Premiering on 12 August 1973, this excellent Sunday night drama series from Granada Television featured five old tales viewed from new angles. Modern writers put their spin on stories featuring characters from Treasure Island, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Frankenstein, and Moby Dick.
Silver
Written by John Spurling, the story begins in the present where 60-year-old James Cable (Bernard Lee) – a dealer in spare parts (or “doctor of machines” as he calls himself) – is trying to explain to mystified Irish port officials why he is carrying a half-cargo of guns.
Flashbacks to 1926 show us young Jim as a boy (Alastair Mackenzie), immersed and totally involved in Treasure Island. His mother reads it to him every night, but he knows it all by heart anyway.
He is happily indulged by his mother and uncle – landed Anglo-Irish gentry gloating over the border, which will separate them from the South and those Papist blasphemers.
What happens when reality and fantasy clash? When there really is a one-legged man in the barn who hasn’t stepped off the printed page but is, in fact, an IRA captain?
Nightmare ultimately takes over, and the family are held at gunpoint. When young Jim Cable sees his uncle shot in the back – and he himself is shot at – can his fantasy possibly survive?
Directed by Robert Knights.
James Cable
Bernard Lee Kathy Cable
Elizabeth Bell John Swift
Richard Kane Molly
Valerie Lilley Dr Level
Clifford Rose William Cable
Michael Turner Jim (James) Cable as a boy
Alastair Mackenzie
Buttons
Fairy tale character Cinderella (Adrienne Posta) has married her Prince Charming (Rula Lenska) and risen from poverty to a palace in this story from playwright Alun Owen. Cinders turns out to be a heart-hearted bitch and shuns her old friend Buttons (veteran rock & roll singer Tommy Steele), banishing him from the kingdom.
Poor old Buttons winds up in Paris at the time of the French Revolution, where he gets a job in a cafe where Robespierre (Dinsdale Landen), Marat (John Justin), Danton (John Rhys-Davies) and Mirabeau (John Grillo) meet regularly.
There he loses his illusions, his happy grin and his virginity – surrendering his all in the bed of the Empress Josephine (Merdelle Jordine). He finally heads back to the kingdom of Reizendia, intent on seizing power in the name of the people.
Buttons
Tommy Steele Cinderella
Adrienne Posta Dandini
Jenny Runacre Prince Charming
Rula Lenska Spy
Arthur English Cafe proprietress
Peggy Mount Robespierre
Dinsdale Landen Marat
John Justin Danton
John Rhys-Davies Mirabeau
John Grillo Wolf Tone
John Kearney Josephine
Merdelle Jordine Napoleon
Gordon Reid
Sister Alice
The Alice immortalised by the Reverend Charles Dodgson (Charles Kay) – writing as Lewis Carroll – has a father who is a college master at Oxford. He is portrayed here as a thoroughly un-Christian man and a male chauvinist pig of the first order.
The real heroine of this raw, raging, passionate piece is not Alice (Pascal King) but her 18-year-old sister, Marianne (Yvonne Nicholson), who struggles against her tyrannical father (Peter Cellier) and marriage-obsessed mother (Ruth Trouncer) to assert her independence and individuality as a woman.
Marianne uses her courage and intelligence to fight the coldness, indifference and hypocrisy surrounding her. Repressed by her outraged family, she finds herself in a nightmare in which they seem as mad as the lunatic creatures in Lewis Carroll’s fantasies.
Written by Brian Wright and directed by Brian Mills.
Marianne Yvonne Nicholson Alice
Pascal King Rev. Charles Dodgson
Charles Kay Mother
Ruth Trouncer Father
Peter Cellier John
Peter Marshall Tibbs
Mike Grady Canon
John Byron Knave of Hearts
Nigel Jeffcoat
Frankenstein
The Phoneix is moving farther and farther north into the bleak ice packs of the Arctic. The crew (who looked like they were part of a package deal labelled “motley crew for seafaring dramas”) wants to turn back to Liverpool, but the ship’s master, Robert Walton (John Stride from The Main Chance), has his own secret reasons for pressing on. Suddenly, a huge misshapen man looms up ahead, stumbling across the ice.
Later the ship picks up a man from the ice, half-dead from exhaustion and exposure. His name is Baron Frankenstein (Geoffrey Bayldon of Catweazle fame).
Written by John Stevenson and directed by Gerry Mill.
Robert Walton
John Stride Baron Frankenstein
Geoffrey Bayldon Captain Shaw
John Stratton Mr Brown
David Ryall Taylor
Derrick O’Connor Howarth
Ted Carroll Archer
Will Stampe
Ishmael
Written by Stanely Eveling and directed by Carol Wilks, this episode presents the early life of Ishmael (Gino Miller), the narrator of Moby Dick by Herman Melville. A mysterious blonde girl appears on the beach where the lad is playing with the jawbone of a killer whale and summons up three mysterious men.
Boy William Relton Grandfather
Seamus Healy Mother
Freda Dowie Blonde Girl
Susan Penhaligon Queequeg
John A. Tinn Tashtego
Heronimo Sehmi Daggoo
Earle Anthony Ishmael
Gino Miller
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Flashbacks to 1926 show us young Jim as a boy (Alastair Mackenzie), immersed and totally involved in Treasure Island. His mother reads it to him every night, but he knows it all by heart anyway.
