remember over sea, under stone, and have been searching for a reference for years. Thank u so much for posting this. I think it was shown twice. I can always remember the end sequence where a chalice is thrown in the sea.
ReplyDeleteMy friend Tony Rowlands was in it, and had a substantial part as a teenage boy. We were talking about it today, on a walk in Herefordshire. seankaye-smith@hotmail.co.uk
ReplyDeleteYes, I was in it. My first telly job. I auditioned for Marilyn Fox while I was appearing in a play at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff, and my agent, Barrie Stacey, who also ran a cafe in Covent Garden called ‘As You Like It’ called me on the backstage telephone and said ‘hold your breath, daughter, you’ve got it.’ Such were the days. Finished the play, dashed down to the lovely seaside village of Coverack in Cornwall, and got stuck in to a pretty big part. Very friendly crew and cast, particularly Colin Jeavons, who was helpful and encouraging to a very inexperienced actor. I shared several scenes with Graham Crowden, who was exactly like the eccentric characters I’d seen him play in movies. A A Englander, the cameraman, was very grand, and I remember his assistant holding an umbrella over him when it rained, while getting wet himself. Early one morning we began shooting on the harbour jetty, just as the local fishing boats were arriving from their night’s work. As they tied up at the bottom of the steps, the director’s PA walked down and very poshly said to them ‘you can’t come up here, we’re filming,’ to which the fisherman replied ‘you can fuck off, we’re fishing,’ and proceeded to slowly carry the catch past the assembled film folk. A lovely moment from a memorable experience.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to comment!
ReplyDeleteI have one clear memory of the series. At one point Barney fell into the hands of the baddies and was hypnotised. After that, the sound was distorted for a while. Then suddenly it cleared: he could hear a dog barking on the other side of the harbour and was himself again.