This slapstick children’s comedy from the BBC featured a seafaring family of pirates who swap yo-ho-ho and pillaging for a spot of landlubbering in a suburban cul-de-sac, keelhauling the local community in their unsuccessful efforts to conform.
Paul Bown starred as Roger Bones, a bearded buccaneer who decides it’s about time the family dropped anchor. So they leave the Spanish main and end up in Wordsworth Close, Little-Wheedling-in-the-Vale.
Liz Smith starred as his pistol-packing mother-in-law, Gran (Abigail Blood) and Hayley Elliott as his tomboy daughter Lambkin. Buffy Davis played Roger’s estranged wife, Molly Blood.
Co-stars included June Brown, Andrew Sachs and Charlotte Coleman. Other characters included a foul-mouthed macaw called Pustule, a green baby who brandished a pair of flintlocks and the Bones’ mysterious retainer, Man-in-the-Sack (Toby Sedgwick initially, and then Paul Filipiak).
Roger Bones
Paul Bown Gran (Abigail Blood)
Liz Smith Lambkin Bones
Hayley Elliott Helen Kitten
Debby Bishop Lawrence Kitten
Benjamin Rennis Basmati Bill
Andrew Sachs Mrs Mildred Jones
June Brown (1)
Jillie Meers (2) Jill Crutchworthy
Helen Lederer Man-in-the-Sack
Toby Sedgwick (1)
Paul Filipiak (2) Gail Fleshy
Charlotte Coleman Molly Blood
Buffy Davis
