Famous Five TV Series 2023 - 2024, BBC

[Anita Bensoussane]

Episode 2 (Peril on the Night Train) will be available on iPlayer and CBBC on 29th March, and on BBC One on 1st April. There's more information in the link below, though I stopped reading the 'Meet the Cast' section when I encountered a spoiler:

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/mediapa ... ight-train

The title of the third episode is The Eye of the Sunrise.

[Jack400]

Great news thanks for sharing it - and for the spoiler alert too.

[Bertie]

Yes, I definitely wouldn't read the 'meet the cast' section if you want to watch the show without knowing pretty much the whole plot!

I read about the first couple of people and found that out! Though I'm not too sure if I'll be watching it anyway.

Without giving anything away about any of the new characters, from their answers it reads like it's even more a 'George and the rest' than the first one. I don't think they name check Dick or Anne at all, and hardly Julian - it's all George, George, George. They've certainly opted to make her the leader. Though maybe the others might get more of a look in in the third one?

[TheAngryPixie]

As much as I love the Famous Five. I don't think I will bother with episode 2. The first one was just boring.

I don't know why they didn't stick with the tried and tested method of adapting the books to a 30 minute or 45 minute episode.

[Jack400]

I'n my opinion the problem with so many previous adaptations was precisely that they were dismissed in 30 or so minutes. Rushed and destroyed.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I agree that half an hour or so isn't long enough, Jack. However, both the 1970s and the 1990s series have some two-parters which allow more opportunity for build-up, suspense, development and resolution. The 1990s version of Five on a Treasure Island is one of the most successful adaptations in my opinion. Presenting it as a two-parter is perfect as the story doesn't have a very involved plot but needs to devote a considerable amount of time to characterisation, emotion and atmosphere.

It's hard to compare the current series with the previous ones because the new stories have such a different feel to them (judging by the first episode).

[Ian]

The second episode features 'Mr Roland' but the story hardly resembles 'Five Go Adventuring Again' in any way. At least the first episode started by following the book quite well. The original early FF stories are excellent as they are and can easily be made into exciting dramas without the need to rewrite everything. It's just change for the sake of it.

[Moonraker]

I'n my opinion the problem with so many previous adaptations was precisely that they were dismissed in 30 or so minutes. Rushed and destroyed.

I think the Southern Television episodes were around 23 minutes, which was ridiculously short.

The Radio Times review on the new FF film said, "more James Bond than Enid Blyton"!

I've not seen this latest one yet, but thought the first one was awful.

[Bertie]

I did predict something along those 'lines' (pun intended) just from reading the early preview months ago.

Had it been using the spook train storyline, I'd have been interested. But in the same way as the first one made it more Goonies / Indiana Jones than Enid, I thought this one read like it was going to be far more like those spy espionage train thrillers - none of which appeared in Enid's books, certainly not the FF.

Anyway, as has often been pointed out - and like so much nowadays - these things aren't made for me / existing fans, it's all about appealing to a new audience / generation who want something far different to the original, so it's changed beyond recognition to appeal to them. So like so much of the other stuff, I'm thinking I'll save myself some frustration and just not bother with it.

[Moonraker]

So like so much of the other stuff, I'm thinking I'll save myself some frustration and just not bother with it.

I try to forget it is the FF and anything inspired by Enid. OI just watch it as a new children's adventure....or try to, anyway.

[Bertie]

The thing is, though, I'd only be watching it because of the Enid link. I wouldn't watch a modern children's adventure film with new characters. It's the fact that it's meant to be the FF that is the attraction. And yet they've made it pretty much just FF in names only, and the bulk of the story might as well be a completely new adventure for all they reflect Enid's work - which defeats the object of watching it for me.

[Moonraker]

Fair point. However, I do watch and enjoy other children's films, especially the great ones that appear on Talking Pictures TV on Saturday mornings - Treasure at the Mill being a favourite of mine.

[Bertie]

I'm not bothering watching it, but caught a fleeting glance of it as they were all coming out of a shed or something and George looked so much taller than Dick and Anne! And even taller than Julian.

Was that an optical illusion, or is that just a further part of making George 'the leader' by having her as suddenly the tallest of the group? In the books, her and Dick are the same age and I always thought were similar heights, with Dick maybe a little taller? This George seemed to dwarf Dick!

[Debbie]

I suspect it's to make it more plausible that she appears as the leader of the group. She's only then got to overpower Julian, rather than Julian and Dick

They did similarly with size in the Swallows and Amazons latest movie, having Susan and John look 15/16yo and Titty (Tatty) and Roger look around 8yo.
If I remember rightly, they're similar to the FF in that they should be a fairly smooth line of ages. Something like: John 12, Susan 10.5 (we know her birthday's in winter), Titty 9 and Roger 8. I don't think Roger would be younger than 8yo because I think he's at boarding school like the others, and I wouldn't put John as older than that.
And The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe they were definitely older pair, younger pair, which is sort of right (13, 12, 10 and 8 in the book) but not to that extent.

I suspect it works slightly better in the modern era where a 16yo looking after a 8yo seems reasonable, but letting a 12yo out in charge of younger ones looks wrong, but to me it does spoil it.

With the FF, I think making George more of an age to Julian, works okay, but it doesn't work making Dick look so much younger. At first glance I'd happily believe you if you said he was meant to be younger than Anne. Anne looking younger sort of works. In that, she's the least adventurous, and most nervous, which does work with being younger. However, realistically, if there really was that sort of age gap then the older two would have gone off to do it themselves as a pair (same in S&A, John and Susan would have said they couldn't possibly take responsibility for camping with two that much younger, and they'd have far more fun on their own ).
I think if they'd made Julian, George and Dick much of an older age, then Anne younger, that could work. You could work in a "can't leave Anne out/on her own" feeling.

I also think the family situation does make sense in some ways that George would take the lead in the first story. They're in her house, her home territory, and finding her Grandfather's treasure.
However you have to throw that against that Julian would naturally take the lead being the oldest of his family. I think that would have been true even if George had been older because the other two would naturally look to him as they'd been used to.

But I think by making the ages wider it does make it far less likely they'd hang out together.

[Bertie]

Good points, Debbie.

It's obvious why they've opted to make George the leader instead of Julian in this day and age - same reason as the colour blind casting choice: to create a 'positive role model' for girls and people of colour, etc. Though why they can't just create new shows for that, and portray the Famous Five as Enid wrote them I don't know. It's not as if each generation of young boys don't still need positive role models portrayed in modern TV as well, and something like the FF and Julian and Dick would have been an ideal opportunity rather than just rewrite it and make it pretty much the George show.

Portraying Dick as a much smaller (seemingly younger) character, more akin to Anne than George and Julian, seems baffling and unnecessary. I can only imagine it's all part of making it so George dominated, and to balance it out so that they've now got both a girl and a boy who are a bit enfeebled - whereas in the books its just Anne, which they, probably rightly, felt wouldn't go down as well nowadays.

There haven't been (m)any reviews of the second film, which I opted out of watching having found the first hard work and not liking the sound of the second. How did people find it?