The Bells Of Astercote
I somehow ended up with a VHS copy of this years ago, it wasn’t intentional just one of those things that got passed round amongst other old TV series being shared around, probably on the end of the thing I did actually ask someone to pass me a copy of to watch.
I discovered quite a few things I love this way! It’s not like you could exactly nip out and buy most things to watch so these small friends networks swapping tapes were pretty vital in shaping my tastes. Of course, I think you have to already be somewhat inclined towards them in the first place.
I enjoyed it, anyway. Ended up taking a copy of the copy (which was probably somewhere in the region of seven hundredth gen by my turn) and would pop it on when I fancied something to zonk out to on one of those exhausted afternoons I would later realise were because my body is crap, not because I did anything especially exhausting.
It’s for kid’s TV and crammed into less than an hour so it doesn’t have time to hit the chaotic levels of the novel it’s based on does but it’s still a damn fine effort, somewhere between folk horror, kid’s adventure, an examination of mass hysteria and a pondering on modernity. That it does the slight spooks, has a nice mystery going on and in the last fifteen minutes or so, crams in a village of folks losing their mind until they barricade the place off from the rest of the country and the production manages to keep it pretty calm so the kids don’t get too worried is a real testament to the work gone into it. It’s good stuff!
I think were it made now, there would likely be more of a focus on the latter half of the story and the chaos but this is 1980 kid’s TV so it spends a lot more time on the build up. The villager’s concerns over the modern can feel quite quaint in this hyper-technological hell time we’re living through but especially at a time where nostalgia and some folk’s dreams of a capital C conservative world is wielded as a weapon against so many, I don’t think the story itself has lost any of its potency or relevance, just the finer details feel more dated because, well, because they are.
Rewatching it for the first time in a fair while and I dunno, it feels like it’s gotten better as I’ve aged. I first fell in love with it for its vibes and I still love it for its vibes, no change there, but its thoughtfulness and distinct lack of cynicism does it credit. Or perhaps, it’s just the right TV for the right moment in 2025. Or all the above. It’s all good.