Figure 1.--This boy, Matthew Johnson, played in a Famous Five spoof called "The Smugglers". Notice that he wears plimsols rather than sandals.
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Figure 1.--This boy, Matthew Johnson, played in a Famous Five spoof called "The Smugglers". Notice that he wears plimsols rather than sandals. |
Enid Blyton's work is so unabashedly English and so perpetually cheery that it has become a prime target of parody. Her work is often used for spoofs, either whole productions are short skits. One such Famous Five spoof was a musical called Smugglers. It was not a real Enid Blyton story but rather a spoof loosely based on a Famous Five story.
Charac Only two of the four children appear. The boy in the picture is Matthew Johnson who plays the part of Dick, the younger brother.
Enid Blyton's work is so unabashedly English and so perpetually cheery that it has become a prime target of parody. Her work is often used for spoofs, either whole productions are short skits. One such Famous Five spoof was a musical called Smugglers Gold. It was not a real Enid Blyton story but rather a spoof loosely based on a Famous Five story.
Only two of the four children appear. The boy in the picture is Matthew Johnson who plays the part of Dick, the fun-locing younger brother. Matthew has appeared on stage as The Artful Dodger in Oliver and as Gavroche in Les Miserables. The other Famous Five character depicted in Smugglers is George, the tomboy girl.
Figure 2.--Matthew as Dick is seen here in a pirate scene. I'm nort sure how common plimsols were in the Blyton books. |
Dick's clothes for Smugglers were close to the clothing depicted in the Blyton books. The short sleeed, diamond pattern jumpers are a virtual copy. Of coirse the boys mosty wore shorts in the books, but this boys shorts are a bit shorter than those worn by the Famous Five. Also kneesocks were more common than ankle socks and sandals were more common than plimsols. I do not think the Famous Five, at least the boys, whould have worn white socks.
There was a second program called Smugglers Gold which spoofed Enid Blyton's Famous Five. The stage show toured Britain in 1977 and a video was made. Only the older boy played by Jon Lee (now in the pop group S Club 7) wears long trousers--certainly not very Bltonesque. The younger boy wear shorts, albeit quite long shorts. The video was called The Famous Five--The Musical: Smuggler's Gold.
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