Outline[edit]
In 1979, a television adaptation of
Worzel Gummidge was produced by
ITV station
Southern Television for transmission on the ITV network. It was written by
Keith Waterhouse and
Willis Hall, and starred former
Doctor Who actor
Jon Pertwee as Worzel and
Una Stubbs as
Aunt Sally, a life-size fairground doll and Worzel's
femme fatale.
[3] This was a significant change from the original books, where Aunt Sally is Worzel's aunt, and Worzel is married to Earthy Mangold, a character who does not appear in the series. The Crowman, who made Worzel and some of his other scarecrow friends, is played by
Geoffrey Bayldon, better known for his starring role as the title character of
Catweazle. Regular and occasional guest appearances were made by well known TV actors of the time, including
Barbara Windsor,
Billy Connolly,
Bill Maynard,
Joan Sims,
Lorraine Chase,
Bernard Cribbins,
Connie Booth,
David Lodge and
Mike Reid.
Four series, totalling 30 episodes and one extended Christmas special, were made between 1979 and 1981, when Southern lost its contract to broadcast on ITV. The new contract-holder,
TVS, did not renew the show, despite a massive press campaign led by the
Daily Star. Attempts were made to continue the series, produced independently by Southern for the BBC
[4] and then to be produced in Ireland,
[5] but these failed.
HTV continued with their plans to produce the show in Ireland
[6] but these plans fell through because of trade union problems,
[7] as did attempts by the same company to make further episodes in England, although the scripts that Waterhouse & Hall had written for the Irish episodes were published in book form. Pertwee and Stubbs starred in the musical
Worzel Gummidge in 1981 at the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre which also starred
Lucy Benjamin (then Lucy Jane Baker) as Sue. Jon Pertwee's final TV appearance as Worzel was in 1995, to celebrate 40 years of
ITV.
"Worzel's Song", sung by Jon Pertwee, was released in 1980 reaching number 33 in the UK charts.
[8]
Filming locations[edit]
The main locations for filming were the villages of
Stockbridge,
King's Somborne and
Braishfield, all of which are near
Romsey in
Hampshire. The Scatterbrook Farm scenes were filmed at Pucknall in Braishfield;
Michelmersh was used for the scenes in the Scatterbrook barn.
[9]
New Zealand[edit]
The programme remained in limbo until
Television New Zealand, in association with
Channel 4, commissioned
Worzel Gummidge Down Under in 1987, which was shot on location in New Zealand and ran for two series totaling 22 episodes. Only Pertwee and Stubbs remained from the original cast, with Bruce Phillips joining the cast as the Crowman (Geoffrey Bayldon declined to reprise the role, partly because he didn't want to be typecast in the part, but also because the move to New Zealand was not convenient for him) and
Olivia Ihimaera-Smiler, daughter of prominent
Māori author
Witi Ihimaera joining as one of the children.
The Lord of the Rings director
Peter Jackson received an early credit for his work providing special effects for the series.
Series two of
Worzel Gummidge Down Under was written by a rotation of New Zealand writers, while everything that had gone before was entirely the work of Waterhouse and Hall. Jon Pertwee was unhappy with the scripts for the sequel, which he stated did not have "the underlying morality" of the originals. Aunt Sally found herself a human companion in this new series, which infuriated Pertwee as he considered this beneath the series.[
citation needed]
Michael Grade, the newly appointed head of Channel 4, called for its cancellation when the New Zealand version of the show failed to catch the viewers' imagination as before.
