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Post by Simon Wells on Mar 20, 2004 0:57:12 GMT
Hi there, Strange request- so please bear with me! Am trying to piece together memories of a classic 70's BBC ( I think) show which centured on troublesome members of society. (I'm sure it was either Beasts or Menace) One had a young boy (either an orphan or from a children's home) terrorising the local neighbourhood. This is all I can remember, other than he rode a push bike and the theme music used was "No More Heroes" by the Stranglers. The other episode I recall was about a young girl who equally disrupted her local environment and fantasized about playing with a group of kids from the past in her street.
I'm just wondering if anyone out there other than me, remembers these shows and yes, does anyone know their archival status. Much obliged in advance for any info
Simon Wells
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Post by Laurence Piper on Mar 20, 2004 11:39:17 GMT
If The Stranglers music was used then it could only have been a series post-1977 (when No More Heroes came out). Menace was 1970 and Beasts was 1976. So that narrows it down a little bit anyway.
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Post by Simon Wells on Mar 20, 2004 12:34:45 GMT
Thanks Laurence (still got your tape by the way!) I should add that the above shows were dramas not documentaries. Cheers Simon
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Post by Laurence Piper on Mar 20, 2004 12:52:25 GMT
Yes, dramas. You still have a tape of mine?!? Didn't know about that - e-mail me: I can't locate your address!
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Post by Nick Gilbert on Mar 21, 2004 9:13:48 GMT
The girl playing in the street with the kids sounds like it could be the Menace ep "Boys and Girls Come Out To Play". I saw this (somehow) when I was 8 or 9 and it was top of my wish list to see again until I found out it no longer exists.
I had to make do with the 2nd and 3rd on my list - Adventures of Don Quick (well ep1) and Lost Hearts.
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Post by Simon Wells on Mar 21, 2004 21:49:54 GMT
Cheers Nick, that was it. Doesn't exist??? Oh so it'll just live on in our memories then. The other one about the boy on the bike? well, I seem to remember that it was pretty controversail at the time as the kid burned down the house of a paedophile in the story. I just wish I could remember the title of that one!
Thanks again for the input!
Simon
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Post by John Miller on Oct 19, 2004 22:40:29 GMT
There was an entry to the second series of menace 'Tom' about a search for a child molestor, circa 1973. 'Shades of Greene' 1974-5 featured 'The destroyers' about a teenage gang of thugs who destroy the house of an old man. 'Boys & girls come out to play' was repeated as a one off play in 1974. I've oft thought an off air recording of the trailer which was representative might have been recorded as some early 70s BBC trailer material was. The NFA were trying to trace the piece a few years back which implies they have an idea someone out there may have a copy. It would have disappeared easily from the pack as accessioned & removed from the run for its 1974 repeat. Apart from being the best recalled or best entry its claim to fame was that Sarah Sutton (Dr Who) played the mischeivous central character.
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Post by John Miller on Nov 2, 2004 22:01:49 GMT
P.S. The play in Shades of Greene I think was 'the destructors' not 'destroyers'. apologies.
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Post by Andy Meredith on May 17, 2005 17:49:12 GMT
Hi Simon,
I too remember "Girls and Boys Come Out To Play" it was most definitely "Menace" series 2 in 1973. I was only about ten at the time but what I recall most was the evil wretch of a girl forced another girl to kill an old lady's cat as a sort of an initiation into her gang. She was also blackmailing her own father over something or other. I think he might have been in the police, something tells me he was played by Peter Jeffrey a familiar character actor of the time. Apart from these hazy recollections I can remember little else, even how the story ended.
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Post by John Bisson on May 17, 2005 20:42:26 GMT
I also remember 'Boys & Girls' etc, but I don't remember when it was broadcast. The central character, the girl, was a little fiend who blackmailed her parents; she overheard her policeman father telling her mother that he was 'on the take'. She had the ability to see ghosts of children long since dead eg. boys dressed as 19th century chimney sweeps etc. I think she killed & buried one of the girls in her gang. I remember the play ending as she is laughing & watching the ghostly children play, including her recently dead friend, whilst her parents watch, weeping. All in all, a cheerful little drama!
