1 9 9 4 – 1 9 9 7 (UK)
20 x 25 minute episodes
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