The Famous Five (characters)

This article is about Enid Blyton's characters; for other meanings, see The Famous Five.

The Famous Five are a group of child detectives (actually four children and a dog) created by Enid Blyton. Blyton wrote several such detective series, but the Famous Five are the best-known and most popular of these. All the books have been adapted for television at some stage, and they also inspired the Comic Strip parody, Five Go Mad in Dorset and its sequel "Five Go Mad On Mescalin", in which the characters express sympathies with Nazi Germany and opposition to the Welfare State, immigrants and Jews, in an extremely broad parody not so much of Blyton but of wider 1950s prejudices.

The first books in the series were written during the 1940s, and some of the basic concepts now seem extremely dated. Three of the children, Julian, Dick and Anne, are siblings. During their holidays, they are regularly sent to stay with their Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin, whose daughter, Georgina, is a tomboy always known as "George". Every time they come together, they find themselves obliged to solve a serious crime, the location of which tends to vary slightly. Sometimes it will happen close to George's home, and "Kirrin Island", a private island belonging to her parents, presents many opportunities for such activities. On other occasions, the children may go camping or hiking or be sent on holiday together elsewhere, but they are always accompanied by George's dog, Timmy. At the time, Blyton always said that George was based on a real girl she had once known; in her later life, she admitted that that girl was herself.

Enid Blyton wrote 21 Famous Five books; in chronological order they are:

• Five on a Treasure Island (1942)
• Five Go Adventuring Again (1943)
• Five Run Away Together (1944)
• Five Go To Smuggler's Top (1945)
• Five Go Off In A Caravan (1946)
• Five on Kirrin Island Again (1947)
• Five Go off to Camp (1948)
• Five Fall into Adventure (1949)
• Five Get Into Trouble (1950)
• Five On A Hike Together (1951)
• Five Have A Wonderful Time (1952)
• Five Go Down to the Sea (1953)
• Five Go to Mystery Moor (1954)
• Five Have Plenty of Fun (1955)
• Five on a Secret Trail (1956)
• Five Go to Billycock Hill (1957)
• Five Get into a Fix (1958)
• Five on Finniston Farm (1960)
• Five Go to Demon's Rocks (1961)
• Five Have a Mystery to Solve (1962)
• Five Are Together Again (1963)

Blyton also wrote a number of short stories featuring the characters, and there are many further books about the Five originally written in French (the Five have long been extremely popular in translation in the French-speaking parts of Europe) but then translated into English. These are generally regarded as inferior by Blyton aficionados and, at least in the English-speaking world, have never equalled the popularity of the original books. The title of one of these books - "The Famous Five in Fancy Dress" - has been a particular object of ridicule for some.

The books are set in a backdrop of rural England with old-world values teaching innocence, an element often missing from current children's books which are read in formative years.

The stories always take place in the children's holidays when they come home from their schools. Kirrin Cottage, which is George's home, and all the other places they visit are set in the countryside where the children discover the simple joys of cottages, picnics ("with lashings of ginger beer"), bicycle trips, home-made food, islands, seashores, and always have a thrilling adventure. The characters are chiselled with a very few words, there are no swirling descriptions of the scenes, but that is what fuels a child's imagination and make the reader think for himself.

Television series

The Famous Five 1978 television series had 26 episodes of thirty minutes. They starred Michelle Gallagher as Georgina/George, Marcus Harris as Julian, Jenny Thanish as Anne, Gary Russell as Dick, Toddy as Timmy, Michael Hinz as Uncle Quentin, Sue Best as Aunt Fanny, Ronald Frazer, John Carson, James Villiers, Cyril Luckham and Brian Glover. Screenplays by Gloria Tors, Gail Renard, Richard Carpenter and Richard Sparks. Direction by Peter Duffeil, Don Leaver, James Gatward and Mike Connor. Produced by Don Leaver.

Intro song lyrics:

   Wherever there's adventure to be found
   Just a clue or a secret message bring the Famous Five around
   Whenever there's a mystery to be solved
   up in the ruined castle or down in smugglers' hold
   (Chorus:) We are the Famous Five
   Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog
   We are the Famous Five
   Coming back to you, time after time, after time

Ending song lyrics:

   Whatever awaits behind closed doors
   Strange noises in the cellar or the sound of creaky floors
   We never let a mystery pass us by
   Just leave a clue and leave the rest to the Famous Five
   (Chorus:) We are the Famous Five
   Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog
   We are the Famous Five
   We're coming back to you whenever there's time
   Coming back to you, time after time, after time

The 1978 series was set in what was then the present day, and was produced by Southern Television for the ITV network in the UK. A succession of video releases of this series appeared with a reasonable regularity between 1983 and 1999, many of which are still easy to find second-hand, although the sound and picture quality is not always what it could be. All the books apart from "Five On A Treasure Island", "Five Have A Mystery To Solve" and "Five Have Plenty Of Fun" were dramatised; the first two were excluded because the Children's Film Foundation still had the film and TV rights to the books (see below), and the third because it could not fit in the production schedule, and plans to make a third series which would have included this story plus new ones written purely for television were abandoned after the Blyton estate exercised its veto.

A later TV series was produced around 1996, a co-production between a number of companies including HTV, Zenith North and the German channel ZDF; this was also shown on ITV in the UK. Unlike the previous series, this was a period piece, set in 1953, and also unlike the previous series it dramatised all the original books. Of the juvenile actors the best-known is probably Jemima Rooper, who played George. It was released in its entirety on video; only the adaption of "Five On A Treasure Island" seems to have been released on DVD in the UK, but there are apparently some rare mainland European DVD releases of the series, available via certain websites in the UK (these are, of course, Region 2 DVDs).

There were also two Children's Film Foundation films of the Famous Five books - "Five On A Treasure Island", made in 1957, and "Five Have A Mystery To Solve", produced in 1963 - plus other film adaptions of the books made in countries such as Denmark.

In 2005 Chorion announced the production of a new animated series based on the books, to be broadcast on British Television in 2007.de:Fünf Freunde fr:Le Club des Cinq nl:De Vijf sv:Fem-böckerna