In fact, although they have been adapted for television and film in Britain and Germany, the stories seem to resist being lifted from the page.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Famous Five are back.<\/span>Credit: <\/span> Stan<\/cite><\/p>\n Set in an English countryside unmarked by motorways, they feature children innocent of the joys of computer games who thrill to adventurous hikes, picnics with lashings of ginger beer and catching criminals, a bunch of shifty louts who are easily outsmarted by posh children on a break from boarding schools. These are books, in other words, totally weatherproofed against modernisation. Certainly, nobody would have expected that the latest adaptation \u2013<\/em> three full-length features shot for streaming \u2013 would be the work of a director who once described himself as \u201ca pornographer\u201d.<\/p>\n Danish-American Nicolas Winding Refn\u2019s consistently confronting films include the grimy Pusher<\/em> series \u2013<\/em> shot in Copenhagen and starring Mads Mikkelsen \u2013<\/em> and Drive<\/em>, which starred Ryan Gosling and several bucketloads of blood. Even saying Refn\u2019s name in the same sentence as Enid Blyton\u2019s sounds like a Monty Python joke. \u201cMy jaw dropped,\u201d admits James Lance, who plays eccentric scientist Uncle Quentin, remembering the day the offer arrived with Refn\u2019s name on it.<\/p>\n \u2018Every day I would walk on set thinking \u2018I can\u2019t believe I am hanging out with the Famous Five!\u2018.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI was lucky enough to work with Nicholas years ago on Bronson<\/em> \u2013<\/em> and that experience was very un-PG. The way Nicholas works is extraordinary.\u201d For example, there was the day he decided to reshoot an emotionally fraught scene, which had already taken a day, but with both characters naked. It was a daring decision, not least because they were on a tight schedule. \u201cSo there\u2019s that spirit of adventure and creativity, of being not afraid to say, \u2018You know what, we\u2019re going to go down this tunnel,\u2019 \u201d he says. \u201cIt may seem like an incongruous connection between Nicholas and Enid Blyton, but I think when you\u2019ve seen the show, you know it works quite harmoniously.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no question of Uncle Quentin getting his kit off, even for a dip in the sea just below Kirrin Cottage, but Refn has certainly revamped the Five\u2019s dynamics. Cross-dressing girl George doesn\u2019t insist on being treated like a boy or wearing boys\u2019 clothes, emerging instead as a free spirit and a natural leader. Julian is more reticent, no longer the priggish boss of the gang, and amenable Dick has been transformed into a Harry Potter-like swot. Anne still needs looking after, but only because she is younger than the others rather than because she\u2019s a girl. They also face a very different kind of villain in Game of Thrones<\/em> alumnus Jack Gleeson\u2019s Wentworth, an effete madman who wants to rule the world.<\/p>\n James Lance as Uncle Quentin and Ann Akinjirin as Aunt Fanny in The Famous Five.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Stan<\/cite><\/p>\n Uncle Quentin has also changed. In Five Go to Treasure Island<\/em>, he was introduced as an irascible, disagreeable genius who, appallingly, in Blyton\u2019s Fido-friendly world, didn\u2019t want a dog in the house. Lance plays him as an eccentric boffin, his dubious parenting choices excused by a newly invented tragic back-story.<\/p>\n \u201cI read some of the original books just to see how the written character comes across,\u201d he says. \u201cAs you say, he\u2019s sort of emotionally shut off and quite severe. But my way in was to think: is he really like that? One of the things I love about the books is that they\u2019re really very much from the point of view of the children, so I think those books look at Uncle Quentin from down here.\u201d He flattens his hand at the height of a 10-year-old head. \u201cI think that was my way in, as a parent.\u201d<\/p>\n Lance came to this most English of stories after spending three years as Trent Crimm, sports journalist and scourge of the locker room, in the hit Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso<\/em>. That role brought him a Primetime Emmy nomination and skipped him up several rungs of fame. Both outcomes shock and delight him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the most wonderful thing to be stopped in the street by some saying \u2018I just have to thank you: that series changed my life,\u2019 \u201d he says. \u201cHonestly, it was pure joy, every atom of that experience. And I was very lucky to step on to another set and for that to be magic as well. There\u2019s a wonderful element to being an actor, if you\u2019re lucky enough to be working, which is a little bit like time travel. I mean, every day I would walk on set thinking, \u2018I can\u2019t believe I am hanging out with the Famous Five!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Refn brings his customary visual extravagance to the new plotlines he has invented: a magic fountain that offers hallucinatory visions of the future, mystical associations between Kirrin Island and the Knights Templar and the discovery of a treasure vault worthy of Indiana Jones. What he doesn\u2019t do \u2013 the fatal mistake \u2013 is try to modernise the Famous Five. The time is effectively fudged, in fact, until we see a steam train chuffing from Cornwall to London and realise this is sometime before World War II. Or is it?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say it was around 1939, but George wears Converse and Jack Gleeson\u2019s haircut is certainly not of that time,\u201d says Lance. \u201cAnd it\u2019s like that right the way across the production. I think it\u2019s evocative of moments when you think of your childhood; the detail is dependent on how you remember it and it might not be completely accurate, but it\u2019s accurate in terms of its resonance.\u201d<\/p>\n The same goes for Blyton\u2019s arch language: nobody begins a sentence with \u201cI say!\u201d or describes a cream tea as \u201csmashing\u201d, but they don\u2019t use modern slang either. That\u2019s what makes it live, still on Enid Blyton\u2019s terms. \u201cIf it were a complete cookie-cutter lift from the book, it would become a period piece,\u201d says Lance. \u201cBut really, it\u2019s a fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n