Noah's Castle - The Complete Series [DVD]

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One of Southern’s pioneering programmes for women was ‘Houseparty’. It was one of few specialist magazines for women around at the time. Thames liked it and made a special programme swapping arrangement. Thames would provide Southern with its daily ‘Tea Break’ show with Michael and Mary Parkinson in return for Southern relaying Houseparty to Thames. This swap ran for some time. Television came to our house in 1960. As a child living in the capital, I was brought up on the programmes and presentation of Associated-Rediffusion and Rediffusion London, for many years until Thames took over the weekday contract in 1968. Another Christmas has been and gone and I have once more resisted writing about Too Many Christmas Trees. I am sure I will write about it at some point, I'm just rather wary of not doing it justice - although I suppose I can always return to it in the future. Instead I'm going to write about Noah's Castle, although I'm not sure I can do that justice either. The series from Southern television was based on the 1978 novel by John Rowe Townsend. It was grim stuff for a children’s tea-time television drama. Southerner” came to the fore in 1968 when Yachtsman Alec Rose received a hero’s welcome as he sailed into Portsmouth after his 354-day round-the-world trip. The 59-year-old was escorted into harbour by 400 motorboats, yachts, catamarans and canoes blowing sirens and whistles.

Most notably, Townsend managed to write a novel with little fault to it. Some of the characters could have been fleshed out more, especially the women. Understandably, the time period reflects some of these behaviors, so it's not as bad as something that would be written and originally published today, but he still could have done more. What he did do was still intriguing enough to make me enjoy reading about them. The leading announcing team in the seventies was Brian Nissen and Christopher Robbie with relief announcers including Adrian Edwards, Jane Criddle, Peter Marshall of Thames, Mike Prince of ATV, Bill Flynn, Ian Curry, Christine Webber, Clifford Earl and Verity Martindil. Head of Presentation at Southern during this period was Peter Pritchett-Brown. It took me a long time to get into this book. Barry's father is just so horrible, even before he starts hoarding, that I didn't think I could handle a book full of him. For example:Yet perhaps I do, as a result of watching Noah's Castle. I have realised that I have been considering these shows anachronistically, without considering the eyes of the time. Surely reading Noah's Castle in the 1970s would have resulted in further activism and - surely - a relief that even though the world was in a mess it still wasn't as bad as it is shown in Noah's Castle. I suppose Noah's Castle therefore really comes out of the same stable as the 1970s series Survivors - they are both chronicles of what could happen, both alerting current fears and also providing a reassurance that we are not there yet. Around the globe, countless families have faced such inflation in the last hundred years. Post-apocalyptic literature is gripping exactly because it examines how society could collapse and how we might respond. Would we get angry and riot, hunker down with our guns and supplies, suffer with others while trying to help or chart some middle course. In varying degrees, the author explores each path as we see this world through the eyes of teenager Barry Mortimer. year-old Barry Mortimer is a fairly carefree person, living with his domineering father, Norman, his complacent mother, and his siblings in fair comfort. But a crisis is on the rise - the UK is producing more and more money, yet it gets harder and harder to afford to buy items as prices rise. If matters weren't confusing enough, Barry's father goes and buys the family a large, looming house that's much too big for them, and begins putting up hundreds of shelves down in the basement.

I was surprised at how intense the characters were. Granted, I think the most developed are the males. But, I think that's the point. In this story, it's a man's world. I really disliked Barry's father. Although, I understood his actions and even appreciated the reasons behind them. I just wish he wasn't so secretive and treated his wife a little (or a lot) better. Barry himself was a very thoughtful young man. You could really seem him struggle with protecting his family (especially his father) and wanting to do what was right in his eyes. I think my favorite character was Nessie and I wish we got more from her in the story. Runaround’, presented by comedian Mike Reid, ‘Oliver in the Overworld’, a musical comedy co-written and starred in by Freddie Garrity (Freddie and The Dreamers) The producer was Angus Wright. Sadly no episodes of this six part series survived. Many Southern productions have been lost, and the videotapes re-used, as was customary in those days of very expensive blank videotape on big open reel machines. Noah's Castle features an actor who appears in many of the TV series of the era I write about - Simon Gipps-Kent. There are a couple of reasons he hasn't appeared here yet: the first is that he was type-cast in the role of upper class youth in the sort of time-travelling period drama which has never really appealed to me. The other is that up until recently I had only come across him in The Tomorrow People. I haven't yet managed to sum up what I would want to say about that show in a blog post, because I'm rather ambivalent about it, both about the show itself and I'm not really sure what I think about it. Este libro me hizo pensar que tan fácil es que pase algo así, en las condiciones en las que nos encontraríamos y que tan lejos llegaríamos por un poco de comida. En el año 2010 en mi país (Chile) hubo un terremoto de 8.8. Donde yo vivo no fue tanto, fue mas el movimiento y alguna gente que quedo atrapadas en sus casa pero que con la ayuda de los vecinos pudieron salir y ni ellos ni sus casas resultaron con ningun daño (solo una que otra grieta). Bueno, eso fue diferente mas al sur del país, allá se derrumbaron edificios y puentes, se puso toque de queda y la gente comenzó a asaltar tiendas (no solo por comida) y el gobierno dijo que era ilegal acaparar alimentos. Yo en ese momento (y hasta ahora) no lo encuentro mal, ya que en ese momento no había gente ''muriendose'' de hambre, pero en las condiciones que salen en el libro no pude evitar pensar como Barry, ya que en el libro había mucha gente que no sufría la misma suerte que los Mortimer y apenas tenían que comer. Townsend was born in Leeds and educated at Leeds Grammar School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. [4] His popular works include Gumble's Yard, his debut novel published in 1961; Widdershins Crescent (1965); and The Intruder (1969), which won the 1971 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America. In Britain, The Intruder was adapted as a children's TV series starring Milton Johns as the stranger. He was for some time editor of The Guardian's weekly international edition, and also served as the paper's children's books editor.Southern carved both a niche for itself and some kudos for ITV when it snatched the contract to screen world famous operas at Glyndebourne, from under the nose of the BBC. Programme directors in ITV rarely specialised, but Dave Heather who had worked on many church services and live specials was put in charge of these marathon outside broadcasts.