Have You Been Watching...? King Of The Castle (1977)

 

I love 1970s telefantasy. I love that TV producers took risks, that they aimed so high with their aspirations and that only budgets stood in their way. It’s something we don’t see enough of in the 21^st century, I think. These days it’s all about ratings and playing it safe.

So, what can I tell you about King of the Castle? It was a children’s telefantasy series broadcast between 8^th May 1977 and 19^th June 1977, running for 7 episodes. It’s a stand-alone series, in that there was no series 2, or sequel, or spin-off. It was broadcast in colour by Harlech Television (I have no idea what their commissioning team were on, but HTV produced some amazing programmes for children in its day).  As seems to be the norm for this era, the series doesn’t fully exist in the archives in its entirety and the lost episode 3 is recovered from a VHS recording. I viewed this on the official Network DVD release and the quality isn’t bad at all.

King of the Castle was created and written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who also wrote the other telefantasy series “Sky” (more of that in a future instalment of this blog) but are probably better known for writing several Doctor Who serials and introducing the world to K-9, the Doctor’s robot dog. The series tells the story of Roland, played by Philip DaCosta, a young chorister who has recently moved into a block of flats, with his dad and stepmother. He finds himself the victim of the bullies who roam the building. On one occasion, he tries to get away from them by entering an elevator, but it breaks, and plummets down the shaft.

While the police and maintenance staff try to rescue him, Roland enters a bizarre and twisted version of the world above, resulting in a surreal series of escapades as he tries to find his way out of the strange world he finds himself in, and back to the block of flats as he knows it.

The strange world is populated by twisted versions of people he knows in the real world, meaning the cast play dual roles. The cast includes numerous well-known names like Milton Johns (sci-fi fans will recognise him from The Empire Strikes Back and a variety of Doctor Who tales), Fulton Mackay (Officer Mackay in Porridge alongside Ronnie Barker) and Talfryn Thomas (whom I recognised as Tom Price in the BBC 1970s apocalyptic series Survivors).

Each episode runs for an easily manageable 25 mins (apx), and Roland’s escapades include meeting a Frankenstein’s Monster-esque creature, a woman in red who creepily tries to seduce him (the alternative character to his step-mum played by Angela Richards!) and a samurai-type warrior played by Jamie Foreman, the alternative character to the main bully called “Ripper”. Talfryn Thomas plays a creepy guide through this strange world, and whose motives are unclear resulting in Roland’s uncertainty whether he should trust him or not.

Now I will be honest, 7 episodes may be too many and I found the series flagging around episode 4. Stick with it, however, as episode 6 turns things around with something I certainly did NOT see coming, leading nicely into its finale. Applying modern sensitivities to a series made 45 years ago is always a problem, but very hard to avoid. Certainly, an element of the finale does not sit comfortably today.

The series seems to be a spiritual predecessor to those 80s T Bag adventures, studio bound surreal adventures with limited special effects, but King of the Castle is certainly much darker than T Bags and T shirts would ever be. It also spends a long time leaving the viewer wondering if Roland is dead in real life and this is all in his head. The “real world” characters spend an inordinately long time trying to get to the lift and rescue him, but he doesn’t reply to their calls.  There is a reason for this, but you will be guessing for a while.

 

One of the things I quite disliked about the series is the opening theme tune. It’s a choral version of the old King of the Castle rhyme. I suppose it does add to the atmosphere of the show, but I find it unsettling! Therefore, I suppose, its objective is achieved!

Overall, of course it’s a low budget kids show from the seventies, and it’s very much a product of it’s time.  Could it have done with an episode or two cut? Maybe. Is it enjoyable? Very much so. Fulton Mackay and Talfryn Thomas are great in it, as is Philip DaCosta. Milton Johns is very much underused. My favourite character in it is the father, played by Sean Lynch. He’s just great to watch and it with great sadness I read he passed away in 1979, only two years after this programme.

Year: 1977

Series count: 1

Episode count: 7

Availability: DVD

Have You Been Watching...? The Terror: Infamy

 

Have You Been Watching…? The Terror: Infamy

The Terror is an American anthology series, where each season is a self-contained tale. Each has it’s own cast, storyline, beginning, middle and end with no threads run through tying them all together. “Infamy” is the second series of The Terror. I was not enticed by the plot of series 1, two ships stuck in the ice between 1845-1848, based on the true story of Captain Sir John Franklin’s “lost expedition” to the Arctic. This second series appealed much more, due to its Japanese horror influence (The original Ring movie is one of my all time favourites).

Infamy is historical again, but this time set in the second world war, days before the Pearl Harbour attack. The historical side of the series shows a side of American history I was previously not aware of but makes it all the more horrific and not just in the supernatural way.

The cast of the 10 part epic includes scifi stalwarts such as George Takei (Star Trek), Hiro Kanagawa (Star Trek Discovery, iZombie, Man in the High Castle), C Thomas Howell (with a strong of genre credits to his name!) and Naoko Mori (Torchwood & Dr Who) and relates the story of the Nakayama family, just prior to and immediately after the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941. Following the attack, the American authorities round-up any Japanese person, families, children and all, and intern them in prison camps. Our main protagonist is budding photo-journalist Chester Nakayama, an American born to Japanese parents. It IS important to recognise that given what happens to the family as the series progresses. In the midst of these human rights tragedies comes a spectre from Japanese folklore, terrorising the Japanese community and taking a particular interest in Chester. Our protagonist is played by Derek Mio, whose credits include the movie GBF, Gay Best Friend. He is great as Chester, conveying the despair, devotion, helplessness and heroism. He is very much the backbone of the series and he carries it well.

