1 9 5 1 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes
Adapted from a story by Rudyard Kipling, this early BBC fantasy series for children had Dan (Barry MacGregor) and Una (Carole Lorimer) – who had just acted in a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – magically summoning up Shakspeare’s sprite character, Puck (Wee Georgie Wood).
Puck is really Robin Goodfellow, the spirit of Old England, who shows the children how the Sussex land where they live has come to be shaped over the centuries by taking them on a trip through the ages. Their furthest journey sees them travel back to the time of the Roman occupation.
Half-way through the run of the series, the Holme Moss transmitter for the North West of England came into operation, meaning that Puck of Pook’s Hill acted as an introduction – albeit a slightly jumbled one since the series “began” with episode four for viewers in the north – to children’s television for another part of the UK.
Puck
Wee Georgie Wood
Una
Carole Lorimer
Dan
Barry MacGregor
Hugh
John Springett
Centurion
Kenneth MacKintosh
Maximus
Basil Dignam
Sir Richard
John Wyse
De Aquila
Stanley Van Beers
Pertinax
Robin Cull
Old Allo
Antony Kearey
Weland
Archie Duncan
Father
Eugene Leahy
Mother
Grace Newcombe
The Abbot
Beckett Bould
Lady Aelueva
Jocelyn Rhodes
Jehan
Frederick Victor
Gilbert
John Roderick
Monk
Gareth Davies
Fulke
Raymond Rollett
Fulke’s son
John French
Rutilianus
Graham Squire
Amal
Derek Tansley
Ambrosius
Leslie Wright
Episodes
Weland’s Sword | Young Men at the Manor | Old Men at Pevensey | A Centurion of the Thirtieth | On the Great Wall | Winged Hats
