Reliving my childhood. (The Chronicles Of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe [1988] (DVD))

Member Name: drewboy

Product:	The Chronicles Of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe [1988] (DVD)
Date:	15/12/05 (347 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic tale, acting, costumes .

Disadvantages: Special effects, re - mastering .

As evacuees from London in the second world war, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy find themselves in a grand mansion in the country. Put up by a rather eccentric old professor, they find that the housekeeper takes an instant dislike to them and in order to escape her wrath they must try and amuse themselves away from wherever she may be.

So, one day as they are pottering about exploring in the upstairs of the house, they find an empty room with a large oak wardrobe. Taking no notice, three of them turn and continue to explore however the youngest, Lucy, decides to take a look inside to see what is there, not realising the adventure she has set in motion for herself and her siblings…..



While shopping in Asda the other day, I was given a right blast from the past with the cover of this particular DVD. Out from the shelves, stared the White Witch – a woman who had scared the life out of me as a youngster! So, £11.99 later, I was back at home eager to re-live what I remembered as one of the most enjoyable childrens dramatisations I could remember.

The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe is a BBC dramatisation of the second book in the much loved series The Chronicles of Narnia and for me, was the reason I read the books in the first place so its for that reason I hold the program so high up in my memories of my childhood. The screenplay was written by Alan Seymour (based on the book written by the wonderful C.S Lewis) and his influence can easily be seen by looking at his later work on the House of Elliot as he works hard to capture the essence of the time in which it was based and very much succeeds in this.

The costumes design fits very nicely with the writing of Seymour with the children dressed in kids clothes of the time and with nice details such as the gas mask boxes they carry from leaving London up to the arrival at the manor house. In Narnia, the costumes are wonderfully overstated and very much convey the fantasy land as a place full of eccentric and pantomime like characters, giving the feeling of how Britain would actually have been like in the time of Kings, Queens and Knights of the round table! Looking at it now however, I do feel that the beaver costumes were a little over the top and unfortunately, they do seem to hinder the characters who play them however they do their best to get over the rather restrictive costumes they have to wear.

The acting in the piece is actually quite hard to characterise. As a child, I remember wanting nothing more than to have been one of the kids in the tale and at that point they all seemed quite old to me. Now, they are obviously very young really and while they do an admirable job there will always be the ‘overacting’ problem that happens in many films and TV shows that children have to be cast in. The adult characters however could not have been cast better in my opinion. Undoubtedly stealing the show was Barbara Kellerman’s portrayal of the White Witch. From reading the book the character was always meant to be played with over the top theatrics with the sheer evilness of the character at the very forefront of the dialogue. She manages to carry off the load booming shouts and cries while showing the manipulative and calculating tactics of her bribery of Edmund in fantastic style. Her interaction with the other characters around her is superb and she succeeded in making me feel a little scared of her even now! Michael Aldridge (Seymour in Last of the Summer Wine) is marvellous at showing us the eccentricity of the Professor and a great at showing us how to truly confuse a bunch of kids when they are trying to explain what in there mind, should be utter nonsense!

The special effects are to be fair, quite awful! As a child, I cannot remember this affecting my viewing pleasure however now, they really do stand out like a sore thumb against todays technical wizardry. A lot of the mystical creatures and animals are shown through animation placed on top of the live action shots and even at that, the animation isn’t actually that good. It’s not in the piece too much, but when it is, it did distract me slightly from what was actually going on. The Lion Aslan however, was actually not too bad. Obviously not a real lion, the puppetry was smooth and (kinda) realistic and the actual look was very close to what you would imagine a lion would look like that close.

The DVD itself is actually a bit of a disappointment on two counts. The first is that they really haven’t seemed to put much effort into the digital re-mastering as at various points throughout the DVD the colour is a bit off and is reminiscent of a old and worn video tape. At first I thought this may have just been my copy however a friend of mine has since commented that her copy was the same. There are also practically no extras at all on this which is a shame as I do remember watching some programs as a youngster about how they made the show, the lion etc. They do have a gallery but I have never really seen the point of these to be honest as if you want a picture, you can usually just go online and get one and these are stuck on the DVD so of no other use to you! Other than that though, the menus are straightforward enough and its only a few clicks until you are watching the show.

To conclude, even though watching as an adult there are some things that are not quite right about it (i.e the special effects) and the DVD quality is far from great, I still watched all six episodes in succession and was just as gripped to it as I was all those years ago. I do feel however that that has a lot to do with the fact that I have such a fond memory of it and youngsters now would now be quite as forgiving. Therefore, I would say that if you saw this when it was originally screened and loved it like I did, then it’s a must. Other than that, it is still enjoyable however you may just wonder about those special effects!

On rating, I have decided to give it 4 stars as it really could have been re-mastered better.

Summary: Still as griping and magical as I remember it.