Ennal’s Point

1 9 8 2 (UK)
6 x 45 minute episodes

This six-part BBC2 series about the professional and personal lives of a Welsh lifeboat crew and their tight-knit community in a small seaside village was adapted from a novel by Alun Richards.

Philip Madoc starred as coxswain Jack Tustin, with Glyn Owen as ‘Animal’ Morgan, Gerald James as Stick Watts and James Warrior as Harry Quentin in support.

“Auntie Nance” (Rachel Thomas) was the head of the Grail family – two of whom had died manning the lifeboat – and the village matriarch.

Madoc’s performance proved an attractive draw-card with audiences and the media alike, which would continue in the highly-popular Channel Five series A Mind To Kill some fifteen years later.

Ennal’s Point has faded somewhat in the public psyche over the years, as the appreciation of other more high-profile fare has blighted its presence. However, the serial is as least notable as an example of the endeavours by the BBC’s foundling arms to produce entertainment of equally, and occasionally higher, calibre than its parent organisation.

The series was globally exported but the limit of its commercial realisation was the novelisation upon which the series had been adapted.

The location photography around The Mumbles lifeboat station (near Swansea) made up in authenticity what the plots lacked in conviction. Derek Scott, coxswain of The Mumbles lifeboat acted as technical adviser during the six months of filming.

Jack Tustin
Philip Madoc
Animal Morgan
Glyn Owen
Geoffrey Hannah
David Lyn
Nance Grail
Rachel Thomas
Billy John Grail
Alun Lewis
Luke Grail
Hugh Thomas
Jenny Grail
Beth Morris
Stick Watts
Gerald James
Snowy White
John Cording
George Peace
Phil Rowlands
Len Dance
Huw Ceredig
Harry Quentin
James Warrior
Ben Dance
Mici Plwm
Ned Spelling
Cadfan Roberts

Episodes

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