''The Castle of Adventure'' (published in 1946) is a popular children's book by
Enid Blyton
Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have be ...
. It is the second book in The
Adventure Series. The first edition of the book was illustrated by
Stuart Tresilian
Cecil Stuart Hazell TresilianHis birth was registered as "Cecil Stewart Hazell Tresilian" but he was baptised with the spelling "Stuart", and was known professionally as Stuart Tresilian. Steve Holland Bear Alley, 26 February 2014 (1891-1974) wa ...
.
Plot summary
Jack, Lucy-Ann, Dinah and Philip attempt to figure out what is behind the strange goings-on at a ruined castle near Spring Cottage in Scotland where they are on holiday with Dinah and Philip's mother, Aunt Allie. The four youngsters make friends with Tassie, a mysterious gypsy living in the woods with her mother. Along with Bill Cunningham, who appears later in the book, the children manage to expose a ring of spies led by the threatening Scar-Neck who are working against the UK Military service.
Television serial
''The Castle of Adventure'' was a children's live-action serial based on the book by Enid Blyton. It ran for 8 half-hour episodes from 19 April – 7 June 1990, produced by
TVS Films and shown on
CITV
CITV (short for Children's ITV, also known as the CITV Channel) is a British free-to-air children's television channel owned by ITV plc. It broadcasts content from the CITV archive and acquisitions, every day from 6 am to 9 pm which ...
. The star-studded cast included
Susan George,
Gareth Hunt
Alan Leonard Hunt (7 February 1942 – 14 March 2007), known as Gareth Hunt, was a British actor best remembered for playing footman Frederick Norton in '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' and Mike Gambit in '' The New Avengers''.
Early life
Alan Leona ...
and
Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed (; born 9 October 1936) is an English actor, presenter, writer and mountaineer.
Blessed is known for portraying PC "Fancy" Smith in ''Z-Cars'', Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of ''I, Claudius'', King Richard IV i ...
. The children were played by
Rosie Marcel
Rosie Ellen Celine Marcel (born 6 May 1977) is an English actress. Marcel is known for her role as Jac Naylor, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon lead in the BBC drama series ''Holby City'', a role she has also played in sister series ''Casualt ...
, Richard Hanson, Hugo Guthrie, Bethany Greenwood and Eileen Hawkes. Lionel Augustus and Edward Francis (who was the producer of all episodes) were the writers.
Terry Marcel
Terry Marcel (born 10 June 1942, Oxford, England) is a British film director, perhaps best known for the cult film ''Hawk the Slayer'' (1980) which he co-created with producer Harry Robertson.
His other films include ''Prisoners of the Lost Un ...
, Rosie's father was the director. The plot of the series closely followed that of the novel, but the setting was updated to the time of its production. The series was filmed on location and at
Saltwood Castle
Saltwood Castle is a castle in Saltwood village, one mile (2 km) north of Hythe, Kent, England. Of 11th century origin, the castle was expanded in the 13th and 14th centuries. After the Norman Conquest, the castle was appropriated by the Arc ...
in
Saltwood
Saltwood is a village and civil parish in the Folkestone and Hythe District of Kent, England. Within the parish are the small hamlets of Pedlinge and Sandling.
Geography
Saltwood is located immediately to the north of Hythe on the high land lo ...
, Kent.
The names of the children are Philip and Dinah Mannering who are brother and sister, Lucy-Ann and
Jack Trent
''The Adventure Series'' by Enid Blyton, a prolific English children's author, is a series of eight children's novels. These books feature the same child characters: Philip, Jack, Dinah, and Lucy-Ann, along with several adult characters. Ja ...
, also brother and sister. During the holidays, they live with Philip and Dinah's mother, Allie at Spring Cottage which she borrowed from her friend (no longer set in Scotland as in the original novel). In episode 2, the four youngsters make friends with Tassie, a mysterious gypsy living in the woods with her mother, who is threatened by Sam, nicknamed Scar. Towards the series’ end, Aunt Jane visits the children, so does Bill Cunningham whom Allie met during the convention at the Military service in the opening episode.
Terrestrial repeats of the series were unknown once it was aired. However, a year later, a video was released, although some scenes were edited out, and it aired on
The Children's Channel
The Children's Channel, also known as TCC, was a British-based pan-European children's television channel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which was owned by Flextech in London, England, UK. It began broadcasting on the original Eutelsat ...
after TVS had lost its ITV franchise. Along with TVS' other programmes, it has been kept off the DVD market for complicated legal reasons, but is available on YouTube.
Edward Francis told ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' at the time of its broadcast that "Dinah takes the initiative far more. She confronts and debates things in a modern way. And there is more parity in the children's relationship with their widowed mother than in the original; she's less formal and disciplinarian". Three years later,
[''Into the Box of Delights'' by Anna Home, BBC Books, 1993, page 97] commenting on the updates which had seen an anti-tank device and the
SAS included in the storyline,
Anna Home
Anna Margaret Home ( ; born 13 January 1938) is an English television producer and executive who worked for most of her career at the BBC.
Early career
After graduating from Oxford University, where she read Modern History at St Anne's Colleg ...
(former head of children's programmes at the BBC who had been at TVS earlier in the 1980s) mentioned that Blyton "suffer(ed) from being neither truly period nor modern; it is difficult for writers and actors to know whether to retain the language and accent of the period or try to update it", and suggested that the dramatisation had not been "particularly successful".
References
External links
*
The Castle of Adventure at the EBS website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castle Of Adventure, The
1946 British novels
Novels by Enid Blyton
Novels set in Highland (council area)
Macmillan Publishers books
1946 children's books
Television shows produced by Television South (TVS)
ITV children's television shows
1990s British children's television series
1990 British television series debuts
1990 British television series endings
British television shows based on children's books