Shadows | |
---|---|
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
No. of series | 3 |
No. of episodes | 20 |
Production | |
Producers | Pamela Lonsdale (series 1 & 3) Ruth Boswell (series 2) |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company | Thames Television |
Original release | |
Network | ITV |
Release | 3 September 1975 – 1 November 1978 |
Shadows is a British supernatural television anthology series produced by Thames Television for ITV between 1975 and 1978. Extending over three series, it featured ghost and horror dramas for children.
Notable writers for the series included J. B. Priestley, Fay Weldon, PJ Hammond, Joan Aiken, Jacquetta Hawkes and Penelope Lively.
Guest actors included John Nettleton, Gareth Thomas, Jenny Agutter, Pauline Quirke, Brian Glover, June Brown, Rachel Herbert, Jacqueline Pearce and Gwyneth Strong.
The series was also notable for reviving the character of Mr. Stabs (Russell Hunter) from the TV series Ace of Wands.
Title | Writer | Director | Original airdate | |
---|---|---|---|---|
The Future Ghost | Roger Marshall | Leon Thau | 3 September 1975 | |
Staying in a London hotel in 1875, Julia is awoken by the voice of a girl from a nearby room. On entering she discovers a girl who is ill in a 1970s-style room with unusual appliances. While she is in there, a fire breaks out and the room she had been staying in is burned to a shell. The next morning, the landlady is shocked to find Julia alive and well, but insists that no such room exists. Julia surmises that she was saved by a ghost from the future. Starring: Jane Wymark, Bernadette McKenna, Daphne Slater and John Nettleton | ||||
After School | Ewart Alexander | Audrey Starrett | 10 September 1975 | |
Two schoolboys in a Welsh mining village find themselves locked in the school after hours. A series of supernatural events occur and they discover an old skull hidden away. Bringing it out into the open and giving it a resting place, the doors open and they leave. Starring: Gareth Thomas, Rhys Powys and Lyn Jones | ||||
The Witch's Bottle | Stewart Farrar | Vic Hughes | 17 September 1975 | |
Arriving at her Uncle's house, Jill becomes obsessed with the story of a witch who was killed there. Starring: Georgina Kean, Wendy Gifford, Neville Barber and Jasper Jacob | ||||
The Waiting Room | Jon Watkins | Stan Woodward | 24 September 1975 | |
Sue and Gerry find themselves stranded in an old waiting room at a railway station. They find themselves back in 1925 and witness a train crash. On returning to 1975, they find the same events beginning to play out. Starring: Jenny Agutter, Paul Henley, George Innes and Beth Harris | ||||
An Optical Illusion | Tom Clarke | Peter Webb | 1 October 1975 | |
Karen, Dawn and Phil are visiting a Tudor mansion and decide to stay the night. They begin acting strangely as the former occupants of the house begin to take them over. Starring: Pauline Quirke, Richard Willis, James Cossins and Susan Parriss | ||||
Dutch Schlitz's Shoes | Trevor Preston | Stan Woodward | 8 October 1975 | |
A man with strange powers named Mr Stabs arrives at a house with his servant. On finding an old bank robber's shoes, he begins to take on his character until the bank robber himself returns from the grave. Starring: Russell Hunter, Barry Stanton, Gordon Gostelow, Ron Pember, Kenneth Caswell, John Abineri and Valentine Dyall | ||||
The Other Window | Jacquetta Hawkes, J. B. Priestley | Darrol Blake | 15 October 1975 | |
A man brings home a distorting lens and places it on the window. One by one his children begin to see visions of the past through it. Claiming it to be impossible, he finally sees it himself and orders the people within to leave them alone. The lens promptly melts. Starring: Sophie Ward, John Woodvine, Roy Jacobs, Gwyneth Strong and Aimée Delamain |
Title | Writer | Director | Original airdate | |
---|---|---|---|---|
The Dark Streets of Kimballs Green | Joan Aiken | Stan Woodward | 28 July 1976 | |
A girl, living unhappily in a foster home, seeks magical assistance from a king of Ancient Britons. Starring: Alex McCrindle, Barbara Keogh, Hannah Isaacson, Joan Scott, Karen Archer, Pat Beckett, Andrew Paul | ||||
Time Out of Mind | Penelope Lively | Audrey Starrett | 4 August 1976 | |
A girl imagines herself as a maid in a Victorian doll's house. Starring: Coral Atkins, Sally Lahee, Neville Barber, Brenda Cowling, Elaine Button, Katrina Rose, Craig McFarlane | ||||
The Inheritance | Josephine Poole | Peter Webb | 11 August 1976 | |
A retired gamekeeper tells his grandson about the horn dance. Starring: John Barrett, Priscilla Morgan, Dougal Rose | ||||
Dark Encounter | Susan Cooper | Leon Thau | 18 August 1976 | |
A man, evacuated from London to the country as a child, returns to face his fear. Starring: Alex Scott, Shelagh Fraser, Brian Glover, Hugh Morton, Margot Field, Carolyn Courage, Graham Kennedy | ||||
Peronik | Rosemary Harris | Vic Hughes | 25 August 1976 | |
