Children of the Stones (1977)
Some memories are best left in childhood - Top Deck shandy, Space Dust, Angel Delight and Crispy Pancakes for example, but especially the TV shows you vaguely remember as being something special. So it was with some trepidation that I re-visited Children of the Stones, the show that everyone of a certain generation remembers as both disturbing and confusing. Could it really hold up all these years later?
Set in the village of Milbury (Avebury in reality), this Wicker Man-like tale revolves around scientist Adam Brake (Gareth Thomas) and his son Matthew. Brake's mission is to examine the 4000 year-old stone circle that surrounds Milbury. But all is not right - the villagers are behaving strangely (greeting each other with a jolly 'happy day' and regularly having the urge to dance around in circles), the children in the school are super-intelligent and the lord of the manor (Hendrick - played by the ever-excellent Iain Cuthbertson) seems to have a tight hold on the entire population.
Well, almost all of them. Newcomers are very much outsiders, but one-by-one, they become part of the village. Just after a visit to Hendrick's place as a matter of fact. Eventually, it's the turn of Brake and son, but they have suspicions about what's going on and a plan to save themselves and break the spell on the village. Suddenly, Hendrick's supernatural power is turned on himself and his people.
Watching it again, I'm still amazed this was aimed at children. The production values, the quality of the cast and scientific theory (much of it based on fact) would do an adult audience proud today. Although that could partly be down to dumbing down in the modern era to be honest. And no matter how many times you watch the last five minutes, you'll always come to a slightly different conclusion about what's really happened.
Oh yes - and there's that menace, the kind of menace you only get with village-based film and TV shows, boosted in no small way by an unsettling score and the genuinely strange village inhabitants - Freddie Jones as the cave-dwelling Dai being just about the strangest of the lot.
Of course it's dated, this is a 70s kids show after all. But Children of the Stones is still very watchable after all these years. Yes, partly through nostalgia, but mainly because this is a very well-made and original piece of drama. And those things never really age.
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