''Mr Majeika'' is the title of a series of children's books, written by

Humphrey Carpenter Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (29 April 1946 – 4 January 2005) was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inkli ...

and published between 1984 and 2006. It was adapted into a children's television series of the same title and produced for the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

network by TVS. The show aired between 1988 and 1990 and starred

Stanley Baxter Stanley Livingstone Baxter (born 24 May 1926) is a Scottish actor, comedian, impressionist and author. Baxter began his career as a child actor on BBC Scotland and later became known for his British television comedy shows ''The Stanley Baxter ...

as Mr Majeika. The stories have also been broadcast on radio. The first volume, ''Mr Majeika'', was published in 1984 and was followed by ''Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher'', ''Mr Majeika and the Haunted Hotel'' and ''The TV Adventures of Mr Majeika''.

Plot

The focus of these stories is Mr Majeika, a teacher at St Barty's Primary School, a typical English primary school. However he is no ordinary man, as is apparent when he flies into Class Three's boring lesson on a magic carpet, which he then turns into a bicycle, confounding the headmaster: Mr Majeika is a wizard! He thereafter astounds them with magical trickery which bring lessons to life, whether it is providing chips during dinner for all the children, or turning the nasty Hamish Bigmore into a frog for his insolence. Whatever the consequences, Class Three are sure that with Mr Majeika around, they will not be bored again. A recurring character is Wilhelmina Worlock, a witch who first appeared as a music teacher and has turned up regularly since in various disguises. In the television series, Mr Majeika is an irrepressible wizard, sent to "Britland" from the planet Walpurgis because he failed his

O-level The O-Level (Ordinary Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education. It was introduced in place of the School Certificate in 1951 as part of an educational reform alongside the more in-depth ...

sorcery exam for the seventeenth time. He drops into the sleepy village of Much Barty, finding a post at St Barty's School as Class Three's new form-teacher, where he quickly befriends two of the children, Melanie Brace-Girdle and Thomas Grey. Both of these characters are also in the books, but Melanie is a much less important and very different type of character in the books, and is replaced by another character as female lead, Jody. Also in the books, Thomas has a twin brother called Pete. Majeika enters into his magic with reluctance, however, because he is trying hard to behave himself on Earth, and because the Worshipful Wizard of Walpurgis is keeping an eye on him from above. All the same, trickery becomes more and more necessary, leading Majeika, Melanie and Thomas into some remarkable adventures. Their fun is despised, but usually prompted, by the horribly spoilt Hamish, a pupil so ghastly that his mere presence caused the resignation of the previous class teacher and frightened off the 79 applicants for the post. But one waggle of Mr Majeika's oddly tufted grey hair is all that it takes for Bigmore to be put firmly in his place.

Books in the series

TV show

The series was written by

Jenny McDade Jenny may refer to: * Jenny (given name), a popular feminine name and list of real and fictional people * Jenny (surname), a family name Animals * Jenny (donkey), a female donkey * Jenny (gorilla), the oldest gorilla in captivity at the time of h ...

. Carpenter wrote the fourth book based on McDade's scripts, ''The Television Adventures of Mr Majeika''. Three series of the programme were made, comprising twenty episodes in total. The location for St. Barty's Primary School was

Matfield House Matfield House is a Grade I listed Georgian house in the village of Matfield, Kent, England. The house was built in 1728 in the Queen Anne style for Thomas Marchant, a yeoman farmer from Horsmonden Horsmonden ( ) is a village in the borough of ...

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Cast

as Mr Majeika *

Roland MacLeod Roland MacLeod (1935 – 3 April 2010) was an English actor working in film and television. He was born in London. His television credits include '' Coronation Street'', '' Softly, Softly'', ''Ripping Yarns'', ''The Fall and Rise of Reginal ...

as Dudley Potter * Fidelis Morgan as Bunty Brace-Girdle * Eve Ferret as Pam Bigmore * Claire Sawyer as Melanie Brace-Girdle *

Miriam Margolyes Miriam ( he, מִרְיָם ''Mīryām'', lit. 'Rebellion') is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The Tora ...

as Wilhermina Warlock * Simeon Pearl as Hamish Bigmore *

Richard Murdoch Richard Bernard Murdoch (6 April 19079 October 1990) was an English actor and entertainer. After early professional experience in the chorus in musical comedy, Murdoch quickly moved on to increasingly prominent roles in musical comedy and rev ...

as Worshipful Wizard * Andrew Read as Thomas Grey *

Adele Silva Adele Silva (born 19 November 1980) is an English actress. She played the role of Kelly Windsor in the ITV soap opera ''Emmerdale'' on and off from 1993 to 2011. In 1989, she had a minor role in the final classic series ''Doctor Who'' story ''S ...

as Fenella Fudd * Christopher Mitchell as Ron Bigmore * Sanjiv Madan as Prince *

Pat Coombs Patricia Doreen Coombs (27 August 1926 – 25 May 2002) was an English actress. She specialised in the portrayal of the eternal downtrodden female, comically under the thumb of stronger personalities. She was known for many roles on radio, ...

as Miss Flavia Jelley *

Vernon Dobtcheff Vernon Dobtcheff (born 14 August 1934) is a British actor, best known for his roles on television and film, he has acted in numerous stage productions. Biography Dobtcheff was born in Nîmes, France, of Russian descent. He attended Ascham Prep ...

as Wizard Marks *

Robin Driscoll Robin Driscoll (born 28 June 1957) is a British actor and writer. He is best known as a writer of List of Mr. Bean episodes, ''Mr. Bean'' episodes with Rowan Atkinson. He and Atkinson are close friends; they appeared in ''Funny Business (TV serie ...

as Sgt. Sevenoaks

Availability

There has been no commercial release of ''Mr Majeika'' on DVD in the UK. This is possibly due to ongoing rights issues after the production company, TVS, dropped out of the ITV network in 1992 and subsequently went through a number of take-overs. This problem affects the majority of the TVS programme archive as much of the original production paperwork and sales documentation has been lost during the intervening years. According to

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a regular symmetrical pattern when v ...

's TV Brain website, nine episodes of the series no longer exist in broadcast quality, although all but one of these is available on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

.TV Brain website
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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Majeika, Mr 1984 children's books British children's novels British fantasy novel series British novels adapted into television shows Novels set in England Novels set in elementary and primary schools Series of children's books Witchcraft in written fiction