The Witches and the Grinnygog (1983 series)

The Witches and the Grinnygog
Created by Roy Russell
Starring Patricia Hayes
Adam Woodyatt
Anna Wing
John Barrard
Olu Jacobs
Composer(s) James Harpham
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 6
Production
Location(s) Titchfield
Bishop's Waltham (Hampshire)
Running time 25 minutes
Production company(s) Television South
Release
Original network ITV
Original release 14 November (1983-11-14) – 19 December 1983 (1983-12-19)

The Witches and the Grinnygog was a British television serial first aired in 1983. The story was adapted from the book The Witches and the Grinnygog and was aired as a six-episode television miniseries produced by Television South for ITV and subsequently re-broadcast in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Israel.

Summary

A strange statue (the Grinnygog), which fell off the back of a truck carrying stones of an old church for relocation, is discovered by a woman on her way home from the store. The woman takes the statue home and gives it to her elderly father as a garden ornament.

The family who now has possession of the Grinnygog, in particular one small boy, begin to experience strange feelings of euphoria and a desire to participate in folk magic rituals. At the same time, a nervous, "other-worldly" child begins to be seen around the town and appears lost and frightened. Meanwhile, three eccentric older women arrive in the town and appear to be searching for something. They bring with them the "daughter" of one of the women, later revealed to be a mannequin, but which at one point appears to be walking by itself.

The story eventually reveals that the three women are witches from England's Middle Ages who escaped a witch-hunt by somehow slipping through time into the modern age. The Grinnygog, which was a type of familiar spirit, had lain dormant until being removed from the church, when it summoned the witches to the present day. One of the witches is now looking for her daughter who was separated during a witch-burning held hundreds of years ago in the town. The daughter escaped by slipping through time, but only intermittently, and is now lost without her mother.

The presence of the witches, and their relationship to the Grinnygog, is eventually worked out by a group of children who investigate their town's local history and discover that the town must make amends for the ancient injustice of witch-burning. One clue is revealed through an old manuscript written by a town elder who apparently witnessed the witch-burning and wrote an account of the event in a journal: however, he died before revealing the final clue about the escaped witches. Another clue is the arrival of an African witch doctor, named Mr. Alabaster (played by Olu Jacobs) who is seeking out the witches to help them.

The story ends with the witches reunited with the daughter and taken away by Mr. Alabaster to someplace where they will be safe, along with the Grinnygog.

Cast

The Children

The Witches

The Adults

Other Characters

Episodes

No. in
series 		Title Original air date
1"Episode One"14 November 1983

A truck driving through a small English village narrowly misses hitting several pedestrians; a stone object falls off the back which is noticed by a local woman. The object, a odd looking stone statue of a fairy or some other creature, is taken home to the woman’s father and placed in their garden as an outdoor ornament. Their young son, Jimmy, immediately takes an interest in the statue.

Meanwhile, several local children are excited about the prospect of creating a museum for their local church. Their efforts are supported by the local vicar who promises to give the children access to the town archives and to promote the museum on the radio and television. Back at the church, some workman who were involved in relocating an older church stone by stone are speak of seeing a ghostly hand while they were moving stones.

A few days later, young Jimmy begins to behave strangely around the garden statue and at one point says he can hear a voice speaking to him from the stone figure. His comments are dismissed by the other children; however, they later to admit to feeling uneasy around the statue as well. That night, one of the boys named Colin is alone at the future museum site when he is startled by a black man who introduces himself as Mr. Alabaster. The man seems to have appeared out of nowhere and tells Colin that the stone statue in the nearby garden is called a Grinnygog. Colin then turns around for a moment and looks back to see that the man has vanished.

Production

The TV series was filmed in and around Titchfield and Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire. It was adapted by Roy Russell and directed by Diarmuid Lawrence, with music by James Harpham. It was shown on Nickelodeon in the United States as part of the anthology series The Third Eye.

Availability

There has been no domestic commercial release of the series on any format in the UK. This is possibly due to ongoing rights issues after the production company, TVS, dropped out of the ITV network in 1992 and subsequently went through a number of take-overs. This problem affects the majority of the TVS programme archive as much of the original production paperwork and sales documentation has been lost during the intervening years.

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