Made by HTV West - who were also responsible for such wyrd wonders as 'Children of the Stones', 'Into the Labyrinth', 'Arthur of the Britons' and 'Robin of Sherwood' - 'Sky' is the story of a young man with solid blue eyes and strange powers found, buried under some leaves, in the woods who turns out to be a traveller from another time and dimension who has landed in 1970's Britain by mistake (as if anyone would go there on purpose). Needing to find the 'Juganet' (a circle of power) that will enable him to complete his journey he co-opts the help of a trio of kids but ranged against them are the forces of nature in the shape of trees (leaves seem to particularly dislike him), wildlife and a spontaneously generated 'human' named Ambrose Goodchild (Robert Eddison) as the Earth tries to rid itself of this anomaly.
Sky - the character - is an utterly alien presence who considers himself
almost a god and views his helpers with a disdain bordering on contempt which makes him difficult to like. We assume his motives are pure - he is the title character after all - but his manner is less than endearing. Marc Harrison plays him with an ethereal otherworldliness that keeps him above and beyond his mortal helpers.
Written by the Doctor Who writing team of Bob Baker and Dave Martin the show is unapologetically odd. It makes no bones of it's contempt for the short-sightedness and self-destructive nature of contemporary society and like many of it's contemporaries it has at its core an ecological and almost neo-pagan sensibility that revolves around earth magic and, of course, ancient stone monuments.
There are some definite pacing issues and it certainly could have benefited from trimming off an episode but it is, on the whole, a wonderfully disconcerting watch and another in that great 1970s tradition of making shows for kids that had the power to actually terrify them. Scenes of Sky and his cohort being attacked by plants and animals soundtracked with a tumultuous, synthesised, atonal, sonic squall (courtesy of Eric Wetherell) are still as effective as they were 43 years ago and the series remains as disturbingly strange and enjoyable as it ever was.
If
you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us
continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the
blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
'The Doombolt Chase' was an adventure serial for kids with a science fiction bent produced by HTV in early 1978 that tells of three teenagers, Richard, Lucy & Pete, as they rampage around the Bristol Channel and the Brecon Beacons in an attempt to establish the truth about Richard's Naval Commander fathers court martial.
The teens are played, with varying degrees of success, by three young actors (Andrew Ashby, Shelley
Crowhurst & Richard Willis) who seem to have all faded into obscurity immediately following their 6 episodes of fame. Each though makes the most of what they have and attack their roles with gusto with particular kudos going to Shelley Crowhurst who as Lucy has to endure some very dodgy gender politics and comes through it all not only as probably the action hero of the piece but with her strident west country accent and matter of fact manners as the comic relief also.
The trio are surrounded by a number of familiar faces on British TV of the time including a small role for Simon MacCorkindale - a year away from his tussles with the Planet People in Quatermass - Frederick Jaeger - a Doctor Who regular, most notably as K9's creator, Professor Marius -
Peter Vaughan - Porridge's Harry Grout - and Wyrd Britain TV legend, John Woodnutt - who appeared in four Doctor Who serials, The Tomorrow People, The Boy From Space & Children of the Stones.
The series was written by another regular in these pages,
Don Houghton, who had already written scripts for 'Ace of Wands', Doctor Who ('Inferno' & 'Mind of Evil'), several early 70s Hammer movies and would later go on to co-write Assignment 5 of Sapphire & Steel (the one that looks like a Poirot story). Here he revisits the military themed science fiction of his Third Doctor stories, particularly 'Mind of Evil', in a story that sends our intrepid trio scurrying around the South West of England and the Brecon Beacons searching for a missing weapons system that allows the producers to make use of lots of cheap locations and save their money to invest in an impressive final act.
'The Doombolt Chase' is as the title states pretty much entirely made up of 6 episodes of 3 teens chasing from one location to the next as various adults stand around back at base worrying and others are outwitted by our three plucky heroes. As I've mentioned the three leads are more that a little wooden, few of the characters are given much in the way of opportunity to develop and there are several, let's call them, narrative glitches such as the blatant difference between the demonstrated use of the weapon and it's stated purpose. As much as I love the stories of the psychic and the supernatural that
were so much in vogue through the decade it is a refreshing change of
pace to experience a story with it's ambitions so firmly planted on the
ground it does though have a distinct charm and I really warmed to Richard, Pete and, in particular, Lucy and by the end I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
- or watch it below.
