The Island of Adventure 1982 - TV Film and Related Book

[timv]

Yes, I remember the character was called either 'Jo' or 'Joe' in the 1982 series and that he had some sort of accent - I was referring to him as Jo-Jo in case those who didn't see it were confused. But at the time I didn't latch on that it was a specifically Eastern European accent; as far as I remember I assumed he was meant to be some sort of refugee who had come to Cornwall with his parents, probably as a boy after WW2, and had ended up working as a gardener (possibly due to having language difficulties at school?); my mother used to teach post-War refugee children English.

[Moonraker]

Isn't it odd with so-called 'colour-blind' casting now, we have white characters played by a black actors, yet a black character in a book is played by a white actor!

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's surprising that Jo-Jo (or Jo!) wasn't played by a black actor even in 1982. He remained black in the novel until 1988.

The actor who took the part of Jo in The Island of Adventure was Leon Lissek, who played all sorts of nationalities over the years - including British, Jewish, Spanish, Arab, French, Greek, Russian, Hungarian and Mexican:

https://familiar-unknown.blogspot.com/2 ... issek.html

It's mentioned in the link above that he appeared in The Famous Five. Of course - he was Hunchy in Five Get Into Trouble in the 1970s Famous Five TV series! I hadn't made the connection before.

[Wolfgang]

It's surprising that Jo-Jo (or Jo!) wasn't played by a black actor even in 1982. He remained black in the novel until 1988.

[ironie] Really? A strongly pigmented person should play a bad guy if a hardly pigmented person could do this as well? That's a no-go . [/ironie]

[Judith Crabb]

This is probably answered else where - I have never seen a book from the 'Adventure' series on screen, but how do the film-makers cope with the most memorable participant, Kiki?

[dsr]

The New Zealand adventure series made her a yellow-crested cockatoo. Though her voice was dubbed - she didn't have to learn any lines!

Can't remember the 1982 film Kiki, sorry. There was a Castle of Adventure film too, and I can't remember Kiki from that one either!

[Judith Crabb]

Thanks dsr. Of course. Dubbed conversation.

[Wolfgang]

The island of adventure - like the Cloud 9 production it seems to be a yellow-crested cockatoo
The castle of adventure - a white parrot was used.