TV tie-in - 'SHADOWS'

This long running Thames TV show was aimed at children ran from 3rd September 1975 to 1st November 1978. Essentially a supernatural anthology series, in later series the theme would switch to more fantasy style stories. A total of 20 episodes were shown over 3 series. Episodes would cover themes such as an haunted railway station ['The Waiting room'], Witchcraft ['The Witch's bottle'], Strange powers ['After school'], Evil criminals ['Dutch Schitz's shoes'], Magicians ['And now for my next trick'], Curses ['The Rose of Puddle Fratrum'] etc. A character from the episode 'Dutch Schitz's shoes' first appeared in the cult TV series 'Ace of wands', with the gruesome name of Mr.Stabs, the character would also appear in an episode of 'Dramarama Spooky' entitled 'Mr.Stabs'. The episode from Shadows is highly recommended viewing, Mr.Stabs and his sidekick Luko are a great double act playing off each other with sinister wit. Both episodes from Shadows and Dramarama are included as extras on the Ace of Wands dvd boxset.

The TV tie-in 'The Best of Shadows' would only contain 7 of the 20 shadows stories. Published by Carousel books in 1979 and illustrated by Les Matthews, with stories by Joan Aiken, Josephine Poole, Ewart Alexander and 2 stories adapted by Peter Eldin.

Episodes covered in this book are: 'The Dark streets of Kimball's Green', 'The Inheritance', 'Eleven O'clock', 'And now for my next trick', 'The Rose of Puddle Fratrum', 'The Eye', and 'The Man who hated children'. I am not sure if another 'Shadows' tie-in was ever published, this is the only one I have seen.

Here is all the 'Shadows' episodes in order of broadcast:

Series 1

'The Future Ghost'

'After School'

'The Witch's bottle'

'The Waiting room'

'Optical Illusion'

Dutch Schlitz's shoes'

'The Other window'

Series 2

'The Dark streets of Kimball's Green'

'Time out of mind'

'The Inheritance'

'Dark Encounter'

'Peronik'

'The Eye'

Series 3

'Eleven o'clock'

'The Rose of Puddle Fratrum'

'And now for my next trick'

'The boy Merlin'

'The man who hated children'

'The Silver apple'

'HoneyAnn'

I am not sure if 'Shadows' will ever be released onto dvd, lets just hope so.