Escape Into Night

I'd even forgotten the title in my search for details about this series, was it really 31 years ago?! I remember rushing home from school to see it even though it frightened this seven year old to bits. I was thrilled when Paperhouse was released but it all seemed so different, a bit more "grown-up", different illness (I think Marrianne had a broken leg in the series and not glandular fever)and missing the stones with one eye if I remember rightly. The ever-encircling stones gave me nightmares but still I watched and Marrianne was given an indelible pen at one point so she couldn't erase her drawings! I must track down the original book by Storr to see which dramatization is more faithful, I so wish the UK series was brought back as I would dearly love to see it again (I'd probably be still hiding behind a cushion)!

Like most of the people who have commented on this series I found this programme very haunting, not scary so much as disturbing or unsettling. I was older than most of the people who have posted so far, twelve in 1972 (& strangely like one of the above was convinced this prog. was from the late 60's) & also couldn't remember the name of the series. I tracked it down a few years ago & last year discovered that all 6 episodes do still exist in some form but only one in it's original colour form. It was shown on ITV btw not BBC as someone has said. Last night I finally watched one episode for the first time in 34 years that I managed to obtain from a collector on DVD. It was very poor quality b/w but fascinating to see. It was the final episode which was good as I couldn't remember how it ended and if the boy got out of the house (but won't spoil it for anyone lucky enough to see it again). The rocks had reached right up to the house. I had forgotten the eyes! There was strange radiophonic workshop type electronic noises (rumblings and whirrings) throughout the scenes in the house which may be what provided some of the chills that people remember. In fact they even drowned out some of the dialogue but this may be just down to this DVD not how it went out on air. The acting has not held up well by today's standards or even compared to say 'Timeslip' from the same era of kids drama. There was still something imaginative and strange about the programme though that lingers.

I remember a show like this from my childhood, but thought it was earlier than 1972 (somewhere between 1968 and 1971). It featured a girl and boy walking through a dark, scary dream world in their pyjamas/gowns where the scenery was all theatre-like painted backdrops. ESCAPE INTO NIGHT sounds so like this show but the timing isn't quite right and the atmospheric painted scenery isn't featured. Does anyone else remember a television show around 6 or 7pm at night with 2D drawn/painted scenery, for example the trees in the forest, in the late 60's early 70's?

I remember the girl had long dark hair.

I think it may have also featured a house, but I particularly remember the flat 2d painted trees in the dream woods.

Anything anyone can tell us about this show would be much appreciated.

Was there another dramatized version of Marianne Dreams around the end of the 1960s?

How frightening can a stone be? I watched this TV series as a child growing up in New Zealand during the 1970s. Creepy, sinister and haunting are how I'd choose to describe it, even 30-mumble years later. Having said that, I just had to watch it every week.

The story is about a young girl who is trapped in her home due to an illness that immobilizes her. She draws pictures that she eventually realizes come to life in her nightmares. She can influence her dreams by changing the drawings but the effects are not always as desired. The monsters in this story take the form of rocks about the size of arched tombstones and have two disquieting features. First is an eye that doesn't let you off the hook. And second is the way that in each dream they are bearing down on the house, getting closer and closer to carrying out some evil intent.

Remember how you felt watching Ridley Scott's "Alien" the first time? Cast that tension into a child's world and you have a sense of "Escape into Night".

I'm glad to find this listing - I remember watching this as a child, and there were some memorable scary moments - when the voices start coming out the radio.

I'd recommend the Catherine Storr book, even for adults!

Latest: The DVD is being released by Network in May 2009.

Just as an additional comment, I tracked down the sequel (book) Marianne and Mark which is somewhat harder to find than the bestselling Marianne Dreams, from which this programme derives. Marianne and Mark is quite a curious book, because although it is clearly the same Marianne and Mark from the earlier story, the author seems to push back the early happenings as though it were make belief. Marianne, now a teenager, seems to have dismissed the events as being induced by her sickness.