Freewheelers

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This article is about the children's television series. For other uses, see Freewheelers (disambiguation).

Freewheelers
GenreChildren's television series
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series8
No. of episodes104 (51 missing) (list of episodes)
Production
ProducerChris McMaster
Production locationsSouthern England, Spain, France, Sweden, Netherlands
CinematographyStan Bréhaut
EditorMichael Womersley
Running time24 mins
Production companySouthern Television
Original release
NetworkITV
Release4 April 1968 (1968-04-04) –
5 May 1973 (1973-05-05)

Freewheelers is a

British television series made by Southern Television between 1968 and 1973 for the ITV network. It was created by the television producer Chris McMaster, who was aware of the popularity of adult action series such as The Avengers and Department S
amongst teenagers and saw the potential of a version aimed at a younger audience.

Plot

In the opening story, three young people become caught up in the plans of ex-

Nazi officer Karl von Gelb to "reverse the verdict of the last war" and inflict revenge on his former enemies.[1] Under the direction of Colonel Buchan of MI5, the trio thwart Gelb's scheme to launch Polaris
missiles on London from a captured nuclear submarine. This set the template for future stories, with the teenagers regularly preventing Gelb from carrying out massive and ingenious threats to Britain's security.

Background and production

The format of fast-paced action and outdoor locations was enormously successful and the programme enjoyed a large home audience as well as gaining overseas sales.

Majorca. Future locations would include Amsterdam, Sweden and the Ardèche.[3]

High-tech gadgets were a regular component, often machines developed for peaceful purposes seized by the villain and turned to criminal use. Teams of scientists were also regularly kidnapped and coerced into building similar gadgets: devices for changing the weather, controlling minds and melting metal at great distances all featured.

Strong incidental and closing music by

outside broadcast unit, known as Southerner
, which also doubled as von Gelb's ship.

Cast and characters

Freewheelers cast

Ronald Leigh-Hunt, as the British secret service agent Colonel Buchan, was the most regular cast member, appearing in series 1–4 and series 6.[4] In 1971, he had a major part in the feature film Le Mans and when production of that overran by two months, he was unavailable for series 5; the absence of his character from the series was explained as him being on an overseas mission.[3] The teenagers, almost invariably referred to as "the kids", varied over the years. The original line-up consisted of Tom Owen, Mary Maude and Gregory Phillips. Chris Chittell featured in series 2 and 3 and Adrian Wright played Mike Hobbs in series 4–7. Former Doctor Who companion Wendy Padbury joined the cast in series 5 as art student Sue Craig. Her youthful looks enabled her to portray a character several years her junior, although by the final series, with the actress in her mid-twenties and then married to actor Melvyn Hayes, careful camera angles were required to conceal an advancing pregnancy.[3] Padbury was the only regular actor to appear in the eighth series, which was a single 13-part serial. She was teamed with co-star Martin Neil, who played Sue's boyfriend Dave.

Initially Geoffrey Toone played the resident villain Karl von Gelb, a former high-ranking SS officer. To avoid prejudicing potential sales of the programme to West Germany, references to the character's Nazi past were dropped in series 3.[5] From series 4, the character was replaced by a succession of similarly crazed criminal masterminds, such as Jerome Willis as Professor Nero and Commander Caine played by Kevin Stoney. The criminals were aided by various henchmen, perhaps most memorably by Ryan (Richard Shaw) and the beret-wearing Burke (Michael Ripper) in series 5 and 6.[6]

Episodes

Main article: List of Freewheelers episodes
SeriesEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
1134 April 1968 (1968-04-04)27 June 1968 (1968-06-27)
21320 November 1968 (1968-11-20)12 February 1969 (1969-02-12)
3139 July 1969 (1969-07-09)1 October 1969 (1969-10-01)
41329 April 1970 (1970-04-29)22 July 1970 (1970-07-22)
51320 January 1971 (1971-01-20)14 April 1971 (1971-04-14)
61327 September 1971 (1971-09-27)20 December 1971 (1971-12-20)
7134 September 1972 (1972-09-04)27 November 1972 (1972-11-27)
8136 August 1973 (1973-08-06)5 November 1973 (1973-11-05)

Home release and repeats

The first five series were

telerecordings of series 1 and a single episode from series 2 survive, and the final three series exist in various formats.[7][8]

A Region 2 DVD of series 6 was released in April 2009.[8][9] Repeats of the surviving episodes of Freewheelers were shown on the British satellite television channel Film 24 in 2010 and on Talking Pictures TV in 2017 and 2019. In December 2021, series 6 and 7 were made available on the Talking Pictures streaming service "TPTV Encore".[10]

Publications

The children's magazine

novelisations by Look-in editor Alan Fennell, featuring the characters from series 6, were published in paperback: The Sign of the Beaver (1971) and The Spy Game (1972). A book about the series, Calling White Knight – The definitive book about Freewheelers by Mark Harris, was published in December 2019.[11]

References

  1. ^ Freewheelers Episode Guide series 1–3 compiled by Andrew Pixley and Mark Harris. Time Screen issue 15 (Spring 1990).
  2. ^ Freewheelers: Calling White Knight by Mark Harris. Time Screen issue 15 (Spring 1990), p4-p8.
  3. ^ a b c Freewheelers: Doomsday! by Mark Harris. Time Screen issue 19 (Autumn 1992), p10-p14.
  4. ^ TV Times – Independent Television Publications Limited.
  5. ^ Elinor Groom (2014) The South, Southern and Southerner: Regional Identity and Locations in Southern Television’s Freewheelers, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 34:3, 434-451
    doi:10.1080/01439685.2014.937186
  6. ^ Freewheelers Episode Guide series 4–8 compiled by Andrew Pixley, David Auger and Mark Harris. Time Screen issue 19 (Autumn 1992).
  7. ^ Time Screen, The Magazine of British Telefantasy – Publisher David Nightingale.
  8. ^ a b Renown Pictures Ltd Archived 14 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Simply Home Entertainment
  10. ^ Talking Pictures TV Encore
  11. ^ Kaleidoscope Publishing

External links

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