Contents

Swallows and Amazons Forever!

Swallows and Amazons Forever!
Title Card
Genre	Children's
Written by	Arthur Ransome (books) Michael Robson (script)
Directed by	Andrew Morgan
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Production location	Norfolk Broads
Original release
Network	BBC Two
Release	14 March (1984-03-14) – 2 May 1984 (1984-05-02)

Swallows and Amazons Forever! is a 1984 BBC children's television series based on two children's novels from the Swallows and Amazons seriesbyArthur Ransome: Coot Club (1934) (four episodes), and The Big Six (1940) (four episodes). Despite the title, the Swallows and the Amazons children from Ransome's other books do not appear.

The setting is the Norfolk Broads in the 1930s, partly near the village of Horning. The main characters are visitors Dick and Dorothea (Dot) Callum and locals Tom Dudgeon, the twins Nell and Bess, three boatbuilders’ sons, Joe, Bill and Pete – the Death and Glories – and adults Mrs Barrable, Dr Dudgeon (father of Tom) and Frank Farland (father of the twins).

Coot Club sees Dick and Dot learning to sail, whilst dealing with five obnoxious adults in the Margoletta motor cruiser, who are called the Hullabaloos by the children. The Big Six is a detective story in which the Death and Glories are accused of setting boats adrift.^[1]

A Puffin paperback with the same title was published in 1983; it is a condensation of Coot Club (omitting the postscript) and The Big Six (omitting 7 chapters). It was reissued as a Red Fox paperback in 1993 with the title Swallows and Amazons for Ever!

It was intended that Swallows and Amazons Forever! should have continued with adaptions of all the books in the series, and Swallowdale and The Picts and the Martyrs were to have been next. Casting and scouting for locations began, but the cost of filming on National Trust property in the Lake District was too expensive, so the series was cancelled.^[2]

Episodes[edit]

The series was first broadcast on BBC Two on Wednesdays in 1984.^[3]
It was repeated as two compilations on Friday 28 March and Sunday 30 March 1986.^[4][5]

Characters[edit]

Richard Walton as Dick Callum

Caroline Downer as Dorothea Callum

Henry Dimbleby as Tom Dudgeon

Claire Matthews as Bess Farland

Sarah Matthews as Nell Farland

Nicholas Walpole as Joe

Mark Page as Bill

Jake Coppard as Pete

Rosemary Leach as Mrs Barrable

John Woodvine as Mr Tedder the Policeman

Colin Baker as Dr Dudgeon

Andrew Burt as Frank Farland

Simon Hawes as George Owden

some minor characters

Julian Fellowes as Jerry a Hullabaloo

Patrick Troughton as Harry Bangate the Eel Man

Sam Kelly as the Owner of the Cachalot

References[edit]

• Swallows and Amazons Forever!atIMDb (Coot Club)
• Swallows and Amazons Forever!atIMDb (The Big Six)

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