Everyone knows my fondness for TV memories so while watching something on Channel 4 earlier today I thought about the channels launch night and put my mind to re-watch The Comic Strip Presents... Five Go Mad in Dorset.
Besides Countdown it was one of the only things about the launch night and oh yes Brookside that I could remember. Five Go Mad starred the likes of Adrian Edmonson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Peter Richardson comedy legends in the first entry in the popular series of comedy spoofs, this being a ripping Enid Blyton-inspired yarn.
However, while looking at the schedule for that back in 1982, immediately my eye was caught by the made for TV film “Walter” and my memories came flooding back. I remember wiping away a few tears at the end and after watching it, you needed a pick me up which ‘The Comic Strip Presents’ provided.
I immediately went on a search to see if I could find a copy of “Walter” I so felt the need to watch it again. I couldn’t find it anywhere not even on YouTube, which was a real disappointment. With a subject matter of mental illness and society’s Victorian ways of dealing with it, there is no feel good factor to be found here. It is in the strength of Sir Ian McKellen’s performance as Walter that will keep you glued to the screen.
The story focuses initially on Walter’s youth in which his parents attempt, with little success, to have him adapt into the conditions of a "normal" life. Walter's father dies, followed soon after by his mother. The social services bureaucracy then place him in a psychiatric institution. Walter is molested by another patient, witnesses the murder of a patient by another patient having a breakdown, and remains in the institution for the rest of the film.
The Evening Standard reported at the time:
Channel 4 is taking the extraordinary step of launching itself with one of the most shocking films about mental illness ever shown on British TV. Walter, which occupied the key Tuesday night opening night schedule, features scenes of homosexual molestation in a mental hospital, patients covered in excrement, and a suicide in a barber's shop.
No comments:
Post a Comment