As a British TV company prepares a TV series reuniting Enid Blyton's junior crimefighters the Famous Five as middle-aged adults in today's world, the Graun speculates on
what it might be like:
Little more is being said about the project, so it remains to be seen how the Five's crime-busting skills will transfer to a post-Jack Bauer world. Perhaps they won't have to hit the ground running and unravel a dirty bomb plot. "If only," thought Dick, "stern Uncle Quentin hadn't been so weirdly secretive about all his science work in the study at Kirrin Cottage ..."
Indeed, rather than the sense that the past is another country, where they do things differently, the reactions to the Famous Five announcement suggests a feeling that the present is another country, a strange land that must be negotiated in a state of permanent anxiety.
I wonder whether the new Famous Five concept will take a leaf out of the 24/Spooks playbook and have them save Britain (or at least its idyllic southwestern corner) from the apocalyptic machinations of terrorist cells, armed with the requisite high-tech gadgets. That may be a bit of a stretch, though (even though a Famous Five/24 mashup could be gloriously kitschy). Ruling out terrorists, who could be the villains? Child-abducting paedophiles may be a good choice, as it ties in the childhood-innocence theme inherent in reviving such a concept with a popular fear.
After all, these days, the one where Five Go To Smuggler's Top would result in a presumably fatal shooting by chaps whose contraband is grown in Afghanistan, with no comeback from our old friend PC Gone Mad, the porphyric local bobby, who ... No, that's not right. But handled well, the updated Famous Five promises to be the most challenging of TV delights.