Come Back Lucy: The Complete Series — Come Back Lucy: The Complete Series( DVD)
Come Back Lucy is a six-part ghostly children’s drama from the late ’70s. It features a likeable cast, nicely tense end of episodes cliffhangers, and some surprising spooky/ unsettling moments. From Network, is a double DVD reissue of the complete series, which includes a few extras.
Come Back Lucy was screened in the year 1978 on the ATV, which later went on to become part of the ITV network. The series featured six twenty-five-minute episodes. It was based on the 1973 novel Come Back Lucy (aka Mirror of Danger in the US) by Pamela Sykes. The series was directed by Paul Harrison- who has around 100 UK TV series credits to his name, for the likes of The Bill, Lovejoy, Casualty, A Touch of Frost, and many others.
Lucy (Emma Bakhle) is an around ten or so year-old girl, who has just lost her aunt Olive (Aimée Delamain)- and as a result, lost her home too. So she goes to live with her artists Aunt Gwen (Phyllida Law), her architect & African art collecting husband Peter (Royce Mills). And their three children, flat cap wearing & going on socialist marches older teen Patrick(Russell Lewis), his a few years younger sister Rachael(Oona Krish), and their mischievous kid brother Bill( François Evans).
The family live in an old house that Peter is slowly but surely renovating, and one day while playing in the cluttered loft Lucy meets Alice (Bernadette Windsor)- who is the ghost of a girl he used live in the house in the Victorian era. Fairly soon Lucy is travelling back to the past, via the use of mirrors to Alice’s time. The well-to-do and spoilt girl is looked after by her French governess Mademoiselle (Ève Karpf)- and runs rings around her.
As Lucy tries to settle in with her new family in the present day- things don’t run completely smoothly, with bickering between her and the family's children, and questioning if Gwen and Peter really want her. So as a result, she keeps tripping back to Alices time, who turns out to be a very manipulating and unpleasant character- and of course, her sudden disappearances and reappearances cause big issues/ worry with her new family.
Bakhle plays well the rather timid and troubled Lucy- though she is rather dressed like a child from the 1950s. The other children, who do dress very ’70s, play their roles well enough for a TV drama- with Lewis as the older teen, and Bill as the looking-for-mischief younger boy- Krish is ok as the middle child, though does bumble a few of her lines. Windsor is very effective as the bossy, at points downright chilling Alice. Moving onto the adults in the present time, and Law and Mills work well as 70’s modern parents, with their kids calling them by their Christian names.
Each episode ends with a great cliffhanger moment, pulling the viewer into the next one quickly. And as we move through the series, we get some really very creepy, at points decidedly unsettling to alarming moments- which I found impactful as a forty-something adult, so I’m sure the series would have given kids of the 70’s more than a few sleepless nights.
Moving onto this new double region two DVD release, and on the first disc we have all of the series' six episodes- these all look in good condition for 70’s TV show, so I’m guessing the scans were done directly from the archive. On the second disc, we have the following new extras- Coming Back (1 hour 8 mins) interviews with actor Francois Evans, writers Gail Renard and Colin Shindler who adapted the book for the screen, and director Paul Harrison. This is most insightful/ interesting, as we find about the series production from the very beginning, how the writer's adapted the book into a six-part series, as well as on set remembering from Evans as a child actor. Through The Mirror (52.42) is an audio-only discussion between Jill Nolan and Becky Darke, who run a podcast discussing children's books. The pair talk about the original novel the series was based on. Lastly, we have German titles for the series.
Seemingly Come Back Lucy was one of the lesser-known children's drama series of the 1970s. So it is great that Network has released it, and now it can stand head-to-head with other more familiar children’s TV ghost tales- as it really is rather good, featuring a worthy story, likeable characters, and of course most importantly more than a frights & chills.