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The Boy From Space (1980)
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[STORY GUIDE WITH SCREEN GRABS]

A ten-part adventure story for young readers.

#EPISODE TITLE1st AIRING

1.   The Meteorite 15-Jan-80
2.   The Spinning Compass 22-Jan-80
3.   The Man in the Sand-pit 29-Jan-80
4.   In danger! * 05-Feb-80
5.   The Hold-up 12-Feb-80
6.   Where is Tom? 26-Feb-80
7.   The Hunt for the Car 04-Mar-80
8.   The Lake 11-Mar-80
9.   Captured! 18-Mar-80
10.   In the Spaceship 25-Mar-80

* -- It would appear that the proper title for this episode is !regnad nI, representing the code used in the episode, but it was only billed in this way once, for the Spring 1982 run. The listing in the BBC Programme Index (for 1980) gives the title as "In Danger!".


Written by Richard Carpenter, lyrics by Gordon Snell, music by Paddy Kingsland, singers Derek Griffiths, Neil Fitzwilliam, Sheila Steafel, Gwen Watford & Jeffrey Shankley, film director Maddalena Fagandini, executive producer Claire Chovil, designer Pamela Lambooy, directors Pat Farrington, Jill Glindon Reed.
Presented by Phil Cheney as Cosmo and Charles Collingwood as Wordy with Katie Hebb as puppeteer.
Starring Sylvestra Le Touzel as Helen, Loftus Burton as Tom, Stephen Garlick as Dan, Colin Mayes as Peep-peep, John Woodnutt as the thin space-man, Anthony Woodruff as Mr Bunting and Gabriel Woolf as Peep-peep's father.

The story was originally shown in 1971. There are further details for this listed separately.

The Boy From Space (1980) aired during the following terms. See the Air Dates page for exact details.
      Spring 1980
      Spring 1982
      Spring 1984
      Spring 1986

Story: On the relation between the two versions, thanks to correspondent Michael Silvester who points out that in this version -
A "teenage" Sylvestra Le Touzel and brother make a comeback to the observatory where the story was originally set. She says "That's right! I remember it as if it was yesterday" after which the story continues in the 70s version with young Sylvestra and "brother".
And also that the Wordy sequences may have been redone as the fashion of the assistant (Cosmo) looks more 1980 than 70.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are Michael Silvester, please mail me again as I can't reply to your email address. Cheers.
Links: For full coverage of the story, including loadsa screen grabs, check the new Boy From Space section of this site. The screen grabs on the opening page are all exclusive to the 1980s version. Alternatively, take a look at Ian Trembirth's page, which celebrates my fellow webmaster's favourite story with extracts from the pupils' book and some nice pictures.
There's also a quick write-up of the story at Paul Moore's Children's Television site.

If you have any information, opinions or recollections to add to this page, please mail me, ben@lookandread.fsnet.co.uk


This information is almost based entirely on what was published in the Radio Times. It is not necessarily complete or reliable, as space constraints or misprints may have led to inaccuracy.