The Enchanted Castle

I know the name after almost thirty years of occasionally asking British people, "Can you remember a TV programme - probably in the late 1970s - where a group of children make some dummies to serve as the "audience" to a play they were putting on and the dummies came to life?" Cue years of blanks stares!

That is all I can remember from the programme but I was utterly petrified. One child rubbed a "magic ring" and said that she wished that the dummies would come to life. You had forgotten that and then the dummies started clapping at the end of the show. I remember them then chasing the children through a tunnel.

I was reading a newspaper article on old children's TV shows and someone mentioned something that sounded like this in the comments. It turned out it wasn't this show but another person suggested this title: The Enchanted Castle. I finally have proof that I didn't imagine or dream this!

I gave it a 9 as it obviously had a huge effect on me at the time: I don't like horror stories even as an adult!

I remember this as a child but was never sure if it was just a dream. Only in recent years and research i found out that this was in fact a real TV series that i watched when i was about 5 years old. I remember the hole in the wall, the invisible girl with the hankie and the big dinosaur statue that the children went inside and it came to life. All very bizarre just like a dream but it was very magical for every child who watched this. We have the Railway children and the secret garden shown all the time written by the same author. It seems not many people have heard of The Enchanted castle. This needs to be shown again. I'd do anything to see this series again.

Like all the other reviews here I was never sure if is this was an actual TV childrens drama or just fragments of a dream I was remembering. The only thing about it that has always stuck in my mind is remembering the children becoming trapped inside a hollow stone statue of a dinosaur.

Thanks to the internet my wondering has finally come to an end. It's strange the things that haunt us from childhood. I'm now in my 40s.

I too remember this from childhood.

I too was never sure if it was real, or just the memories of a dream.....

I never realised it was actually a book by E Nesbitt :/ as I was very young at the time!!!!! I have searched for this for years and years because I couldn't remember the name, and just now it came to me at last :) I hope they release it on DVD one day, because it is so magical, mysterious, haunting, weird, exciting.....

In the meantime I will get the book out of the library. I hope it lives up to my memories :/ If you like The Chronicles of Narnia, Tom's Midnight Garden, or Moondial, then you might like this. From the same author as 'The Pheonix and the Carpet' and 'Five Children and It' but slightly more unsettling (and nothing like 'The Railway Children'!!!).

I also loved this children's series & reading all of ur reviews helped me to remember it & the ugly bugglys they were quite scary back in the dayi remember , as a kid this series fascinated me I used to watch it when I came home after school I remeber the statues all coming to life i been have searching everywhere to see if this rare gem is on dvd & it is I found it on a website called my rare films ,it's on dvd I just ordered it im so happy so hop on over to my rare films website & register n sighn up you can get your own copy & relive the wonder of it all over again I personally can't wait I think its only like £5 anyway & £1.75p shipping, I really hope that you all get too see this children's series again I searched online to read up on it & found all the lovely reviews & I then started to remember it , & when I found the website its on I had to write my own review, i never thought for a minute I'd find it online but I did it's amazing I think it's only 6 episodes long but it don't matter it was so loved by all of us back in the day the other series I adored was the phoenix & the carpet , another one I loved was come back Lucy.im so glad I was able to submit this view much love to you all x.