Dramarama: Spooky - The Complete Series [ITV] [Network] [DVD]

Product Information

Ok so my memory of watching these episodes as a 15 year old may have become rose tinted some 30 years later but there are few truly 'spooky' moments. It’s another disarmingly simple story that becomes increasingly unsettling as Roberts is driven to distraction trying to identify the source of the voice, eerily played by a never-seen Reich.

Highlights include an episode where a school-boy who is set to doing some lines in a hall at his school when it becomes apparent that he is not alone.These outstanding screenplays venture into the dark corners of the imagination to create some of the most spine-tingling scenes ever seen on children s television! Without it being commercially viable, such gems would remain locked away in the archives for eternity!

I remember one of the kid actors In that was Simon Schatzberger who later appeared in that classic Yellow Pages advert as the teenager who discovers a scratch on his parent’s expensive table after a wild party. The family attempt to exorcise the spirit of the dead soldier by getting a priest in to chant prayers, etc.

The children eventually discover a sealed room in the house (after noticing the window to it one day) which had been sealed for centuries, and has a skeleton of a 17th century soldier in a red uniform lying in the double bed in the middle of the dusty, cobwebbed and dark room. The Keeper gives In a Dark, Dark Box… a run for its money as the pick of the crop, another unsettling excursion into the supernatural that would have caused countless sleepless nights in the summer of 1983. Despite being filmed on video, this looks pretty good here - as good as you are ever likely to see it, and with a sericable mono 2. I know, I thought that was odd too, That's why I asked here, There are quite a few others talking about this episode on IMDB Dramarama page, Apparently the episode was written by the late great Brian Glover (himself a former Wrestler).

Spooky aired shortly before the main series was broadcast exploring the supernatural vein that would appear throughout Dramarama s run. DEAF ANGEL: More kids sneak into a wrestling arena to try and get a glimpse of eponymous masked wrester. She tells us of how her parents adopted the troubled orphaned girl Amy (Lucy Benjamin) and the impact it had on Elisabeth, particularly when her evil alter-ego Amelia makes herself known. After dressing as a frankly alarming bat at the world’s worst fancy-dress party (where everyone else, for licensing reasons, is clad not as a character from films or books but as unidentifiable horrors from a Ray Bradbury nightmare), she decides to exorcise the demon ‘Amelia’ from inside Amy – only to promptly be revealed (to no one’s surprise) as the baddie after all. The unsettling camera work certainly helps but the narrative weaving of innocent pastimes like playing scrabble into something far more sinister is highly effective.But only Roberts can hear the voice which remains inaudible to both Alice and security guard Vernon (Godfrey James) who pops into the studio. THE UNIVERSE DOWNSTAIRS: Kid finds backward dimension in his basement, where a mangle is “more advanced” than a washing machine. From memory it also had Brian Capron (Corrie's Richard Hillman) in a small role before he became Mr Kirkwood in Grange Hill though he isn't listed on the imdb.

It was created by Anna Home, then head of children's and youth programming at TVS; however, the dramas themselves were produced by a total of twelve ITV regional companies.Our online collections hold information on over 800,000 film titles – including television programmes, documentaries, newsreels, as well as educational and training films. The production stills gallery (the only extra) shows how wonderful this would have looked had it been shot on film! Brilliantly directed by John Woods and nudging the series into folk horror territory, The Keeper is the most sophisticated and densely packed of the stories, repeated viewings revealing layers of complexity that had previously eluded us. that he’s eventually visited by a ghostly obscurantist who corrects his grammar and then curses him to eternal damnation on behalf of all banal disc jockeys everywhere.