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
