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It's not easy being Jim Hawkins, you know. Okay, so admittedly it's not a problem faced by many people, but all the same...
In episode one you get bashed about by the world's worst guest actor, as well as being clobbered over the head by Long John Silver, knocked off your horse by a rope stretched across the road, and then tied to a tree by a bloke who wants to dig your eyes out with a red hot sword. Although since the bloke in question is the world's worst guest actor, you do at least get a giggle out of the experience. In episode two you get caught up in a mutiny, locked in the brig by some marauding Spaniards, and then have to row miles and miles and miles in a longboat to escape. Also, you have to endure some quite appalling cookery. In episode three, you get captured by a prancing Spanish bully who plans to torture you, partly because you have something he wants, but mostly just because he wants to piss off his ex-fiancée, who fancies you. You escape, but have to leave your nearly-girlfriend behind, and then have to row miles and miles and miles in the longboat again.
In episode four, you finally reach Jamaica. Hurrah! You've been trying to get there since episode one. Almost as soon as you've docked, though, your latest batch of enemies is trying to squash you with a fiendish booby trap. Shortly afterwards they bash you over the head, pretend to rescue you, and then have your boyfriend flogged for trying to help you out. In episode five they go one further, and have you framed and arrested for murder, leading you to have to jump through a plate glass window three stories up, narrowly avoid being shot (although at this point you do get a bit of luck, as your handcuffs appear to remove themselves. And that's not something that happens to everyone). The luck soon runs out, though, as you then have to leap backwards off a rather high cliff in order to escape certain death, before swimming a good mile to your friend's boat. In episode six, you get captured by pirates, nearly hanged, tied up in a cage, rescued by a rather nice woman, captured by pirates again, tied up again, and then escape in a sulk because Long John Silver is being sneaky yet again, and you're pissed off with him. That's quite a lot for six episodes, when you think about it - and we're only just over half way through.
Oh, but it's good stuff. I waffled about the first three episodes already, but it really takes off from episode four onwards. This is when we meet the show's main bad guys - the fabulously oily Hallows; his fawning, Dickensian clerk, Saul Sharpe; the leering brute of an overseer, Gaines; and the smug and smarmy Lord Charles Devereaux, Governer of Jamaica. They're a wonderful lot, with barely a redeeming feature to their collective names; and not a note wrong in any of their performances. Donald Pickering in particular is brilliant as Hallows, a clever man who's turned to fraud as a good way to make money, and clearly considers himself untouchable; until the idealistic young Jim Hawkins turns up, anxious to put everything right. Hallows is all ingratiating charm, failing to cover a very obvious loathing. Dicken Ashworth as Gaines is good too. Gaines is a man of no great brain, who lashes out at anything he doesn't like, either with his fists or with his whip. He clearly enjoys his job as overseer, and he treats the slaves under his command with a very believable brutality and disdain. The real discovery, though, is Winston Allan as Abed Jones. Abed is a slave on the plantation, and becomes a good friend to Jim. The IMDb doesn't seem to have heard of him, which is a hell of an oversight. It's a terrific performance. Abed is cowed and afraid one minute, and all sullen and simmering with rage the next. Sadly he has to endure some crass moments occasionally, when various white charactors try to introduce him to some very nineteen-eighties-style Civil Rights thinking two hundred years early; but there's a lovely moment when he tells Jim to stick his ill thought out progressive attitudes. And for the record, Jim? Telling an eighteenth century slave on a Jamaican plantation that everything will be all right because "Englishmen were once slaves too" really, really isn't likely to help. It's hardly the same, is it. The other important character who gets picked up at this point is 'Keelhaul' Adams, the character most likely to cause small children to watch from behind a convenient cushion. Keelhaul turns up bedecked in ruined finery, heavily scarred and possessed of a high-pitched giggle. Completely self-serving, and without a saving grace to his name, he's a violent bully boy with enough of a brain to be dangerous. Nick Brimble has always tended to specialise in bad guys, and imho this is one of his finest. Keelhaul would stab his own grandmother in the back if he thought that it might be worth his while. I remember being rather disappointed at how pared back his role was in the novelisation. Definitely one of the characters that really stands out when you're eleven.
Pictures, then.
Hallows.
Gaines.
Sharpe.
Abed.
Conchita.
Keelhaul.
Lord Charles.
Trying to make up with the boyfriend.
Oops.
The gang.
Dunno. Trying to make Abed jealous maybe.
Wheeee!
In trouble. For a change.
