Jake Coppard, as Pete, after he fell in the water, enacting Arthur Ransome’s story of ‘The Big Six’
What is the best way to entertain someone who enjoys acting?
Jake Coppard wearing my coat and hat in our support boat on the Norfolk Broads
Even when we had very little space or were waiting around for hours out on the water during the filming of ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’, one thing that kept everyone amused was the game of charades. Simply imitating each other also proved hilarious and kept up moral whatever the weather. Since the children who appeared in the drama all enjoyed acting, they proved natural entertainers both on and off-screen.
Mark Page, who played Bill, as ‘Blackadder’.
The experienced actors entered into the spirit of this in a trice.
June Ellis finding a way of being a green parrot whilst in her 1934 costume
The great thing about miming is that it is silent, which was just as well, when we had to keep quiet on set.
Colin Baker as Dr Dudgeon on location in Norfolk
The film crew were wonderful, ever inventive and terribly good at charades.
Make-up designer Sue Bide being a swallow with the help of Paul Higton from the Wardrobe Department
No one was limited by taking themselves too seriously.
Sound Recordist Colin March wearing my hat over his ear phones
Some members of the production team made a tremendous effort to keep up our spirits.
Script Supervisor Di Brooks towards the end of our three month shoot in Norfolk with Henry Dimbleby who played Tom Dudgeon in the 1984 BBC serial of ‘Coot Club’
Julian Fellowes, who played Jerry, told me recently that he so admired Henry Dimbleby for taking part in Swallows and Amazons Forever purely because it was fun, rather than because he wanted to be an actor. I appreciated his indestructible good nature and the fact that he made the three months we spent on location enjoyable, in many ways leading the team, even though he was only thirteen years old.
Of course, what is most amusing, is when the unexpected happens. That is what I will attempt to relate in the next post.
One viewer has observed that, in the BBC serialisation of Coot Club and The Big Six, we had not one but two Doctors in the cast, Time Lords at that. This is true. We arrived on location one morning to find that Patrick Troughton had transmogrified into Harry Bangate the Eel Man.
Patrick Troughton playing The Eel Man in ‘The Big Six’, 1983
He had led the most fascinating life. A Naval Officer during World War II, and the first actor to play Robin Hood on television, Patrick Troughton played The Doctor in 128 episodes of Doctor Who. But would he be drawn? If we asked him about his life he just started talking about eels in a broad Norfolk accent. He’d worked for our director Andrew Morgan on Kings Royal and for Joe Waters on Z Cars, but for us, in the summer of 1983, he was the eel man.
Jake Coppard playing Pete at the eel man’s hut
Colin Baker first appeared in Doctor Who (a story entitled Arc of Infinity) in the role of Commander Maxil, when he actually shot the 5th Time Lord, who was being played by Peter Davison. It was not until after he arrived in Norfolk to play Arthur Ransome’s tweed-clad Dr Dudgeon, that he realised his full destiny and donned a multi-coloured dream coat to take on the 6th incarnation of The Doctor in the long-running BBC science fiction series. I went on to work as an Assistant Floor Manager on a two-part story called Vengeance on Varos when the Tardis had to make an emergency landing on a most unattractive planet. Once established at the North Acton rehearsal rooms I persuaded Colin to teach me all the correct jargon about transmogrifiers but it has since washed from my brain.
Colin Baker as Dr Dudgeon amusing us by smoking grass
I can’t remember whether Colin Baker was cast as Dr Dudgeon in Coot Club before or after Henry Dimbleby was given the part of his son Tom Dudgeon, but he did not look unlike Henry’s real father back then.
David Dimbelby with us on location in Norfolk, 1983
There were various other members of our film crew who were also familiar with the Tardis. (I think we were meant to refer to it as ‘T.A.R.D.I.S.’ short for ‘Time And Relative Dimension In Space’). John Woodvine ,who played PC Tedder, had preciously taken the role of the Marshall in ‘The Armageddon Factor’, opposite Tom Baker and Mary Tamm in 1979.
John Gill who we knew as Old Bob of the Comealong had the part of Oak in Fury from the Deep, made in Patrick Troughton’s time. Alan Lake played Herrick in four episodes entitled Underworld first broadcast in 1978. Andrew Burt played Valgard in Terminus during Peter Davison’s era and Tim Barlow, the distinctive looking actor who played the old man at the Roaring Donkey was Tyssan in Destiny of the Daleks. Sam Kelly, our Captain of the Catchalot appeared in the audio dramas of Doctor Who titled The Holy Terror and Return to the Web Planet.
Andrew Morgan directed both Time and the Rani and Remembrance of the Daleks. Tariq Anwar our film editor on Coot Club, worked on two stories while Andy Lazell, the visual effects designer responsible for creating so much fake fog on Breydon Water had worked on ‘The Leisure Hive’ and ‘Snakedance’, eight episodes of Doctor Who first broadcast in the early 1980s. Colin March, our sound recordist worked on the film sound or ‘Planet of Evil’ in 1975 and ‘The Two Doctors’, with both Colin Baker and Patrick Troughton. It was broadcast in 1985. Liz Mace, had been the production manager on ‘Time-Flight’. Diana Brookes, our script supervisor – or production assistant as the job was then known – had worked with Colin Baker on the four-part Doctor Who story ‘Arc of Infinity’ in 1982/3. Perhaps it was she who thought of him for Dr Dudgeon.
Di Brookes in Beccles with Richard Walton who played Dick in ‘Coot Club’
The part of the tall and elegant Hullabaloo, Livy, was played by Sarah Crowden. Her father, the actor Graham Crowden who I always think of as Tom Ballard in his Sit-com Waiting For God, was offered the part of the fourth Doctor Who , after Jon Pertwee but he turned down the opportunity as it was such a commitment. Instead he played Soldeed in The Horns of Nimon in 1980 after Tom Baker had being playing the fourth Doctor for some time.
The person working on our series who had had a huge input on Doctor Who was Mervyn Haisman, our Script Editor. He’d written at least seventeen episodes including the series entitled The Dominators, writing under the name Norman Ashby. Mervyn never appeared on location but it was he who steered the adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s novels, breaking them down into four episodes each, whilst remaining faithful to the original stories.
Sophie Neville 