TV Movie, BBC iPlayer from 9th December 2023
Directed by Tim Kirby
Written by Matthew Read
“Inspired by Enid Blyton’s Best-Selling novels”
CAST
Diaana Babnicova – George
Elliot Rose – Julian
Kit Rakisen – Dick
Flora Jacoby Richardson – Anne
Kip – Timmy The Dog
James Lance- Uncle Quentin
Ann Akinjirin – Aunt Fanny
Jack Gleeson – Thomas Wentworth
William Abadie- Franklin Boswell
Diana Quick- Mrs Wentworth
Phillip Roy- butler
I have previous on this. I have every Famous Five book, many on audio too. I have the two collections of 1950s TV series, Five On A Treasure Island and Five Have A Mystery To Solve in their British Film Institute editions. I have the complete 1970s TV Series. We watched it on VHS with our kids, and in DVD with our grandkids.
I live near Enid Blyton country in Dorset. I also love the Comic Strip’s Five Go Mad in Dorset and Five Go Mad on Mescalin too. I have no problems with sending up or pastiching the Famous Five and have done it myself.
SEE ALSO PAUL F. NEWMAN’s ARTICLE ON THE FAMOUS FIVE (linked) on this site
SO … first, the title is worrying. The Famous Five don’t meddle with the esoteric. Yes, in Five Go Off To Camp there is a ghostly spook train but it turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by smugglers. Consider the normal crimes. They involve “smuggled goods” and “queer foreign spies with shifty foreign appearance and foreign accents.” The odd ‘gypsy boy’ tags along. The spies are normally after Uncle Quentin’s important inventions, which are along the lines of radar and weapons. The smugglers reflect a world of exchange controls and shortages. They smuggle vague “goods” and American banknotes.
This is set in 1939, we are told fleetingly two thirds of the way through. It was important to the plot, but they forget to mention it until then. OK, the first book, Five On A Treasure island was published in 1942. Importantly, war is not mentioned.
However, it’s filmed in 2023. It was predictable that they’d cast a BAME actor somewhere, and it’s George. Her mum, Aunt Fanny to the others, is Afro-Caribbean (and has wooden delivery). Her dad, Uncle Quentin, is white with a bizarre hairstyle.
Aunt Fanny is now a famous fiction author writing under a pseudonym. That’s not in the books, but oddly, in the stage musical by Elinor Cook (Chichester 2022) Aunt Fanny ends up as a famous cookery book author. (In 2023 she cannot be a housewife who loves cooking).
George is suitably grumpy and feisty but the script underplays her desire to be thought of as a boy, except for one line. It may be best because she certainly looks over sixteen, and if appearing as a boy, it would have to be a boy with gynecomastia (breast enlargement). It’s odd as a ‘trans’ George would be fashionable. She does not look 1939 in any possible way.
The other three look, surprisingly, near perfect for the era and costume … Anne, Dick and Julian. They rightly lose Julian’s shortened name in the books, Ju. Dick … yes, Blyton has a book with a Dick and a Fanny … differs. In this he’s an erudite boy genius. In the books Dick is thick, and is rarely seen without a torch and penknife. Here he looks remarkably like Harry Potter. Julian, who looks like a young Oliver Chris playing Prince William, has much less to say here.
We start out with a ‘Timmy origin issue’ as we see George sailing alone to the rocky granite Kirrin island set off the chalky Dorset cliffs. She finds Timmy the dog there (his name is on his collar) and on return finds a dead deep sea diver on the beach. When the cousins arrive they go to look at the dead diver and poke the body with a branch. Um, Enid wouldn’t have had kids do that. We hear no more of him. Or her. You can’t tell with a copper helmet. I find the camera shots with the horizon at a diagonal very silly. This is not an art film. Keep the horizon straight. Possibly go and watch The Fablemans and digest John Ford’s advice on horizons.
The cousins arrive. Kirrin Cottage looks like the house at Winspit, at the end of the path from Worth Matravers. Perfect Blyton location, and oddly years ago, a friend was trying to find me and discovered it was owned by someone who shared my name. They sail off in George’s boat to visit the island.
The hole that Timmy falls in on the island is good. So is climbing down to rescue him. It’s looking up. The island looks like jungle though, not a Dorset setting. So far, promising. EXCEPT – as pointed out on my Facebook page, Julian lowers the others on the rope. Then they’re all at the bottom … so who lowered Julian?
Then we get the villain. Thankfully he has a sidekick with a “foreign accent” which is essential. The sidekick, Boswell, is sent to buy Kirrin Island from a grateful Quentin who has not a test tube, solenoid or valve anywhere. Quentin is also not fierce, absent-minded and irascible which he should be.
Ah. The villain. Tommy. Jack Gleeson, aka Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones until Season Four. He has a daft little moustache and a girl’s rose pink necklace … we thought, here comes the Trans character, but no. He lives with his mummy and the sidekick in a vast mansion. He somehow reminds one of Michel Jackson which is disconcerting when he gets nearer the kids. My goodness he hams it up as if in a Hammer horror film. Then things go wrong. Badly wrong. Stinker of all time wrong.
Suddenly we are plunged into an Indiana Jones story, as rewritten by Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code fame. The Five find a goblet with Latin inscriptions which Clever Dick can read. It has the mark of the Knights Templar (you know, from The Maltese Falcon, The Da Vinci Code, The Labyrinth). We hear “ The greatest treasure is the body of Christ … it is the mark of Simon The Knights Templar!”
We go back to Tommy, who is turning into a Marvel villain who wants to rule the World. (Enid’s villains just wanted some smuggled nylons or the secret of radar).
