On the farm with Worzel Gummidge

Written by: Jake Godfrey
Published: Sunday 8th January 2023

It's rare enough for an actor to play one iconic character during their career. Jon Pertwee was lucky enough to play two. Coming hot off the success of playing the Third Doctor in Doctor Who, he enjoyed a second bout of cult fame when he played the eponymous country bumpkin scarecrow in Worzel Gummidge from 1979.

Pertwee had hitherto been best known as a comic actor, notably appearing in the long-running radio sitcom The Navy Lark, a role close to his heart, having served in the Royal Navy for six years. (His time in the forces even saw him serve in the Naval Intelligence Division alongside future James Bond scribe Ian Fleming.) Ronnie Barker was amongst his co-stars in the early series, and after Barker left Pertwee took on a more substantial role, voicing many additional characters.

The Navy Lark. Image shows left to right: CPO Pertwee (Jon Pertwee), Sub-Lieutenant Phillips (Leslie Phillips), Lt Cdr Murray (Number One) (Stephen Murray). Credit: BBC

Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall were also well-established, as writers. The former had written the acclaimed novel Billy Liar in 1959, which the duo later adapted into an immensely successful stage play, film, musical and, later, a television sitcom, all of the same name. Their film work, which included A Kind Of Loving and Whistle Down The Wind, was of such high quality that Alfred Hitchcock hired them to polish the screenplay of Torn Curtain in 1966, whilst their comedy credits included The Dick Emery Show and The Frost Report.

Worzel Gummidge had been created in 1936 by author Barbara Euphan Todd, who wrote ten books about the character, the final published in 1963. It was first adapted for radio in collaboration with actress and writer Mabel Constanduros: Barry Took once said of Constanduros that "although today her reputation has faded, she was a popular cultural figure between the wars, helping to establish the style and flavour of British radio comedy". The two later collaborated again to adapt the series for television in 1953's Worzel Gummidge Turns Detective (now long lost), with Todd writing the scripts. Frank Atkinson took on the title role.

According to Pertwee's memoir, his version of Worzel Gummidge was originally pitched as a feature film, which would have told the story of "the scarecrow equivalent of the Peasant's Revolt". Willis and Hall adapted the role of Worzel specifically for and around him, inspired by a postman character he played more than thirty years earlier in 1948's BBC radio comedy Waterlogged Spa, due to the actor's performance imbuing the character with a strong Devonshire accent.

Eager to take on the role, Pertwee encouraged Waterhouse and Hall to rewrite the script as a television series. They pitched the series to Head of Drama at the BBC, Shaun Sutton, and to Philip Jones at Thames Television, without success. All hope appeared to be lost, until Lewis Rudd at ITV regional broadcaster for the south east of England, Southern Television, heard about the show and enthusiastically commissioned it.

Sadly, Todd never lived to see the most popular iteration of her scarecrow reach the screen, passing away in 1976, just as final negotiations were getting underway.

The core premise for the series is that Worzel is a scarecrow who can come to life, more often than not running amok, absent from his post in Ten Acre Field. The first episode sees him visit the nearby Scatterbrook farmhouse, where he befriends children John and Sue Peters, played by Jeremy Austin and Charlotte Coleman, who have just moved to the area with their father.

Worzel Gummidge. Image shows from L to R: Worzel Gummidge (Jon Pertwee), Sue (Charlotte Coleman), John (Jeremy Austin). Copyright: Southern Television

Each episode typically finds Worzel getting himself into a variety of scrapes and shenanigans, with John and Sue forced to extricate him. He regularly visits life-size fairground doll Aunt Sally, with whom he is madly in love. Unfortunately, she has an intensely devious, selfish and cruel streak: she cannot stand Worzel but he cannot see this past his adoration; a dynamic she exploits in order to deceive and manipulate him to her own ends at every possible turn. Despite her often horrid nature and the foul things she said to Worzel, Aunt Sally became one of the most popular characters in the series.

