The Boy from Space

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antnield
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2005 1:59 pm
Location: Cheltenham, England

The Boy from Space

#1 Post by antnield » Mon Jun 23, 2014 8:06 am


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antnield
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Re: The Boy from Space

#2 Post by antnield » Thu Jul 31, 2014 7:06 am

Full specs:
The Boy from Space
By Richard Carpenter
The classic BBC science fiction series
2-disc set

Never available in any video format, the classic BBC series The Boy from Space (1971/1980) is at last being released on DVD by the BFI on 25 August 2014 as part of BFI SCI-FI: Days of Fear and Wonder, a celebration of Sci-Fi film and television. This well-remembered Look and Read series is presented with a host of extras, including the complete audio from the 1972 BBC Records LP and alternative presentations of the filmed drama sequences which allow for this thrilling adventure to be experienced in new and exciting ways.

When brother and sister Dan and Helen see a mysterious object falling from the sky one night, they set out to look for traces of a meteorite in the nearby sandpit. There, they are confronted by a strange thin man, and discover a white-haired boy called Peep-peep who speaks a bizarre alien language.

Written by Richard Carpenter (Catweazel, Adventures of Robin Hood), the series starred Sylvestra Le Touzel (Mansfield Park, Amazing Grace, Happy-Go-Lucky), Stephen Garlick (The Tomorrow People, The Dark Crystal), Colin Mayes (Scum, All Quiet on the Western Front), John Woodnutt (Z Cars, Children of the Stones, Doctor Who) and Gabriel Woolf (Emergency-Ward 10, Doctor Who).

The striking electronic music is by Paddy Kingsland of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Originally broadcast in 1971, as part of the BBC’s educational Look and Read strand, The Boy from Space was shown again in 1980 in a revised version featuring new presenters Wordy and Cosmo, as well as updates – including a new foreword and a voice-over – to the main drama.

Look and Read was a programme for primary schools, aimed at improving children's literacy skills. The programme presents fictional stories in a serial format, the first of which was broadcast in 1967 and the most recent in 2004, making it the longest running nationally broadcast programme for schools in the UK.

The Boy from Space with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, live, at BFI Southbank in December

On Saturday 6 December, to celebrate this DVD release, BFI Southbank will present the specially-created 70 minute version of the series, directed by Maddalena Fagandini, followed by a panel discussion with key figures in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, who provided the original music for this and so many other series. Following this our regular Sonic Cinema strand will provide a chance to hear the group play a specially selected set of Sci-Fi music from Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Quatermass to Doctor Who.

Special features
· The complete 1980 series (10 x 20 mins): all ten episodes of the BBC’s classic Look and Read series, featuring Dan, Helen and Peep-peep’s story, as well as helpful reading tips from Wordy and Cosmo
· Feature-length presentation (70 mins): exclusive version of Dan, Helen and Peep-peep’s adventures, edited specially for this release
· BBC Records LP – audio version (55 mins): original spoken word recordings from the 1972 vinyl release, narrated by Charles Collingwood (the voice of Brian Aldridge in Radio 4’s The Archers)
· BBC Records LP – film version (55 mins): an exclusive presentation, combining the audio from the 1972 LP with film and video footage from the 1980 TV broadcast
· Wordy’s Think-ups: 19 original animations from the series
· Downloadable PDFs of the original 1971 and 1979 pupil’s pamphlets
· Illustrated booklet with essays by British TV experts Ben Clarke and Christopher Perry, and recollections by composer Paddy Kingsland

Product details
RRP: £22.99 / cat. no. BFIV2001 / Cert PG
UK / 1971/80 / colour / English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles /
200 mins / Original aspect ratio 1.33:1 / 2 × DVD9 / PAL / Dolby Digital audio (192 kbps)

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MichaelB
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Re: The Boy from Space

#3 Post by MichaelB » Thu Aug 14, 2014 5:35 pm


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Re: The Boy from Space

#4 Post by MichaelB » Tue Aug 26, 2014 4:23 pm


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antnield
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Re: The Boy from Space

#5 Post by antnield » Wed Sep 03, 2014 12:50 pm


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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: The Boy from Space

#6 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:04 am

Interesting to note that this was a "Look and Read" series. I don't remember The Boy From Space during my Cornish primary school days but we did get regular screenings of the later Look and Read series Geordie Racer, a kind of Kes-lite piece about the relationship of a boy with his homing pigeons. It had an irritatingly catchy/patronising theme tune and the nightmarish floating alien "Wordy" was even more out of place in the in between segments of Geordie Racer than presumably he is in The Boy From Space!

The other memory I have of the Look and Read shows were the great sequences of a floating pencil writing out letters and then words in joined up handwriting, with the lead in the middle of the pencil lighting up whenever the pencil was supposed to be touching the page, which even at the time I remember thinking was a neat way of illustrating the flow of movement during the act of writing.

However I must have been eight or nine years old at the time and remember thinking even then that it was a bit late to be teaching these kinds of basics to pupils! But then I had my own culture shock moment when moving from Cornwall up to the north of England in the early 90s and suddenly being forced into having to learn to write right-handed, lessons that never stuck no matter how many detentions I had in which to 'practice'! So even a Look and Read show teaching obvious lessons years too late seemed OK after that!

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