First watched : 22 May 1977
One of my favourite programmes of 1977 was this ITV Sunday teatime serial which I started watching from the third episode ,on the recommendation of my school friend Robert Schofield.
Our acquaintance had been interrupted for a couple of years by my changing primary schools in 1974 but we had more or less picked up where we left off when reunited at secondary school ( or at least middle school, remember them ? ) in the autumn of 1976. Like me he enjoyed buying little plastic figures and constructing fantasy adventures with them. There was one little problem, the nature of which I'm still not sure I fully understand. My mother wouldn't let him in the house. He was a well-groomed lad who was polite to adults but some years earlier ( at least three quite possibly more ) he'd visited our house for tea and my mother had never forgotten that Mrs Schofield hadn't reciprocated. This was a bit strange as there was a time in 1974 when it seemed we'd almost adopted another school friend called John , he was round for tea so often. His parents certainly didn't return the favour but Mum always recalled him with affection.
Although, like us, they lived in a nice terrace, Mrs Schofield was always well turned out, never missed church and was second-in-command at the Townswomen's Guild. She had a gentil air about her and perhaps Mum just suspected that she thought we were below the salt. Or maybe, given that their house was very close to her pre-marital home there was something in the past between her and Mrs Schofield that she never disclosed.And so we had to meet up at my gran's to play which provided a figleaf of convenience as she lived a lot closer to the Schofields than us. I remember them chatting about Duncan Edwards and Munich, probably the first time I heard about the disaster.
Anyhow he was right on the money about King of the Castle which is probably the most scary and inventive serial ever made for kids' TV . Roland ( Philip Da Costa ) is a shy teenager who unenthusiastically attends the local grammar school on a music scholarship. This attracts the ire of the other kids in his tower block led by a vicious young thug Ripper played by an 18 year old Jamie Foreman limbering up for a career playing nasties. One evening they chase him down the stairs into a broken elevator which then plunges into the basement throwing him into a fantasy castle populated by alternative versions of all the other characters. Thus for example his eccentric headmaster ( played in wildly over the top fashion by Porridge's Fulton McKay ) becomes a Frankenstein figure who has designs on his voice. Roland has to figure out how to get out of the castle aided by cryptic advice from the steward Vine ( Talfryn Thomas ) who was the caretaker in real life.
By happy chance the two episodes available on YouTube are the two I originally missed and confirm that the series was as good as I remembered. Milton Johns , who I previously regarded as a dependable but one note character actor, turns in an astonishing performance as the creature Ergon. Da Costa isn't as good an actor as his contemporaries Nicholas Lyndhurst or Simon Gipps-Kent but his blankness does serve as a good foil for the grotesqueness of the other characters.
There's a thorough review of the series here but really you're best off getting the DVD ( partially reassembled from a home video tape ) and watching it for yourself.
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