Look and Read/The Boy From Space 1980
From LookingAndSeeing.co.uk - a website about schools broadcasting
This page about the Look and Read story The Boy From Space 1980 is not yet finished.
But you can still read my old web pages about the story at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine on this link:
Look and Read.myby.co.uk - The Boy From Space 1980
The Boy From Space (1980)
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| Company: | BBC Television |
| First run: | Spring 1980 |
| Episodes: | 10 episodes 20 minutes |
| Subject: | English |
| Audience: | Age 7-9 |
| Look and Read Stories | |
 Previous story: Sky Hunter |
 Next story: Dark Towers |
The Boy From Space was first shown in 1971, when schools TV was still black and white; due to circumstances explained on the page about the 1971 version, it had been filmed in colour anyway. So when the BBC were on the look out for a new Look and Read to be made on the cheap at the end of the 70s, it seemed like a good idea to reuse the old story material, and just make new teaching segments. In the end though, this 'remake' ended up actually costing more to make than a completely new story would have! A short introduction set in 1980 was added to the beginning, with Helen and Dan driving back to the observatory and reliving the story in flashback. Helen then narrates the whole story, but there's no contemporary coda or other later references to the reunion.
The in-between bits featured a life-size Wordy in his orbiting spacestation, Wordlab 1, with a human assistant called Cosmo, and many of the educational songs were sung by two stars and other space creatures.
[edit] Episodes
- The Meteorite
- The Spinning Compass
- The Man in the Sand-pit
- In Danger!
- The Hold-up
- Where is Tom?
- The Hunt for the Car
- The Lake
- Captured!
- In the Space-ship
[edit] Credits
| Presented by | Phil Cheney as Cosmo Charles Collingwood as Wordy Katie Hebb as Wordy puppeteer |
| Starring | Sylvestra Le Touzel as Helen Loftus Burton as Tom |
| Singers | Derek Griffiths Neil Fitzwilliam Sheila Steafel Gwen Watford Jeffrey Shankley |
| Written by | Richard Carpenter |
| Music by | Paddy Kingsland |
| Lyrics by | Gordon Snell |
| Designer | Oamela Lambooy |
| Film director | Maddalena Fagandini |
| Directors | Pat Farrington Jill Glindon Reed |
| Executive producer | Claire Chovil |
[edit] Broadcasts
Here is a list of all of the broadcasts of this story on the BBC. Unless your teachers managed to get the video recorder to work, this is when you would have seen it in school. See the Schedules section for precise dates and times.
