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''Codename Icarus'' is a five-part British children's
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
drama serial written by
Richard Cooper, which was produced by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in 1981.
The serial combined elements of teenage drama and
conspiracy thriller
The conspiracy thriller (or paranoid thriller) is a subgenre of thriller fiction. The protagonists of conspiracy thrillers are often journalists or amateur investigators who find themselves (often inadvertently) pulling on a small thread which unr ...
, and involved
child prodigies being manipulated as the basis for a complex scheme involving
nuclear missile
Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. Several methods have been developed to carry out this task.
''Strategic'' nuclear weapons are used primari ...
s and the mysterious Icarus Foundation's plot to take over the world.
It starred
Barry Angel as child prodigy Martin Smith and
Philip Locke
Roy James "Philip" Locke (29 March 192819 April 2004) was an English actor who had roles in film and television. He is perhaps best known for his part in the James Bond film '' Thunderball'' as Largo's personal assistant and chief henchman, Var ...
as John Doll. Cooper also
novelised
A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent ...
the serial, which was published by the BBC and
Knight Books in 1981.
The serial was released on
VHS in compilation form by BBC Video in 1985 in the UK, and in 2006 it was made available in its original, unedited episodic format on
Region 1 DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
by Home Vision Entertainment in the United States.
The location for the scenes when the children were at school was the
Redrice, just outside Andover, Hampshire, UK. This school has since been renamed as the Farleigh School. All the child extras came from the
Harrow Way Community School
Harrow Way Community School is a coeducational community secondary school. It is located on the historic Harrow Way in Andover, in the English county of Hampshire.
It is administered by Hampshire County Council which coordinates the schools ...
in Andover.
The credits for all five episodes of the serial bore the captions 'Scientific Advice – Professor John Taylor' and 'BBC wishes to thank: Imperial War Museum, Duxford'.
The title music was ''Koschei's Infernal Dance'' from ''
The Firebird
''The Firebird'' (french: L'Oiseau de feu, link=no; russian: Жар-птица, Zhar-ptitsa, link=no) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's ...
'' by
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
.
Episode 3 'Harlequin' was nominated for 'Best Drama/Light Entertainment' at the 1982 BAFTA Awards.
The serial was broadcast twice-weekly, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with the original transmission dates being as follows:
* Part One – 8 December 1981
* Part Two – 9 December 1981
* Part Three – 15 December 1981
* Part Four – 16 December 1981
* Part Five – 22 December 1981
In other media
Novelisation
:Publisher: BBC/Knight Books
:Year: 1981
:Author: Richard Cooper
:Original Price: £1.25
:ISBN №: 0-340-27535-9
:Availability: Out of print
The novelisation was published to tie-in with the broadcast of the serial. The book's content is fairly faithful to the televised version, although Richard Cooper has rearranged some scenes and added some extra material not seen on-screen, as well as omitting the character of Frank Broadhurst (played on-screen by
Gorden Kaye
Gordon Irving Kaye(7 April 194123 January 2017), known professionally as Gorden Kaye, was an English actor, best known for playing womanising café owner René Artois in the television comedy series Allo 'Allo!''.
Early life
Kaye was born o ...
) entirely. The front cover featured a specially posed publicity photograph by Chris Ridley showing Barry Angel as Martin Smith holding a pair of
binoculars
Binoculars or field glasses are two refracting telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes (binocular vision) when viewing distant objects. Most binoculars are sized to be held ...
, with Philip Locke as John Doll standing in the background.
VHS
:Label: BBC Video
:Release Date: 1985
:Catalogue №: BBCV 9023
:Availability: Deleted
Presented as a 106-minute compilation.
BBFC
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of f ...
"U" certificate. The opening titles of Part One were edited to remove the episode number caption. The opening titles were missing from Parts Two, Three, Four and Five. The closing titles were missing from Parts One, Two, Three and Four, with a compilation version of the closing credits – i.e. featuring the cast and production crew of the entire serial – at the end of Part Five. The compilation is also strangely missing some scenes that are present in the episodic version of the serial available on Region 1 DVD in the United States, but why these cuts were made (bearing in mind that the omitted sequences are hardly offensive) remains unclear. The BBC Video presentation was by Katrina Murray.
DVD
:Label: Home Vision Entertainment
:Release Date: 24 January 2006
:Catalogue №: HVE2964DVD
:Availability: Out now
DVD Features
* Digitally restored versions of all episodes
* Trailer for ''
The Chronicles of Narnia
''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, telev ...
''
* Captions for the hearing-impaired
Presented in original, unedited episodic format, with a running time of 146 minutes.
MPAA
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...
Unrated.
To date, ''Codename Icarus'' has only been released on Region 1 DVD in the United States. There are currently no plans for a
Region 2 release for the UK.
External links
* {{IMDb title, id=301116, title=Codename Icarus
BBC children's television shows
1981 British television series debuts
1981 British television series endings
1980s British children's television series
English-language television shows