Favorite actor/actress for The Famous Five 90s/70s?

[Deejay]

Paul Child as Dick in the 90s series remains my favourite actor eight years on from when I last posted this.

I definitely need to give this series a watch again. All the episodes are on You Tube I believe and I did have a German box set but can’t find it anywhere!

[Anne Gracie]

Sue Best, Jennifer Thanisch, and Laura Petela - if I had to name a few, because I can’t name just one! All of the Five in both series were excellent, and well cast. I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing those roles. I enjoy seeing them in other things too though, for example Jemima Rooper in Lost in Austen. Seeing three of the ‘70’s FF interviewed about the series with Gail Renard was also very special. Sad that some of the actors are no longer with us.

[Deejay]

Change of subject - I noticed Jemima Rooper has recently starred in Trauma, a three-part ITV drama. I’ve been watching it today.

[dsr]

I always preferred the 90s to the 70s series, though perhaps I ought to rewatch the 70s series to see if I have improved with age. I could do without the theme tune though - I still get "Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the do-o-o-og" in my head for hours on end. It keeps coming back to me, time after ti-i-i-me, time after ti-ime after time.

Actually the best actor or actress playing any of the Five would possibly be the girl who played George in the musical version "Smugglers Gold" which I have got on video. But it doesn't say on the box who that was. I dare say the end credits might be helpful.

Of the usual 8, Laura Petela gets my vote.

Though in general casting, I think I would give the prize to the four children who played the Adventure series children in the New Zealand series. Some of the plots were fantastical - not that Enid Blyton went in for stark realism, but these went in all sorts of strange new directions - but the acting was excellent.

[Gary Russell]

the best actor or actress playing any of the Five would possibly be the girl who played George in the musical version "Smugglers Gold" which I have got on video. But it doesn't say on the box who that was. I dare say the end credits might be helpful.=

Alison Hughes I believe

[dsr]

Thanks.

Actually, thinking about it, she had an advantage over the TV actors - repetition. Rehearsal. She got to do it again and again and in detail without the danger of going over the hours. Children's working hours weren't so stringent then as now, I believe, but even then "The Railway Children" was made with adults playing the children, presumably because of the working hours issue. And Sophie Neville (Swallows and Amazons) has said that the working logs for the children were semi-fictional. It must have been a difficult trade-off between proper rehearsal / retakes, and just letting it ride?

Out of interest, how many practices/retakes did you get at falling off that raft in the opening sequences? And how cold was the water?

[Gary Russell]

Out of interest, how many practices/retakes did you get at falling off that raft in the opening sequences? And how cold was the water?

cold and two - one close up, one long shot

[jon81]

Aside from the main FF actors, the guest star that stood out for me was 'Stephen Grief' who played 'Pottersham' such as menacing character and remember when first watching the episode as a 10/11 yr old, the scene where he is watching the five when they first enter the castle and the shot of him looking through the hole in wall really scared me. According to Wikipedia he sadly passed away last yr.