The Boy From Space (1980)

The Boy From Space was first shown in 1971, when schools TV was still black and white, but it had been filmed in colour anyway. So when the BBC were on the look out for a new Look and Read to be made on the cheap at the end of the 70s, it seemed like a good idea to reuse the old story material, and just make new teaching segments. In the end though, this 'remake' ended up actually costing more to make than a completely new story would have! A short introduction set in 1980 was added to the beginning, with Helen and Dan driving back to the observatory and reliving the story in flashback. Helen then narrates the whole story, but there's no contemporary coda or other later references to the reunion.

The in-between bits featured a life-size Wordy in his orbiting spacestation, Wordlab 1, with a human assistant called Cosmo, and many of the educational songs were sung by two stars and other space creatures.

Episodes

#	Title	Broadcast
1.	The Meteorite	15 Jan 1980
2.	The Spinning Compass	22 Jan 1980
3.	The Man in the Sand-pit	29 Jan 1980
4.	In danger!	5 Feb 1980
5.	The Hold-up	12 Feb 1980
6.	Where is Tom?	26 Feb 1980
7.	The Hunt for the Car	4 Mar 1980
8.	The Lake	11 Mar 1980
9.	Captured!	18 Mar 1980
10.	In the Spaceship	25 Mar 1980

Credits

Presented by	Phil Cheney as Cosmo Charles Collingwood as Wordy Katie Hebb as Wordy puppeteer
Starring	Sylvestra Le Touzel as Helen Loftus Burton as Tom Stephen Garlick as Dan Colin Mayes as Peep-peep John Woodnutt as the thin space-man Anthony Woodruff as Mr Bunting Gabriel Woolf as Peep-peep's father
Singers	Derek Griffiths Neil Fitzwilliam Sheila Steafel Gwen Watford Jeffrey Shankley

Written by	Richard Carpenter
Music by	Paddy Kingsland
Lyrics by	Gordon Snell
Designer	Oamela Lambooy
Film director	Maddalena Fagandini
Directors	Pat Farrington Jill Glindon Reed
Executive producer	Claire Chovil

Broadcasts

Here is a list of all of the broadcasts of this story on the BBC. Unless your teachers managed to get the video recorder to work, this is when you would have seen it in school. See the Schedules section for precise dates and times.

• Spring 1980, BBC1
• Spring 1982, BBC1
• Spring 1984, BBC2
• Spring 1986, BBC2

• Autumn 2003, CBBC
• Spring 2004, CBBC
• Summer 2004, CBBC
• Autumn 2004, CBBC
• Summer 2005, CBBC
• Spring 2006, CBBC
• Spring 2007, CBBC

More Programmes