A schoolboy relives the quest of a Grail knight. Starring: Paul Aston, Zelah Clarke, Ann Lynn, Tim Barrett, Norman Rossington, Chris Cregan | ||||
The Eye | Ewart Alexander | Neville Green | 1 September 1976 | |
A house is haunted by a blind Greek man named Stratos. Starring: John Sanderson, Julia Lewis, Murray Brown |
Title | Writer | Director | Original airdate | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Eleven O'Clock | Ewart Alexander | Joe Boyer | 20 September 1978 | |
A man and his daughter wait for a homing pigeon in a French farmhouse. Starring: Ronald Hines, Tina Heath, Anna Korwin, Stephen Galloway | ||||
The Rose of Puddle Fratrum | Joan Aiken | Neville Green | 27 September 1978 | |
A television producer visits a village in Dorset to find an ex-ballerina. Starring: Christopher Lillicrap, Joan Greenwood, Bryan Pringle, June Brown, Duncan Lamont, Vicky Spencer, Noel Johnson | ||||
And Now For My Next Trick | PJ Hammond | Michael Custance | 4 October 1978 | |
An old magician learns a new trick. Starring: Clive Swift, Caroline Embling, Jacqueline Pearce | ||||
The Boy Merlin | Stewart Farrar (story by Anne Carlton) | Vic Hughes | 11 October 1978 | |
Young Merlin is in danger from a Saxon lord. Starring: Donald Houston, Rachel Thomas, Archie Tew, Margaret John, Cassandra Harris, Ian Rowlands | ||||
The Man Who Hated Children | Brian Patten | Neville Green | 18 October 1978 | |
An old man plots to vandalise a park and blame it on children. Starring: George A. Cooper, Brian Wilde, Paul Watson, William Smoker, James Ottaway, Charles Morgan, Niall Padden | ||||
The Silver Apple | Roy Russell (story by Philip Glassborow) | Gabrielle Beaumont | 25 October 1978 | |
Two princes are given a quest for magic to save the kingdom. Starring: Peter Duncan, Prue Clarke, Simon Turner, Rachel Herbert, George Claydon, Brian Peck, Olaf Pooley | ||||
Honeyann | Fay Weldon | Pamela Lonsdale | 1 November 1978 | |
A girl is employed as a maid in a manor house dominated by a tyrannical nanny. Starring: Madge Ryan, Gwyneth Strong, Adrienne Posta, Jeanne Watts, George Waring, Paul Angelis, Joshua White, Julia Swift, Timothy Stamp |
In 1976 and 1977 Shadows was nominated for the Harlequin BAFTA TV Award under the category of Drama/Light Entertainment. The series missed out on winning on both occasions, to Ballet Shoes and The Multi-Coloured Swap Shop respectively.
A 1979 TV series, The Boy Merlin , was based on the third series episode of the same name.
"Shadows: The Complete First Series" was released on DVD in the UK on 1 November 2010 by Network, with the sixth episode Dutch Schlitz's Shoes being included on the Ace of Wands DVD boxset as an extra due to it featuring the Mr. Stabs character. Series 2 was released in June 2011. [1]
A tie-in book, The Best Of Shadows [2] was released by Corgi in 1979. It featured adaptations of seven episodes: The Dark Streets of Kimball's Green, The Inheritance, Eleven O'Clock, And Now For My Next Trick, The Rose of Puddle Fratrum, The Eye and The Man Who Hated Children.
Married... with Children is an American television sitcom created by Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt for Fox. Originally broadcast from April 5, 1987, to June 9, 1997, it is the longest-running live-action sitcom ever aired on Fox. Married... with Children was the first primetime series broadcast on the new Fox network. The series's run ended with the episode broadcast on May 5, 1997. Two previously unaired episodes were broadcast on June 9, 1997 and June 18, 2002.
A soap opera, daytime drama, or soap for short, is typically a long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers. The term was preceded by "horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American spy fiction television series produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television and first broadcast on NBC. The series follows secret agents Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaughn, and Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum, who work for a secret international counterespionage and law-enforcement agency called U.N.C.L.E.. The series premiered on September 22, 1964, and completed its run on January 15, 1968. The program was part of the spy-fiction craze on television, and by 1966 there were nearly a dozen imitators. Several episodes were successfully released to theaters as B movies or double features. There was also a spin-off series, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., a series of novels and comic books, and merchandising.
The Magic Roundabout is an English-language children's television programme that ran from 1965 to 1977. It used the footage of the French stop motion animation show Le Manège enchanté but with completely different scripts and characters.
Dark Shadows is an American gothic soap opera that aired weekdays on the ABC television network from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The show depicted the lives, loves, trials, and tribulations of the wealthy Collins family of Collinsport, Maine, where a number of supernatural occurrences take place.
