The Famous Five (characters)
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The Famous Five is a fictional group of child detectives, composed of four children (Julian, Dick, Anne and George) and their dog Timmy, created by Enid Blyton.
Blyton created several such groups for her detective series, including The Secret Seven and the curiously titled Five Find-Outers and Dog, but the Famous Five are the best-known and most popular of these.
All the "Famous Five" books have been adapted for television at some stage.
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[edit] Overview
The first books in the series were written during the 1940s, and some of the basic concepts can now seem extremely outdated. Three of the children, Julian, Dick and Anne, are siblings. During their holidays, they are regularly sent to stay with their Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin, whose daughter, Georgina, is a tomboy always known as George.
Every time they come together, they find themselves obliged to solve a mystery which usually, but not always, has a criminal behind it. The location of the adventure varies from book to book. Sometimes it will happen close to George's home, and "Kirrin Island", a private island, presents many opportunities for such activities. Since both George's own home and various other houses are hundreds of years' old, there is much room for secret passages or smugglers' tunnels, which play a central role in the plot of several books in the series. On other occasions, the children may go camping or hiking or be sent on holiday together elsewhere, but they are always accompanied by George's dog, Timothy, affectionately known to the children as Timmy.
Blyton always said that George was based on a real girl she had once known: in her later life, she admitted that that girl was herself.
[edit] Characters
- George (Georgina) Kirrin: Georgina is a tomboy, demanding that people call her George. She cuts her hair very short and dresses like a boy. She is headstrong by nature and, like her father, Quentin, has a fiery temper.
- Julian: The eldest of the five, cousin to George and older brother to Dick and Anne. He is an intelligent boy and a natural leader whose cleverness and reliability is often noted by Aunt Fanny.
- Dick (Richard): George's cousin, and brother of Julian and Anne, sometimes mistaken for George because of his behaviour and dark hair. Dick is the joker of the group, but also very thoughtful.
- Anne: The youngest in the group, and written by Blyton as girlish, with a natural instinct to mother the others. She famously dislikes the adventures the Five constantly encounter, but soldiers on loyally.
- Timmy: George's dog and the unofficial mascot for the group, who is available to attack unwanted people on George's command. Timmy is like a cute and cuddly toy that will be kind and gentle but when made angry he will attack.
- Fanny Kirrin: George's mother, and aunt to Dick, Julian and Anne. Aunt Fanny is married to Uncle Quentin, and is, through most of Blyton's Famous Five novels, the principal maternal figure in the lives of the children. (Julian, Dick and Anne's parents are very rarely seen, and rarely mentioned, as most of their adventures take place on school holidays while visiting the village of Kirrin.)
- Quentin Kirrin: George's father, and a famous inventor and scientist. His temper is infamous, and he has little tolerance for children, particularly during school holidays. In the first book of the series, it is established that he is the brother of Julian, Dick and Anne's father.
Note - There is debate about whether Julian, Dick and Anne share George's surname of Kirrin (as shown in Five on Finniston Farm), which would imply that their father was brother to Uncle Quentin, or whether their surname is Barnard (as their mother is referred to as "Mrs Barnard" in Five Get into a Fix).
[edit] Bibliography
Enid Blyton wrote 21 Famous Five books; in chronological order they are:
- Five on a Treasure Island (1942 - ISBN 0-340-79614-6)
- Five Go Adventuring Again (1943 - ISBN 0-340-79615-4)
- Five Run Away Together (1944 - ISBN 0-340-79617-0)
- Five Go To Smuggler's Top (1945 - ISBN 0-340-79618-9)
- Five Go Off In A Caravan (1946 - ISBN 0-340-79619-7)
- Five on Kirrin Island Again (1947 - ISBN 0-340-79620-0)
- Five Go off to Camp (1948 - ISBN 0-340-79621-9)
- Five Get into Trouble (1949 - ISBN 0-340-79623-5)
- Five Fall into Adventure (1950 - ISBN 0-340-79622-7)
- Five on a Hike Together (1951 - ISBN 0-340-79624-3)
- Five Have A Wonderful Time (1952 - ISBN 0-340-79625-1)
- Five Go Down to the Sea (1953 - ISBN 0-340-79626-X)
- Five Go to Mystery Moor (1954 - ISBN 0-340-79627-8)
- Five Have Plenty of Fun (1955 - ISBN 0-340-68119-5)
- Five on a Secret Trail (1956 - ISBN 0-340-79629-4)
- Five Go to Billycock Hill (1957 - ISBN 0-340-79630-8)
- Five Get into a Fix (1958 - ISBN 0-340-03363-0)
- Five on Finniston Farm (1960 - ISBN 0-340-68123-3)
- Five Go to Demon's Rocks (1961 - ISBN 0-340-79633-2)
- Five Have a Mystery to Solve (1962 - ISBN 0-340-79634-0)
- Five Are Together Again (1963 - ISBN 0-340-79635-9)
Blyton also wrote a number of short stories featuring the characters. These were finally collected together in 1998 as 'Five have a Puzzling Time and other stories'.
