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- Through him, Catweazle discovers that things have changed beyond his imagination. Being a magician, everything he experiences in the twentieth century, such as motor cars, telephones (‘telling bone’), and electric light (‘electrickery’), he believes is the result of magic.
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The premise in the first episode is that an 11th-century bumbling wizard named Catweazle (Geoffrey Bayldon) is pursued by soldiers through a wood, carrying only his magic charm and his toad familiar. He says a spell as he jumps into a pond.
In 11th Century England, deep in the heart of the countryside, an eccentric and bumbling Merlin-like alchemist and magician called Catweazle (Geoffrey Bayldon) finds himself cornered by Norman soldiers.
The main character, Catweazle, is a wizard from about 1066 who by accident teleported himself and his toad into the 1970s. There, he is confronted with all kinds of modern technology (electricity, cars etc.).
- (1.1K)
- 1970-02-15
- Adventure, Comedy, Family
- 30
- Overview
- Summary
is a British children's fantasy television series, starring Geoffrey Bayldon in the title role, and created by Richard Carpenter for London Weekend Television. The first series, produced and directed in 1969 by Quentin Lawrence, was screened in the UK on ITV in 1970. The second series, produced and directed in 1970 by David Reid and David Lane, was...
The premise in the first episode is that an 11th century bumbling wizard named Catweazle (Geoffrey Bayldon) is pursued by soldiers through a wood, carrying only his magic charm and his toad familiar. He says a spell as he jumps into a pond. When he emerges from the pond he believes that he has made the wood and soldiers disappear; in fact he has jumped 900 years into the future.
He arrives on a farm in rural England in the year 1969 and befriends a farmer's son, a ginger teenager named Edward Bennet, nicknamed Carrot (Robin Davies), who spends most of the rest of the series attempting to hide Catweazle from his father (Bud Tingwell) and the farmhand Sam (Neil McCarthy). Catweazle searches for a way to return to his own time while hiding in a disused water tower on abandoned Ministry of Defence land, which he calls Castle Saburac, with his familiar, a toad called Touchwood (as touching wood is believed to bring good fortune). Whenever he is spotted, he uses his magic amulet to hypnotise people into forgetting that they saw him.
The second series featured a 12-part riddle that Catweazle, now in 1970, attempts to solve at the rate of one clue an episode, the solution (as he thinks) being revealed in the 13th.
A third series, which was apparently to be set on the Bennets' farm from the first series rather than the stately home of the second series, never got past the drafting stage.
Catweazle mistakes all modern technology for powerful magic (an example of Arthur C. Clarke's third law that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"), particularly "elec-trickery" (electricity) and the "telling bone" (telephone). Often he tried spells that failed and he would sigh, "Nothing works". Feeling flushed with success in the final episode, his last words were "Everything works, Touchwood! Everything works!".
Both series were shot on 16mm film. The first series was mostly shot on location at Home Farm, Ripley Road, East Clandon, (near Guildford) in Surrey, England in 1969. The second was mostly filmed around the Bayford/Brickendon area of Hertfordshire in 1970 (S02E12 shows scenes of Brickendon and near Bayford station). Interior scenes were filmed at [the now defunct] Halliford Studios, Manygate Lane, near Shepperton.
Jun 20, 2024 · The name “Catweazle” conjures up images of a flamboyant wizard, blundering through time with his trusty cauldron and booming catchphrases. This quirky character, portrayed by the late Rolf Harris, captivated audiences in the 1970s British sitcom “Catweazle.”
The premise in the first episode is that an 11th century bumbling wizard, named Catweazle (Geoffrey Bayldon) is pursued by soldiers through a wood, carrying only his magic charm and his toad familiar (a familiar is a supernatural entity).
Catweazle is a rather shabby and slightly mad magician who lives in a quiet cave with his ‘familiar’, a toad named Touchwood, in Eleventh-Century England.
