British schoolboy scamp grows up

Press, 28 July 1986, Page 22

British schoolboy scamp grows up

By

ROBIN CHARTERIS

in London

After 64 years, William Brown, the most popular 11-year-old schoolboy in English literature, is growing up. The schoolboy scamp made famous by the authoress, Richmal Crompton, is to make a television comeback next year — as a 40-year-old British civil servant in a new series called "Still William.” Thames Television is negotiating with the "Minder” star, Dennis Waterman, to play the mature William. It was Waterman who played the juvenile hero in the original television series of the famous William books in 1962.

Not just William will be brought to middle age. So, too, will his side-kicks, Ginger and Henry, and his arch-rival, Hubert Lane. Even William’s trusted mongrel will be included, now known as Jumble IV. The scriptwriters have

a few surprises in store for William fans. Henry, William’s trusted lieutenant in the Outlaws, will now be his boss at the Department of the Environment in Oxford, where William is still indulging in his favourite activity of "Doin’ nothin’.” As for Ginger, he is now a gay fabric designer working out of the old barn, the Outlaws’ old headquarters. Why gay? The scriptwriters, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, renowned for their shine on the Harvey Moon series, were asked. “Look, why is he still called Ginger, even though he’s bald?” “Ginger beer. Don’t you see,” they say, in reference to Cockney rhyming slang.

There will be no Violet Elizabeth Bott in the new series. She was the little pain who was always threatening to “thcream and thcream till I’m thick.”

In the very expensive

deal being finalised between Thames’ lawyers and the Crompton estate there is a most unusual sub-clause making the entire contract null and void if William is ever made to marry Violet Elizabeth. Yet the writers have still contrived a deeplycontroversial marriage for William/For the past 15 years he has been married to Dorinda Lane, the sister of the ’orrible pudgy Hubert, William’s only true enemy and once the leader of the despised Hubert Laneites.

They have a 13-year-old daughter, Alice, the apple of her father’s eye, but also the cause of much distress as she prefers to hang around shopping malls with her mates rather than go fishing with him.

William, at 40, turns out to be a small conservative, a simple man for whom the work ethic has never held attraction. He is in charge of translating airy-fairy manpower ser-

vice commission schemes into inaction. His only extravagance is a hand-built Morgan sports car. His parents live in retirement on Britain’s south coast. Robert, his older brother, is a regional manager of his father’s bank, while his older, sister, Ethel, is a reasonably well-known actress. Hubert Lane has not been forgotten. He has grown up into a despica-

ble estate agent and property developer, building horrible hypermarkets and townhouses and ruining William’s beloved countryside. For William, liquorice water has given way to real ale, brilliantine to Brut 33 and catapult shoots to car washing. Had he been able to picture himself 30 years on, he could only have scratched his head and sighed: “Crumbs!”