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John Stewart Miller
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Post by John Stewart Miller on May 26, 2005 21:36:45 GMT
There was also a 'Menace' episode about a child molester in the second series, 1973, called 'Tom'. In the plot John Thaw played the angry father bent on revenge after his young daughter indicates fairly graphically that shes been interfered with, at a police station. The culprit turns out to be a simpleton, tramp like figure, an actor a bit like Duncan Lamont I seem to recall.
However, dramatically, that piece was very much in the style of 'Z cars' and I don't recall a gang.
'Shades of Greene' entry 'The destroyers', 1975 or 76 had a street gang who completely kick down an old mans house. It could well be they accuse him of being a child molester but I don't recall any such detail. The dates for 'BEASTS', 'MENACE' and 'SHADES OF GREENE' all pre date the Stranglers number which was '77, so its unlikely to be any of these!
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John Stewart Miller
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Post by John Stewart Miller on Jun 26, 2005 22:30:33 GMT
Hi Simon, I too remember "Girls and Boys Come Out To Play" it was most definitely "Menace" series 2 in 1973. I was only about ten at the time but what I recall most was the evil wretch of a girl forced another girl to kill an old lady's cat as a sort of an initiation into her gang. She was also blackmailing her own father over something or other. I think he might have been in the police, something tells me he was played by Peter Jeffrey a familiar character actor of the time. Apart from these hazy recollections I can remember little else, even how the story ended. Yes, Peter Jeffrey is on the cast list as a detective inspector. The various parties around her heard the story of how she had killed one of her schoolfriends and placed the body in a cement mixer, and her body was underneath the motorway. Think the story got back to the police through her father (Jeffrey). Stills of the play include one of the girl dressed in ‘Beryl Reid’ traditional church school uniforms, with the straw brimmed hats & ties, holding a hangmans noose in a corridor. I would think they hanged the cat, as I don’t recall the killing of the girl being seen onscreen. Could be the BBC felt the subject matter was already near the mark.
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John Stewart Miller
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Post by John Stewart Miller on Jun 26, 2005 22:32:49 GMT
I also remember 'Boys & Girls' etc, but I don't remember when it was broadcast. The central character, the girl, was a little fiend who blackmailed her parents; she overheard her policeman father telling her mother that he was 'on the take'. She had the ability to see ghosts of children long since dead eg. boys dressed as 19th century chimney sweeps etc. I think she killed & buried one of the girls in her gang. I remember the play ending as she is laughing & watching the ghostly children play, including her recently dead friend, whilst her parents watch, weeping. All in all, a cheerful little drama! Broadcast April or May 1973 as ‘Menace’. The repeat was I think Feb 1974. In the latter broadcast, the ‘Menace’ titles were excluded, with just a fade or cut to the individual play title. This was the version I recall, I didn’t know it was a ‘Menace’ till a college friend mentioned it around 1982, when Sarah Sutton was cast in ‘Dr Who’ when he recalled this. She saw the ‘ghosts’ of Victorian apparently, I found out, as she was hallucinating under the influence of drugs. Another friend recalled this aspect. He said (erroneously) ‘the only OUT OF THE UNKNOWN I can remember was called BOYS AND GIRLS COME OUT TO PLAY’. He said in it, a girl came into school boasting to her friends how ‘she could get pills, any types of pills they wanted’. According to an article in TIMESCREEN magazine in the 90s; (Sarah Sutton interview), the character takes pep pills and sees visions of dead children inspired by a tune playing on a musical box. Presumably these visions psychotically affect her leading to the disturbed behaviour. The scene where she hears children laughing at night, and looks from the upstairs window of her surburban house; seeing Victorian children playing on a cobbled street; was run as the trailer to the one off play repeat in 1974. I recall a Dickensian gas lamp to one side, and a boy in breeches playing with a wooden hoop and stick. They were singing tunes I think matching the musical box, such as ‘Boys and girls’ and ‘ring a ring a roses’. I recall them dancing in a circle getting faster and faster, then suddenly sitting down in unison, and vanishing. I don’t recall the scene you mention (similar) being the play ending. I thought the last shot was as a group of people stand by an investigation team as either a bulldozer digs up the road, (by a flyover) and the long hair of the girl is seen hanging out of the shovel as it rises. I’m sure the depressing two chord organ theme the series used was heard behind it.
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