There are also books written originally in French by Claude Voilier (the Five have long been extremely popular in translation in the French-speaking parts of Europe) and later translated into English. The French/English books (not written by Blyton, and for the most part contemporary to their era, i.e. the 1980s) are generally regarded as inferior by Blyton aficionados and at least in the English-speaking world, have never equalled the popularity of the original books. The title of one of these books—The Famous Five in Fancy Dress—has been a particular object of ridicule.
From 2004 to today, another nine new Famous Five novels written by Sarah Bosse have been published in Germany, but as yet, they have not been translated into English. Furthermore, six books in a Choose Your Own Adventure style were written by Mary Danby, entitled The Famous Five and You.[1] Like Choose Your Own Adventure books, these books involved reading small sections of print and being given two or more options to follow, and being given a different page number for each option. The books came with several accessories, including maps and code deciphering wheels. The books were titled as follows:
- The Famous Five and You Search for Treasure!
- The Famous Five and You Find Adventure!
- The Famous Five and You Run Away!
- The Famous Five and You Search for Smugglers!
- The Famous Five and You Take Off!
- The Famous Five and You Underground!
The original books are set in rural England, and assume old-world values and a general innocence often missing from more recent children's literature.
The stories almost always take place in the children's holidays when they come home from their respective boarding schools. Kirrin Cottage, which is George's home, and all the other places they visit are set in the countryside, where the children discover the simple joys of cottages, picnics ("with lashings of ginger beer" - an oft-quoted cliché but never actually mentioned in any of the 21 books), bicycle trips, home-made food, islands, sea shores, and always have a thrilling adventure.
The characters are outlined with very few words, and there is very limited description of scenes, but this style of writing keeps children's attention and is seen by enthusiasts as fuelling their imagination and encouraging them to think for themselves.
[edit] Television series
[edit] 1978 series
The Famous Five 1978 television series was produced by Southern Television for the ITV network in the UK, in 26 episodes of thirty minutes. It starred Michelle Gallagher as Georgina, Marcus Harris as Julian, Jennifer Thanisch as Anne, Gary Russell as Dick, Toddy Woodgate as Timmy, Michael Hinz as Uncle Quentin and Sue Best as Aunt Fanny. It also starred Ronald Fraser, John Carson, James Villiers, Cyril Luckham and Brian Glover.
The screenplays were written by Gloria Tors, Gail Renard, Richard Carpenter and Richard Sparks. The episodes were directed by Peter Duffell, Don Leaver, James Gatward and Mike Connor. The series was produced by Don Leaver.
The setting was contemporary (that is, the series was set in 1978.)
One of its most memorable aspects was the theme tune.
Wherever there's adventure to be found Just a clue or a secret message bring the Famous Five around Whenever there's a mystery to be solved Up in the ruined castle or down in Smuggler's Top (Chorus:) We are the Famous Five Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog We are the Famous Five We're coming back to you, whenever there's time, time after time
Ending song lyrics:
Whatever awaits behind closed doors Strange noises in the cellar or the sound of creaky floors We'll never let a mystery pass us by Just leave a clue and leave the rest to the Famous Five (Chorus:) We are the Famous Five Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog We are the Famous Five We're coming back to you whenever there's time Coming back to you, time after time, after time
Finnish punk rock band Widows (of Helsinki) made three different cover versions of the theme song, first one in early 1979. [2]
All the books apart from Five on a Treasure Island, Five Have a Mystery to Solve and Five Have Plenty of Fun were dramatised; the first two were excluded because the Children's Film Foundation still had the film and TV rights to the books (see below), and the third because it could not fit in the production schedule. Plans to make a third series which would have included this story plus new ones written purely for television were abandoned after the Blyton estate exercised its veto.
