person or book cover
Host Nancy Cato and Fredd Bear (screen cap from closing credits)
form y separately published work icon The Magic Circle Club series - publisher   film/TV   children's   fantasy  
Issue Details: First known date: 1965-1967... 1965-1967 The Magic Circle Club
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Godfrey Philipps's first major television production for children, The Magic Circle Club was strongly inspired by pantomime, including not only a mixture of dialogue and song-and-dance routines but also the casting of male actors as elderly female characters, in the tradition of pantomime dames. The program also drew heavily from fairytales, featuring a number talking animals, stereotypical villains, and magical characters.

Initially, the program's storylines ran over a five-episode story arc, beginning in Monday's episode and concluding in Friday's. Later in the program's run, the story arcs were truncated to four episodes, with Friday's episode dedicated to a standalone set in a toy store stocked with anthropomorphised dolls.

The program was axed by ATV-0 in 1967 because of the high cost of production. Though the ABC immediately offered to undertake production, Reg Ansett (then owner of ATV-0) refused to relinquish ownership of the intellectual property, and the aBC instead produced similar but distinct (and equally successful) Adventure Island.

In December 1965, a specially written episode of The Magic Circle Club, 'The Stolen Smile', was performed on stage at the Tivoli Theatre, Melbourne, stage-managed by Sue Nattras, Simon Wincer, and Jim McElroy.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Channel 0 , 1965-1967 .
      person or book cover
      Screen cap from opening credits
      Extent: 550x30min. episodesp.
      Description: Produced on kinescope; black-and-white.
Last amended 8 May 2014 07:36:14
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