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!

What a travesty of a wonderful E Nesbit story.

Dismiss your memories of having seen this as a child on its original transmission, with an adult's perspective it is excruciating.

None of the child actors can act - wooden, uninspired and unconvincing. Perhaps as a child one didn't notice it, but as an adult it makes it unwatchable.

The dinosaur is a dreadfully crude un=detailed badly made model.

Simon Sheard as Gerald the eldest boy is especially excruciating, and I notice that he was the son of. Michael Sheard, a very successful actor. Only. Georgina Stowe as the princess knows what she is doing.

None of the three children went on to have acting careers - says it all.

I too remember watching the enchanted castle and have the life scared out of me by the wuglies,they were the fake audience created by the children for their play,i think.when the wuglies came to life and tried to chase the kids through a hole in the wall,i never slept peacefully again.the other ting i remember is the girls legs growing til they were twenty feet long or so.hope it comes out on DVD,along with the clifton house mystery and under the mountain.why cant the bbc digitise these things for online download,im sure there are generations of big kids who would pay a couple of quid to see something they thought was lost forever.please bbc,give us back our childhood.

I was six or seven when I watched this, but still have extraordinarily strong images from it stuck in my mind - girls trapped inside a stone dinosaur, for instance. A haunting, magical children's programme, I would love to see it now.

I wonder, since I have to fill more lines for my review to be accepted, if it was also the source of one of the most disturbing images from my childhood - a town meeting from which all the attendees emerged as faceless men with sacks instead of heads.

I wonder if anyone else remembers this series, and wish the BBC would treat some of its old children's series the way they do their Jane Austen back catalogue, and release them in DVD box sets.

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.