[edit] 1996 series
A later TV series was produced around 1996, a co-production between a number of companies including HTV, Zenith North and the German channel ZDF; this was also shown on ITV in the UK. Unlike the previous series, this was a period piece, set in 1953, and also unlike the previous series it dramatised all the original books. Of the juvenile actors the best-known is probably Jemima Rooper, who played George. In this series, to fit in with modern changes to Blyton's books and the fact that "Fanny" now has other meanings, Aunt Fanny was known as Aunt Frances.
[edit] Video and DVD
The 1978 series was released on video with reasonable regularity between 1983 and 1999, many of which are still easy to find second-hand, although the sound and picture quality is not always what it could be.
A four-disc DVD collection, containing 23 of the 26 episodes produced for the 1978 series (and two episodes from the 1996 series) was released in region 4 (Australia and New Zealand) in 2005. The box and disc art identify it as a release of 1996 series. (The distributor had licenced the 1996 series but due to an administrative glitch, it was supplied with master tapes and artwork for the 1978 series.) The error was corrected in a later release.
The 1996 series was released in its entirety on video; only the adaptation of Five On A Treasure Island seems to have been released on DVD in the UK, although there are apparently some rare mainland European DVD releases of the series, available via certain websites in the UK (these are, of course, Region 2 DVDs).
A three-disc DVD collection, containing 13 of the 26 episodes of the 1996 series, was released in Australia and New Zealand in 2005 (these are region 4 DVDs). This release followed the erroneous release of the 1978 series with 1996 artwork, and is marked "Revised Edition" to avoid confusion.
There are also two Children's Film Foundation films of the Famous Five books - Five On A Treasure Island, made in 1957, and Five Have A Mystery To Solve, produced in 1963 - plus other film adaptations of the books made in countries such as Denmark.
[edit] Movies
Two of the Famous Five stories by Enid Blyton have been filmed by Danish director Katrine Hedman. The cast consisted of Danish actors and the movie was originally released in Danish. Ove Sprogøe stars as Uncle Quentin. The movies are: De 5 og spionerne (Five and the Spies) (1969) and De 5 i fedtefadet (Famous Five Get in Trouble) (1970).
[edit] Computer Game
In 1990 an interactive fiction computer game based on the first of the books, Five On A Treasure Island, was released. It was programmed by Colin Jordan and first released for the little known SAM Coupé by Enigma Variations.
He originally started coding the game on the ZX Spectrum using his own "worldscape" technique. When the SAM Coupé was launched, he switched to it as the target platform while still hosting the code on the ZX Spectrum. He later ported it to the Amstrad CPC and completed the ZX Spectrum version. The game was also ported to the Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST by others.
[edit] Parodies
The Five also inspired the Comic Strip parody Five Go Mad in Dorset and its sequel Five Go Mad On Mescalin, in which the characters express sympathies with Nazi Germany and opposition to the Welfare State, homosexuals, immigrants and Jews, in an extremely broad parody not so much of Blyton but of wider perceived 1950s prejudices. The parodies were deliberately set towards the end of the original Famous Five "era" (1942-1963) so as to make the point that the books were already becoming outmoded while they were still being written, although the continuing popularity of the books even in the 21st Century may be seen to suggest otherwise.
A story in The Guardian's G2 supplement also parodies the Famous Five. It argues that Anne, Dick, George and Julian are caricatures rather than characters, portraying Anne as having no life outside of domestic labour. It highlights what the writer, Lucy Mangan, considers to the power struggle between Dick, George and Julian while Anne is sidelined. It also suggests that the lives of the children are ideological rather than realistic, referring to a "delicious fruit cake they had bought from the local paedophile - sorry, red-cheeked farmer and his wife - that morning".
[edit] New Series
In 2005 Chorion announced the production of a new animated series based on the books, to be broadcast on British television in 2007. In December of 2006, Disney made public that they would be working with Chorion. Though some things will be changed, the true spirit of the novels will remain. A 26-episode series is planned with Cole, Dylan, Jo and Allie replacing the original names of Julian, Dick, Anne and George. The series is planned to be broadcast on the Disney Channel in early 2008.