Oops again.
Bananas.
Groovy flag.
In episode one you get bashed about by the world's worst guest actor, as well as being clobbered over the head by Long John Silver, knocked off your horse by a rope stretched across the road, and then tied to a tree by a bloke who wants to dig your eyes out with a red hot sword. Although since the bloke in question is the world's worst guest actor, you do at least get a giggle out of the experience. In episode two you get caught up in a mutiny, locked in the brig by some marauding Spaniards, and then have to row miles and miles and miles in a longboat to escape. Also, you have to endure some quite appalling cookery. In episode three, you get captured by a prancing Spanish bully who plans to torture you, partly because you have something he wants, but mostly just because he wants to piss off his ex-fiancée, who fancies you. You escape, but have to leave your nearly-girlfriend behind, and then have to row miles and miles and miles in the longboat again.
In episode four, you finally reach Jamaica. Hurrah! You've been trying to get there since episode one. Almost as soon as you've docked, though, your latest batch of enemies is trying to squash you with a fiendish booby trap. Shortly afterwards they bash you over the head, pretend to rescue you, and then have your boyfriend flogged for trying to help you out. In episode five they go one further, and have you framed and arrested for murder, leading you to have to jump through a plate glass window three stories up, narrowly avoid being shot (although at this point you do get a bit of luck, as your handcuffs appear to remove themselves. And that's not something that happens to everyone). The luck soon runs out, though, as you then have to leap backwards off a rather high cliff in order to escape certain death, before swimming a good mile to your friend's boat. In episode six, you get captured by pirates, nearly hanged, tied up in a cage, rescued by a rather nice woman, captured by pirates again, tied up again, and then escape in a sulk because Long John Silver is being sneaky yet again, and you're pissed off with him. That's quite a lot for six episodes, when you think about it - and we're only just over half way through.
Oh, but it's good stuff. I waffled about the first three episodes already, but it really takes off from episode four onwards. This is when we meet the show's main bad guys - the fabulously oily Hallows; his fawning, Dickensian clerk, Saul Sharpe; the leering brute of an overseer, Gaines; and the smug and smarmy Lord Charles Devereaux, Governer of Jamaica. They're a wonderful lot, with barely a redeeming feature to their collective names; and not a note wrong in any of their performances. Donald Pickering in particular is brilliant as Hallows, a clever man who's turned to fraud as a good way to make money, and clearly considers himself untouchable; until the idealistic young Jim Hawkins turns up, anxious to put everything right. Hallows is all ingratiating charm, failing to cover a very obvious loathing. Dicken Ashworth as Gaines is good too. Gaines is a man of no great brain, who lashes out at anything he doesn't like, either with his fists or with his whip. He clearly enjoys his job as overseer, and he treats the slaves under his command with a very believable brutality and disdain. The real discovery, though, is Winston Allan as Abed Jones. Abed is a slave on the plantation, and becomes a good friend to Jim. The IMDb doesn't seem to have heard of him, which is a hell of an oversight. It's a terrific performance. Abed is cowed and afraid one minute, and all sullen and simmering with rage the next. Sadly he has to endure some crass moments occasionally, when various white charactors try to introduce him to some very nineteen-eighties-style Civil Rights thinking two hundred years early; but there's a lovely moment when he tells Jim to stick his ill thought out progressive attitudes. And for the record, Jim? Telling an eighteenth century slave on a Jamaican plantation that everything will be all right because "Englishmen were once slaves too" really, really isn't likely to help. It's hardly the same, is it. The other important character who gets picked up at this point is 'Keelhaul' Adams, the character most likely to cause small children to watch from behind a convenient cushion. Keelhaul turns up bedecked in ruined finery, heavily scarred and possessed of a high-pitched giggle. Completely self-serving, and without a saving grace to his name, he's a violent bully boy with enough of a brain to be dangerous. Nick Brimble has always tended to specialise in bad guys, and imho this is one of his finest. Keelhaul would stab his own grandmother in the back if he thought that it might be worth his while. I remember being rather disappointed at how pared back his role was in the novelisation. Definitely one of the characters that really stands out when you're eleven.
Pictures, then.
Hallows.
Gaines.
Sharpe.
Abed.
Conchita.
Keelhaul.
Lord Charles.
Trying to make up with the boyfriend.
Oops.
The gang.
Dunno. Trying to make Abed jealous maybe.
Wheeee!
In trouble. For a change.
Oops again.
Bananas.
Groovy flag.
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