The series begins with a suicide and continues in a slow build up from there as events overtake the family. As the story progresses, the gore does increase, so be warned! It might be slow paced, but believe me, every second is watchable, both for the antics of the spirit, and the behaviours of the authorities toward innocent people who have done nothing wrong, other than be from, or born to, a different race. “Any drop of Japanese blood” is a phrase used within the series. Historically, some 120,000 people of Japanese descent were imprisoned in these camps with about two thirds of them being actual American citizens. You will have to forgive my accuracy with these facts as I said previously, this phase of American history is new to me, and I gleaned this info from the world wide web, so it’s open to debate. Either way, it happened, and it is still horrific.

The series is very much a jigsaw puzzle and as the pieces start to fall into place, it all begins to make sense. This is one of those series that the ending doesn’t disappoint. In fact, there’s very little about The Terror: Infamy that disappointed at all. We begin to see everything come together the same time Chester does, so we don’t skip ahead, and the series works better because of this. Also, stay with the end credits, you won’t regret it.

Fans of The Terror will no doubt already know that it is executively produced by none other than Ridley Scott and it shows. The cinematography and settings are wonderfully realised, be it the grit of a prison camp or a period fishing village. I won’t say too much more as I don’t want to spoil things, but it is as great to look at as it is horrific.

You might not want to watch this in a dark room on your own, but if you do have the time, you might want to consider investing it in The Terror: Infamy, especially if you are as fan of Japanese horror.

Year: 2019

Episode count: 10

Season count: 1

Availability: Currently free to stream on BBCiplayer (as of July 2022).

Have You Been Watching...? The Nightmare Man

I’d heard of the Nightmare Man many times before, from friends who are much more versed in Telefantasy than I am, so after finally getting a good deal on a second-hand DVD, I settled down to watch it and see what all the fuss was about.

So what did I think of it? Well, I could tell you, but I’d rather you read all the other stuff I’m writing about it too, so either wait ‘til the end, or scroll down to it.

The Nightmare Man is a 4 part thriller from the BBC broadcast in 1981 on Friday nights. I say “thriller” but to say more would be a spoiler. Oh go on, then. The series covers a variety of genres in one, from thriller, to cold war shenanigans and horror to science-fiction. It’s based on the novel “Child of Vodyanoi” by David Wiltshire and released in 1978 but it was adapted for television by Dr Who legend Robert Holmes. Indeed the serial’s connections to Dr Who are broad: In front of the camera, we have an early turn from National Treasure Celie Imrie (The Bells of St John), James Warwick (Earthshock), Maurice Roeves (Caves of Androzani), Tony Sibbald (Terror of the Zygons), Jonathan Newth (Underworld), Tom Watson (The Underwater Menace), Jeff Stewart (Kinda) and Pat Gorman (too numerous to mention).Of course you’ll recognise a number of these from other shows too, like Jeff Stewart in The Bill as Reg Hollis). Dr Who links behind the camera, besides Holmes, include Director Douglas Camefield, Producer Ron Craddock worked on the series in 1964 as production assistant, make-up artist Fran Needham, and assistant floor manager David Tilley. I’m sure there’s more. The series was once described to me like a Dr Who adventure without the Doctor, and it’s probably true. I should also add, that even though there’s a lot of Dr Who talent on screen, there’s also some non-Who talent, including Game of Thrones’ James Cosmo and Bread’s Ronald Forfar.

The series begins with a murder on a remote Scottish island, and the subsequent investigation by the local police, a dentist that assists them (yes, indeed we don’t have enough Dentistry heroes on TV) and a rather mysterious Army colonel. Celia Imrie plays Fiona Patterson, who just happens to be the island’s go-to person for literally everything. Maurice Roeves plays Inspector Inskip of the local police, and is absolutely wonderful on screen, stealing every scene he is in, bringing a necessary groundness to the bizarre goings-on.

As the gruesome murders continue, and a strange craft is located, the islanders begin to realise the murderer might not be one of our own species, let alone one of their own community.

The series was also filmed using outside broadcast equipment, which gives the series a unique “look” to it that contemporary programmes lacked. This does help with the atmosphere of the story. The murderer’s reveal is slow, and we don’t see much of the murder at all until later in the run, the only times we do, is from a red screen point of view as the murderer conducts their deeds.

I didn’t see The Nightmare Man on it’s first transmission, and I hadn’t heard of the Child of Vodyanoi novel, so I was pleasantly going into the with no pre-conceptions. I watched part one on a Saturday and binged the rest over the same weekend. With the episodes being nice 30min chunks, it made it much easier as there’s only 4 of them. For only a 2 hour run time, though, I wouldn’t watch one after the other. Take a break between each and savour those cliffhangers!  I watched this on the BBC DVD edition of the story, which is quite difficult to track down these days. It was released in 2005, so may be out of print now, although it can be located on various internet sites for inflated costs, so shop around.

Overall, I did enjoy this. It’s a product of its time, but on the whole, it stands up well today. At the time of writing this though, some of the plot threads are remarkably current!

Year – 1981

Series count – 1

Episode count – 4

Availability – DVD (if you can find it)