The Adventures of Don Quick

Broadcast by ITV at 9pm on Friday nights, 'The Adventures Of Don Quick' was a lightly satirical comedy that often addressed the changing social values of the increasingly more liberal 1960s and 1970s. It had a science fiction setting but obviously tipped its hat to Cervantes.

'Don Quick' could boast the presence of Ian Hendry ('Police Surgeon'; 'The Avengers'; 'Doppelgänger'; 'The Lotus Eaters') as Captain Don Quick (Don Quixote) and Ronald Lacey ('The Avengers'; 'Porridge'; 'Our Mutual friend'; 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark') as Sergeant Sam Czopanser (Sancho Panza), with many other well-known British actors of the day making an appearance. It was (to me, as a pre-teen) a slightly (and intriguingly) risqué affair, so I watched it whenever I could.

It was a monumentally cheap-looking piece of television and must have had a microscopic budget. Due to the widespread policy of British TV production companies of re-using videotape, almost nothing of this series now exists.

The good news is also the bad news. Only one episode is known to still exist, currently 2015 it is possible to view it on Youtube. A wonderful quirky show done on the cheap but very worthwhile all the same. It has the atmosphere of a play, the performance of which is very well executed. A very professional cast tell the story in an extremely charming manner. I will not say more, as you have found your way here chances are your interest is already peaked. So off you go to you tube and believe me you will enjoy.

So this has to be padded a bit which is an insult to an artist like myself who prides himself in getting his message across in as few words as possible.

After landing on a planet with a strange mix of cultures Captain Don Quick (Ian Hendry) does what he can to end a war that isn't happening while Sergeant Sam Czopanser (Ronald Lacey) becomes infatuated with a blonde robot. This is the only surviving episode of the silly, low-budget sci-fi spoof that is, to some extent, a forerunner of the much funnier and much more clever 'Red Dwarf' (1988). Hendry and Lacey are amusing but the story, script and 'look' have not aged well. The series was a riff on 'Don Quixote' and the final scenes, in which the dreaded giants turn out to be windmills, is pretty amusing (albeit predictable). Far from great but I'd watch the other 5 episodes if they are ever found.

I remember being glued to this as a kid. I think he (Ian Hendry) had a sidekick (maybe he was called Pancho!) and I'm pretty sure his space ship computer was a bit lippy, too. When I say space ship, I think it looked something like the moon lander and covered in loads of tin foil. Can't really remember any of the full episodes, but I'm sure there was one that included Brian Blessed wearing some sort of a viking helm and drinking wine from a horn that kept filling itself as soon as it was put down. Needless to say, Blessed got very drunk, and very, very loud. Again. It was brilliantly cheesy. Wish I could watch an episode but I doubt any recordings have survived as it was common practise to re-use the video mag tapes because they were so expensive. Shame.