Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School (TV series) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School
Opening title
Starring	Gerald Campion Anthony Valentine Michael Crawford John Woodnutt Jeremy Bulloch Melvyn Hayes Kenneth Cope Roger Delgado
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	7
No. of episodes	52
Production
Producer(s)	Joy Harington Shaun Sutton Pharic Maclaren David Goddard Clive Parkhurst
Production location(s)	Esher Station, Esher, Surrey, United Kingdom
Running time	30 minutes
Release
Original network	BBC Television
Original release	19 February 1952 (1952-02-19) – 22 July 1961 (1961-07-22)

Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School is a BBC Television show broadcast from 1952 to 1961. It was based on the Greyfriars School stories, written by author Charles Hamilton under the pen name Frank Richards. Hamilton wrote all of the scripts for the television show.

Bunter was portrayed by actor Gerald Campion, who was aged 29 when he was cast in the role in 1952, hence was playing a schoolboy only half his age. A number of genuine child actors were featured in the other schoolboy roles in the show, some of whom would gain notice in their subsequent adult careers, including Anthony Valentine, Michael Crawford, Jeremy Bulloch, Melvyn Hayes and Kenneth Cope.

Archive

Almost all episodes have been lost. Nine episodes exist today as telerecordings. The survivors are the complete third series (six episodes), and three isolated subsequent episodes, one from each of the final three seasons, preserved under the BBC library's policy at the time of retaining one programme from a season as an example. (See Wiping.) Some audio-only recordings also exist, in private hands.

The edition s07e03 (aired 3 June 1961), entitled Double Bunter, survives because a 16mm film print of the episode was presented by the BBC to Gerald Campion upon the series ending, as it was an episode he particularly liked (because the script called on him to play two characters, not merely Bunter), so that many years later his family were able to loan it to BBC Archives – an organisation which didn't exist in 1961.

A common source of confusion is that early episodes for which no recording existed were remade by later producers, using different casts, probably due to difficulties in obtaining new scripts from the ailing Charles Hamilton. In the last two years of Hamilton's life, the show's final producer, Clive Parkhurst, embarked on a policy of remaking the earliest scripts on a wholesale basis, and ultimately abandoned the school setting entirely: in the very last episodes, at the suggestion of Campion, filming new scripts from other writers that sent Bunter off on a Mediterranean holiday cruise (initially as a stowaway) to Egypt, Italy and France.

Campion and a BBC film crew travelled to Malta to film location footage around the Mediterranean, for a sequence of episodes in which Lord Mauleverer lends his yacht, and takes a party of schoolboys (including Bunter), under the supervision of Mr Quelch, touring various holiday attractions.

Principal characters and cast

Episodes

Series 1 (1952)

1953 & 1954 Specials

Series 2 (1955)

Series 3 (1956)

1957 Special

Series 4 (1957)

Series 5 (1959)

Series 6 (1960)

Series 7 (1961)