Devil in the Fog, The

1 9 6 8 (UK)
6 x 25 minute episodes

George Treet (Nicholas Evans) is an affected, self-proclaimed genius and part of the Treet family’s group of travelling players entertaining in the hostelries of England.

One night, a stranger (Valentine Dyall) visits the head of the family with an important message. It is time for Mr Treet to reveal to George that the boy is not a Treet after all but in fact a nobleman, the son of Baron Dexter.

Quite taken by this thought – which explains a lot to him about his regal manner – George journeys to his new family home only to find a cold and inhospitable mansion and a dying father. Worse still, he finds himself tangled up in an old family feud and faces death somewhere out there in the fog.

While The Devil in the Fog functioned ostensibly as an adventure story, there was also the realisation for George that, while his birthright may have been the noble Dexter seat, his true family were the down-to-earth Treets.

For the Associated-Rediffusion series, the character of George was aged up a good few years from the 14-year-old of Leon Garfield’s Grand Guignol novel of the 18th century (although the novel was actually an ersatz piece of faux Dickensania written just two years earlier. It had won the Guardian Prize for Children’s Fiction in 1967).

A key filming location was the moated house, Ightham Mote, near Sevenoaks in Kent.

George Treet
Nicholas Evans
Salathiel Treet
Martin Dempsey
Edward Treet
Keith Skinner
Jane Treet
Diana Simpson
Hotspur Treet
John Moulder-Brown
Rose Treet
Verina Greenlaw
Sir John Dexter
Richard Leech
Captain Richard Dexter
Gary Watson
Lady Dexter
Stephanie Bidmead
Joseph
Milton Johns
The Stranger
Valentine Dyall
Mrs Goater
Peggy Ann Clifford

Episodes

Some Are Born of Greatness… | Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them… | O My Prophetic Soul: My Uncle! | That One May Smile, and Smile, and Be a Villain… | Fair Is Foul, and Foul Is Fair… | … This Fell Serjeant, Death …