RE: You Gotta Watch
June 2, 2015 at 10:30 pm
(This post was last modified: June 2, 2015 at 10:30 pm by Cyberman.)
TV Series: The Ghosts Of Motley Hall
Found on: DVD; YouTube
Why:
Intelligently-written UK childrens' TV comedy series from a time when networks didn't talk down to children, by Richard Carpenter of Catweazle fame. It ran for three series (plus a xmas special) between 1976 and 1978. Starring Peter "Wallace and Gromit" Sallis, Freddie "Dune" Jones, Sheila Steafel, Arthur English, Nicholas Le Provost, and Sean Flanagan, the series follows the escapades of five mismatched ghosts drawn from different periods of the history of stately and very haunted Motley Hall and now trapped within its walls. English is Bodkin, a professional Elizabethan fool; Jones is the former Victorian head of the house, Sir George Uproar to whom it's always ten past four (his watch stopped when he did); Le Provost is his younger great grandfather Sir Francis "Fanny" Uproar, the dashing yet scatterbrained 17th century rake ("You know what a rake is?" "A long wooden thing?" "Yeah, that's Fanny..."); Flanagan plays Matt, the young stableboy and the only one able to move around the grounds, to the envy of the others; finally Steafel is the obligatory and mysterious White Lady, habitually wailing and tolling the bell ("I'm not a ghost... I'm a description!"). Rounding off the characters is Sallis as Gudgin, the very-much-alive estate agent tasked with looking after the Hall. He knows the place is haunted and the fact terrifies him.
Much of the humour comes from the fact that people generally are unable to see or hear the ghosts, though they can see objects moved by them. Occasionally, someone is able to see one or more of them, though the person may not realise they are ghosts. The acting is top notch, the cast are clearly having fun in their roles. The characters are delightfully written and the dialogue superb. I really can't rate this series high enough.
5 Stars
Found on: DVD; YouTube
Why:
Intelligently-written UK childrens' TV comedy series from a time when networks didn't talk down to children, by Richard Carpenter of Catweazle fame. It ran for three series (plus a xmas special) between 1976 and 1978. Starring Peter "Wallace and Gromit" Sallis, Freddie "Dune" Jones, Sheila Steafel, Arthur English, Nicholas Le Provost, and Sean Flanagan, the series follows the escapades of five mismatched ghosts drawn from different periods of the history of stately and very haunted Motley Hall and now trapped within its walls. English is Bodkin, a professional Elizabethan fool; Jones is the former Victorian head of the house, Sir George Uproar to whom it's always ten past four (his watch stopped when he did); Le Provost is his younger great grandfather Sir Francis "Fanny" Uproar, the dashing yet scatterbrained 17th century rake ("You know what a rake is?" "A long wooden thing?" "Yeah, that's Fanny..."); Flanagan plays Matt, the young stableboy and the only one able to move around the grounds, to the envy of the others; finally Steafel is the obligatory and mysterious White Lady, habitually wailing and tolling the bell ("I'm not a ghost... I'm a description!"). Rounding off the characters is Sallis as Gudgin, the very-much-alive estate agent tasked with looking after the Hall. He knows the place is haunted and the fact terrifies him.
Much of the humour comes from the fact that people generally are unable to see or hear the ghosts, though they can see objects moved by them. Occasionally, someone is able to see one or more of them, though the person may not realise they are ghosts. The acting is top notch, the cast are clearly having fun in their roles. The characters are delightfully written and the dialogue superb. I really can't rate this series high enough.
5 Stars
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
