TIMESLIP
TIME TEENS
TWO TEENAGERS FROM 1970 TRAVELLED INTO THEIR OWN TIMELINES AND PROJECTIONS OF ALTERNATE FUTURES IN GROUNDBREAKING KIDS’ TV SERIES TIMESLIP, NOW CELEBRATING ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY. SFX SPOKE TO ITS TWO STARS
WORDS: ALISTAIR MCGOWN
Only in the ’70s could a 15-year-old boy look 45.
I TV’S TIME-TRAVELLING KIDS’ drama Timeslip may have originally been on-screen for a mere 26 weeks, but its 50th anniversary this winter is being celebrated by generations of fans, many of them born long after it first aired.
One reason for the fondness with which it’s remembered is the innovative way its four linked serial storylines formed an interwoven arc, long before such things were sci-fi TV standard issue.
“It did enjoy a somewhat unique position, given that it was a complete 26-week story arc from start to finish,” Spencer Banks, who played speccy swot Simon Randall, tells SFX. “I struggle to remember a children’s serial developed along similar lines in those days. The norm would be to change storyline every four to six weeks, like Doctor Who.”
John Cooper, a children’s producer at ITV franchise ATV, had asked New Zealand writer Bruce Stewart for a realistic kids’ sci-fi serial, but when his first idea The Phase Children was deemed lacking it was taken further by script department assistant Ruth Boswell and her partner James Boswell. Inspired by JW Dunne’s 1927 book on precognition, An Experiment With Time, they produced revised concept Kronos, which Stewart then developed as a six-part serial in conjunction with Ruth as script editor.
By the time 15-year-old Banks tested for Simon in February 1970, the serial had already doubled in length. “When I first auditioned they’d indicated it was going to be 12 episodes, and it was in-between meeting John Cooper and eventually being told the fantastic news I’d won the part that ATV came back and said, ‘There are serious moves afoot to double it to 26, would you be available?’