WTF! Is this the Holy Grail! Maybe. Maybe not. No one mentions it, but then in 1939 they hadn’t seen an Indiana Jones movie. There are clues in the inscription.
Off go the Five on a train to London (No! They are never in the city!) to seek the Knight’s Templar church which covers several acres (according to IMDB it’s filmed in Gloucester Cathedral). The villain Tommy has dressed up as a priest, possibly feeling happier with a skirt on. Dick cleverly works out the coded reference to an ancient wall painting. He finds a stone button which no one has noticed in 700 years sticking out of the middle, as you do. George slits a few pieces of 13th century painting so that the door can open. OK, stone door, secret passage. That’s OK for the Five. They do that a lot.
We switch to Aladdin, and Tommy goes into Abanazer mode, locking them away. Well, it was released for panto season. The secret room contains a knightly tomb from the Marshall of the Templars. They take off the massive stone sarcophagus lid (does little Anne do that?) and rummage through the grisly skeleton to remove the rusty sword which is the key to it all.
The secret room fills with water and the walls start moving … oh, no. This is Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Or both. Fortunately, they hear a tube train and Julian susses at once that it’s the District and Circle line, and they climb through (sigh) a tunnel and head off to Belsize Park. I think this when we finally hear that it’s 1939. They realize the Templar church is in Syria. That’s a red herring. They go to the massive mansion with extensive parkland grounds which is in … allegedly Twickenham? What? Tommy is going off on one. At this point I realize where it’s all going and switch on my phone and subtitles on the TV. Let us contemplate Tommy’s speech:
I’m about to reveal the location of the greatest treasure in the history of mankind. A treasure imbued with such immense power that Pope Honorius III instructed it to be destroyed. William Marshal, the head of the Knights Templar decided to set out a series of clues so that one day, a chosen pilgrim, may rediscover that which was hidden. That day is now upon us.
(As obviously you and Wikipedia knew, Pope Honorius III was pope from 1216 to 1227)
I expect Dick knew that too. The Five are locked in the library. Mummy brings them tea … strawberry gateaux and pistachio cake. No, no and thrice no! The Famous Five had lashings of tongue, boiled eggs and ham. They escape down the stairs past Tommy who is meditating in the lotus position in the hallway.
Tommy has the sword and placed it in a stone. (Was having Timmy and Tommy the best idea for names) OK, we’re now into Arthurian legend. Excalibur is drawn from the stone by Julian and George.
Back to the Kirrin area. Quentin and Fanny arrive in their old lorry. George has to hand the sword to Tommy who is pretending to be nice.
Tommy examines a map! The kids had revealed that the shape of the secret place was Kirrin.
On Kirrin again. For some reason Timmy runs around on a rope lead. It’s a very able trained dog, so they need to take care of it. Tommy sets off to find the tunnel. The Five follow through a cave that Timmy happened to know.
The villains find the entrance hole. There’s a lot of kerfuffle in the tunnels. Indiana Jones type spear traps descend and trap the villains. The Five creep between their legs and pass them, but Boswell the sidekick has a penknife. They unspring the spears.
More guff:
Tommy: The light has been erected so that it stands in the exact position of the Syrian sun. The stained glass has been transported from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa. The sword stands in position on the altar at the precise elevation, the gemstone reaching up towards the heavens. When I give the word we will simulate the power of the sun and the location of the font of all knowledge will be revealed.
Julian (above): I mean, this is total madness, right?
Tommy: Great secrets are about to be revealed that will enable me to lead the world to a new dawn.
Hmm. Earlier George had addressed her cousins as ‘Guys …’. This included Anne.
Also, Anne had told the others to, ‘Wait up!’
I think Julian should have said, ‘Hey guys! Like … Wait up! This is like kinda total madness, right?’ to maintain the authentic 1939 mood the writers have set.
So Tommy finds the Fount (or font, which is what it looks like) of All Knowledge!!!!!!
Tommy grabs the goblet and quaffs deeply of the water. He can see the future.
Cue bombed cities, marching Nazis and an atomic explosion.
This, dear friends, is the future. He goes mad(der).
All is resolved. Someone explains that the font was contaminated with fungal spores. Something like Qorn then. Phew! The writers have obviously seen Five Go Mad on Mescalin.
Quentin is very wimpy. The kids jump about in a field.
We see Tommy in a straitjacket drinking ginger beer through a straw. He gets more visions of the future … Swinging London, TV sets, passenger planes, Moon Landings and stuff. The future is bright after all. (Shouldn’t they have cut in the 1966 World Cup Final?)
The scenery is overwhelmingly the star. Location research brilliant. All four kids are very good, though George acts the part extremely well and is a George Enid would have approved of, she does look too mature. This might cause problems getting future mileage from the concept. A pity. She was the best actor in it.
I thought Quentin and Fanny were both miscast, and also simply written as too bland. As for Jack Gleeson? After Game of Thrones he gave up acting. That was probably for the best.
We did not switch off but watched in mounting dismay. The amazing thing is that the Enid Blyton Estate (Darrell-Waters) ever allowed this. Even more, another one in the series is due. Do your sub-Indiana Jones / Evil Marvel Comics film guff with a bunch of kids. It might fit Scooby Doo well, but attaching this derivative garbage to The Famous Five is a travesty.
As I said at the start, taking the piss doesn’t bother me (and they don’t, concerning the five). It’s the mix of genres that don’t go together.
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
PAUL F. NEWMAN’s ARTICLE ON THE FAMOUS FIVE
The Famous Five: A New Musical, Chichester Festival Theatre 2022
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