Figure 1.--Oliver Rokison as William is pictured here with the Oulaws in the 1994-95 production of Just William. Note the boys are playing in their school togs and the cap is the only uniform item that matches.
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Figure 1.--Oliver Rokison as William is pictured here with the Oulaws in the 1994-95 production of Just William. Note the boys are playing in their school togs and the cap is the only uniform item that matches. |
Just William was produced for television in 1976. William was nicely played by Adrian Dannatt. The TV series was produced by John Davies and Stella Richman. They decided to set the TV series in the late 1920s when they felt Crompton had written
his best William stories. Keith Dewhurst who scripted the series attempted to faithfully follow the Crompton atmosphere. A real effort was made to accuractely reproduce the dialog, location, and clothing. We have limited information on this series, but note that some editions of the William books used images from the TV program for the cover illustration.
Just William was produced for television in 1976. William was nicely played by Adrian Dannatt. The TV series was produced by John Davies and Stella Richman. They decided to set the TV series in the late 1920s when they felt Crompton had written
his best William stories. Keith Dewhurst who scripted the series attempted to faithfully follow the Crompton atmosphere. A real effort was made to accuractely reproduce the dialog, location, and clothing.
William in the books was a real "monster" with a negative attitude to everything, and this was toned down in the TV series, where he was much more of a "lovable scamp". In fact I think the TV series (as was Crompton's intention for the original book) aimed at least as much at adults as at kids--it was done as quite a "camp" and "post-modern" take on popular stereotypes and clichés about 1920s-30s English middle-class culture. We have limited information on this series, but note that some editions of the William books used images from the TV program for the cover illustration.
We have only a few imagages from the television program. As far as we can tell, there has been a real effort to follow the atmosphere and clothing depicted in the William books. We not, however, that William seems to have more of a prep school look than the state primary school depicted by Thomas Henry in the priginal drawings.
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