The Tyrant King

Fantastic little curio of a bygone time.London in all it's sixties glory with fashions and music of the time.Some fantastic character actors of the day pop up. Murray Melvin as the arch baddie alongside a sinister Philip Madoc chasing a young Candace Glendenning and her pals across famous London landmarks.Get the dvd if you are at all interested in the sixties period and you won't be disappointed.

As a period piece, this is perhaps beyond criticism. The soundtrack is fascinating to any lover of 60s psychedelia, with Pink Floyd foregrounded (almost every track from A Saucerful of Secrets is sampled at some point), as well as the Moody Blues, Cream and so on. And the lover of London's history gets to see the locations in its 'swinging' period.

But, as a Londoner of the time would say, it ain't half dull. Had the brainwashing techniques of the Ipcress File been adopted by the London Tourist Board, the result wouldn't be too unlike The Tyrant King. Long montages of the three children exploring the Imperial War Museum, or Hampton Court, or St Paul's, are interspersed with dialogue to the effect of how impossible it would be to find the villains in a city the size of London, followed immediately afterwards with the three children bumping into one of them, and then running away. Which makes you wonder why they were looking for them in the first place.

The anorexic plot doesn't help - there is virtually no motivation for the children at all, they just bumble through a series of incredible coincidences, starting with the initial overhearing of a telephone call in an unoccupied house, in which they have no business, at the very moment that someone decided to use its phone. Incredible that this classy production team could create something so spectacularly tedious.

A most unusual children's programme from 1968 with a soundtrack that includes such groups as The Nice (from their album "The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack"), Cream, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, ...to name but a few... to provide incidental music to this rather surreal romp around some of London's better known landmarks. I was particularly intrigued to see these landmarks prior to their surface washing and still grimed by industrial London's fallout; just as I remember as a child. Shot on location using 16mm film by the company that was eventually to become Euston Films, responsible for such ground breaking film series as "The Sweeney", Van Der Valk and Minder, this is more in the French "La Nouvelle Vague" (not to be confused with the group) mode than traditional English children's television and is a real treat to watch, if only for the Swinging Sixties feel that it generates. A young Candy Glendenning (full Christian name: "Candace" who remains best known for her later work in horror films of the 1970s such as The Flesh and Blood Show, Tower of Evil and Satan's Slave) has more costume changes than Widow Twanky on speed but, considering her age at the time, carries it all off with a good deal of aplomb. The wonderful Murray Melvin turns in a camper than camp performance as the villain of the piece and whilst the storyline does not really hold together it does deal with some strong themes for a children's series (drug smuggling, stalking) and does, at least, have a climax that tries to explain the adventure which develops over six full episodes. It is probably because of the 16mm format that it was not "wiped" as so many series from the other British TV channel of the time (the BBC) were and it is a great shame that more of our British television series were not filmed in this way as the BBC would never have been able to wipe them as they so shamefully did to so many of our Nation's great TV dramas and sitcom's. The child actors are good and very stylish for the period and their homes are to die for and even today would be mouthwateringly expensive. I saw this when I was a London schoolboy, in black and white, of course, and it's a joy to see the series in full colour as it really does add another dimension. Enjoy!

Although aimed at kids & teenagers, this drama contained numerous elements for anyone interested in London's lesser-known museums and heritage. Indeed, the Tyrant King novel (author Aylmer Hall) was published by London Transport, and I suspect may have even been commissioned by them, possibly as a vehicle for increasing public awareness of some of the capital's forgotten and overlooked treasures.

But it's not dusty and dull: it is a drama, after all, and based on an intelligent story line. I remember being totally absorbed as the youngsters chased (and sometimes were chased) around London.

The choice of incidental music was inspired, and provided an extra atmospheric quality; it was only some years later that I discovered this to be the Moody Blues. Ah, 1968. Nostalgia!