The Phoenix and the Carpet

THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET…BBCTV… An agent sent me to Ealing film studios to start work on a seven day contract. Well that's good news to me. Better a seven day contract than a day here and there. It's 7:30 in the morning and the 2nd A.D. says '' Go to dressing room five, get into your costume and come back down to make/up'' In dressing room five there's no costume. (has he got the number wrong?) I'm back down again. ''Excuse me, there's nothing in room five for me to wear'' ''It's hanging on the rail, I put it there myself'' ''Ok'' (I'll have another look) As I start to go upstairs, I bump into Terry Greenham a prop man for the BBC. Terry used to get up and sing a good song in some of the pubs I was comparing in. A Tony Bennett style songster…''What are you doing here Aitch?'' ''I'm here for seven days on The Phoenix'' ''Oh you're one of them'' ''Them?'' ''Yea, a South Sea Islander. You're on your own today but tomorrow there's a dozen of you. Plenty of Hula dancing and frightening kids.(Wait till I get hold of the agent that sent me here. (Alf Costa) I find the costume (Grass skirt) and head for the make/up room. Two nice young ladies are covering my face and body with dark brown make/up. Then the hairdresser finds me a big black wig and some earrings and there's talk of putting a bone through my nose. (Art for art's sake etc).

Now it seems the director wanted a tribe of blue eyed South Sea Islanders. On the first take that I'm involved in a small white child is crawling through the jungle undergrowth and lands at my feet. The director pans the camera over my feet and up the length of my body to my face. This is the child's eye line. ''Now say something and frighten her'' He barks. (Now I'm not to up on South Sea talk. We don't get many Islanders in Islington) I'm lost for a second then it comes to me…TARZAN… ''UMM GOW AHH'' I roar. (It works as she bursts into tears) It took Terry Greenham and co ten minutes to stop laughing. It was a good week.

Remember watching this as part of the BBCs midweek children's television programming . Probably no where near as good as I remember it, but would choose this version over the later 1997 version - despite its obviously supepoPrior special effects!

So the BBC have just released this wonderful gem. I remember watching this as a 7 year old every Sunday teatime back in 1976. I am some so glad it's finally been released on DvD. It's just a joy to watch. On episode 2 at the moment and the memories are flooding back.

THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET is a 1976 Children's BBC of the novel of the same name by Edith Nesbit. The book was written as a sequel to FIVE CHILDREN AND IT and is similar in terms of storyline, involving a quartet of children who discover a magical carpet that has the ability to make a limited number of wishes come true every day.

This 8-part miniseries is admittedly episodic in nature and yet it happens to work very well too. There's at least one element of danger or excitement in each of the eight episodes and sometimes cliffhangers don't get resolved until the following episode. I liked that some of the characters are rather boisterous and end up arguing a lot which is a bit more realistic than the series where all the kids get on well together throughout with nary an argument. The bits with the islanders, the opera, and the burglar are all highlights here.

The production values are obviously low but the cheesy quality of the special effects is endearing at the same time. I'd previously seen and loved the 1990s adaptation of FIVE CHILDREN AND IT and I was delighted to discover that the narcissistic Phoenix is an even more lovable creation than the Psammead from that show. Certainly the final episode is oddly moving which shows how well the series works overall.