First viewed : 8 August 1983
This five part drama by Willy Russell was made by Yorkshire TV and broadcast by Channel 4 on a Sunday evening. Besides being part of Russell's illustrious c.v., it's notable for superb talent-spotting by the casting crew ( John Murphy and Ruby Boyle ) as the three young male leads - each one in their teens at the time - have all gone on to greater things.
The series concerns two disadvantaged 16 year old lads from Liverpool Billy Rizley ( David Morrissey ) and his intellectually challenged mate Icky ( Spencer Leigh ) who have the cheek to turn up for the school camping trip in Wales despite weeks of truancy. Sent away, they decide to travel there under their own steam motivated by rare happy memories for Billy. They are eventually accepted as house guests by a self-sufficient hippy called Kidder ( James Hazeldine ) but he's a man with a past and all hell breaks loose when Icky makes contact with the school trip and his dodgy mate Rabbit ( Ian Hart, then going under the surname Davies ). As usual with Russell, events take a tragic turn.
We only watched half of it because by the time it came to the screen, we'd been watching Now and Then for a couple of weeks and, in our pre-VCR days, they clashed. So we turned over as soon as the credits rolled on that , for the last half hour of One Summer and caught up as best we could. I have a feeling my sister's preference would have been to watch this right through. I can't remember if this marks the beginning of her affection for all things Scouse or just a staging post.
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