Prisoner is an Australian television soap opera, which broadcast on Network Ten from February 27 (Melbourne) February 26 (Sydney) 1979 to December 1986 (Melbourne), though the series finale would not screen until September 1987 in Sydney, where it aired as a three-hour film that was split into three one-hour episodes at the much-later time-slot of 10:30 p.m., running eight seasons and 692 episodes.
Ace of Wands is a British fantasy children's television show broadcast on ITV between 1970 and 1972. Created by Trevor Preston and Pamela Lonsdale and produced by Thames Television, the series starred Michael MacKenzie as Tarot. It ran for two seasons of thirteen episodes, and a third season of twenty.
A miniseries or mini-series is a TV show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. "Limited series" is a more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. As of 2021, the popularity of miniseries format has increased in both streaming services and broadcast television.
It's Garry Shandling's Show is an American sitcom that was initially broadcast on Showtime from September 10, 1986 to May 25, 1990. It was created by Garry Shandling and Alan Zweibel. The series is notable for breaking the fourth wall.
Kath & Kim is an Australian sitcom created by Jane Turner and Gina Riley, who portray the title characters of Kath Day-Knight, a cheery, middle-aged suburban mother, and Kim, her self-indulgent daughter. The cast also includes Glenn Robbins, Peter Rowsthorn and Magda Szubanski as, respectively, Kath's metrosexual boyfriend Kel Knight, Kim's henpecked husband Brett Craig, and her lonely "second-best friend" Sharon Strzelecki. The series is set in Fountain Lakes, a fictional suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.
Round the Twist is an Australian children's comedy drama television series which follows the supernatural adventures of the Twist family, who leave their conventional residence to live in a lighthouse, in the fictional coastal town of Port Naranda.
St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982, to May 25, 1988. The series stars Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd, and William Daniels as teaching doctors at an aging, rundown Boston hospital who give interns a promising future in making critical medical and life decisions. The series was produced by MTM Enterprises, which had success with a similar NBC series, the police drama Hill Street Blues, during that same time. The series were often compared to each other for their use of ensemble casts and overlapping serialized storylines.
Adam Russell Hunter was a Scottish television, stage and film actor. He played Lonely in the TV thriller series Callan, starring Edward Woodward, and shop steward Harry in the Yorkshire Television sitcom The Gaffer (1981–1983) with Bill Maynard. He made guest appearances in television series such as The Sweeney, Doctor Who, Taggart, A Touch of Frost, The Bill and The Return of Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of Silver Blaze.
EastEnders is a long-running British soap opera that has aired on BBC One since 19 February 1985. Since its inception, several spin-offs have been produced, including books, television documentaries, videos, music singles and an album. During the run up to the first episode of EastEnders, interest with the public was already high, something which continued afterwards. EastEnders proved as successful as was hoped for by the BBC in its first years, so they capitalised on it with a number of products.
Dramarama is a British children's anthology series broadcast on ITV between 1983 and 1989. The series tended to feature single dramas with a science fiction, supernatural and occasionally satirical theme. It was created by Anna Home, then head of children's and youth programming at TVS; however, the dramas themselves were produced by a total of twelve ITV regional companies. Thus, each episode was in practice a one-off production with its own cast and crew, up to and including the executive producer.
The White Shadow is an American drama television series starring Ken Howard that ran on the CBS network from November 27, 1978, to March 16, 1981, about a white former professional basketball player who takes a job coaching basketball at an impoverished urban high school with a racially mixed basketball team. Although the lead actor Howard was white, the series broke new ground as the first television ensemble drama to feature a mostly African American cast, with African American actors playing the high school principal and vice-principal, the majority of the teenage basketball players, and other supporting roles. The White Shadow also dealt with controversial subject matter such as sexually transmitted disease and gay sexual orientation among high school students.
Harry Hill's TV Burp is a British television comedy programme, produced Avalon Television, and written and hosted by comedian Harry Hill. The series ran for 12 seasons between 2001 and 2012 on ITV. Each episode sees the host take a humorous look back at the previous week of programming on British television from a range of shows aired on terrestrial and digital channels.
The Sarah Jane Adventures is a British science fiction television programme that was produced by BBC Cymru Wales for CBBC, created by Russell T Davies, and starring Elisabeth Sladen. The programme is a spin-off of the long-running BBC science fiction programme Doctor Who and is aimed at a younger audience than Doctor Who. It focuses on the adventures of Sarah Jane Smith, an investigative journalist who, as a young woman, had numerous adventures across time and space with the Doctor. Following Sladen's sudden death from cancer, the BBC confirmed that the show would not return for a sixth series.
Paddington is a British children's animated television series based on the Paddington Bear books by Michael Bond. Broadcast from 1976 to 1980, the series was scripted by Bond himself, and produced by FilmFair; it was narrated by Michael Hordern, who also voiced all of the characters.
The Prisoner, a British television series that originally ran from 1967 to 1968, has been represented in several other media.