Aunt Sally was a role originally offered to actress and Carry On star Amanda Barrie, who turned it down. Pertwee asked Una Stubbs to take on the role: they had worked together in a 1975 production of Aladdin at the Richmond Theatre, and it was her dance and performance skills on that stage that caught his imagination. Like Pertwee, she was already a household name, having starred as Rita Rawlins in the hugely popular sitcom Till Death Us Do Part (and its various sequels) since 1965.

(Coincidentally, that stage production had also featured Barbara Windsor, who would make a guest appearance in the series as ship's figurehead and potential rival for Worzel's affections, Saucy Nancy.)

Worzel Gummidge. Image shows left to right: Aunt Sally (Una Stubbs), Worzel Gummidge (Jon Pertwee), Saucy Nancy (Barbara Windsor)

It's immediately apparent when watching Worzel Gummidge that Jon Pertwee is having an absolute ball: his character's childish sense of play, lack of responsibility and propensity to mock authority figures quickly endeared him to the series' young audience (it was broadcast around 5pm). After so many years starring as the eponymous hero in Doctor Who - a stoic authority figure - Worzel allowed Pertwee to unleash the skills and considerable comic talents he picked up working as a circus performer after leaving school. An ingenious invention of Waterhouse and Hall's, Worzel has interchangeable heads to suit different personalities and tasks, including those fashioned from mangelwurzels, swedes and turnips, as well as a festive variety for the Christmas special, all allowing him to play in an even wider variety of comic styles.

One of the greatest joys of the series is in seeing how much fun Pertwee and Stubbs are having with the parts they play, and with each other, developing into a kind of double act. There is wonderful chemistry between the two as Aunt Sally mercilessly teases Worzel, while he always naively believes that, this time, she might actually follow through with her promises.

Worzel Gummidge. Image shows left to right: Worzel Gummidge (Jon Pertwee), Crowman (Geoffrey Bayldon). Credit: Southern Television

The other key character was the Crowman, played by Geoffrey Bayldon. The Crowman created Worzel (and many other scarecrows besides), and as such is often used as a device to explain various plot contrivances as well as provide Worzel with a new head whenever one is needed. Bayldon was also already well known, especially to younger viewers, as the star of Catweazle from 1970 to 1971.

One notable aspect of the series is the titular character's propensity to speak in Worzelese, a fictitious language used by scarecrows to communicate with each other. It entails spelling words letter-by-letter, but adding 'wor' after each, and adding either 'zel' or 'dip' to the end of each word, depending on whether it is over three characters long or not. Worzel's first name, for instance, would be spoken in Worzelese as "W-wor-O-wor-R-wor-Z-wor-E-wor-L-wor-zel". This was also the centrepiece of Worzel's Song, a track based on the jaunty theme tune composed by George Evans, in which Pertwee, as Worzel, explains the language. It reached number 33 in the UK charts upon its release in 1980.

Regular characters included Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt actor Bill Maynard as Sgt Beetroot, Carry On stalwart Joan Sims as Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton, Mike Berry as Mr Peters (John and Sue's father), Megs Jenkins as Mrs Braithwaite and Norman Bird - perhaps best known as henpecked husband Mr Arrad in the Waldorf Salad episode of Fawlty Towers - as Mr Braithwaite.

Worzel Gummidge. Image shows left to right: John (Jeremy Austin), Sue (Charlotte Coleman), Worzel Gummidge (Jon Pertwee), Crowman (Geoffrey Bayldon), Aunt Sally (Una Stubbs)

Other comic actors who popped up during the series include John Le Mesurier, Mike Reid, Jimmy Jewel, Beryl Reid, Lorraine Chase, David Lodge and Gordon Rollings. In Series 4, the late Bernard Cribbins played Jolly Jack and Connie Booth played Aunt Sally 2. Booth and Stubbs were close friends, with Stubbs appearing in the Fawlty Towers episode The Anniversary.

A lot of the credit for the show's success must go to director James Hill. At the time of the series' conception, Hill was working with Pertwee's Doctor Who successor, Tom Baker, to get a feature film, Doctor Who Meets Scratchman (a story that, coincidentally, also featured scarecrows), off the ground. He and Pertwee got on famously and became lifelong friends. His stoic demeanour and strong work ethic guided the crew through an often gruelling production schedule, but he also established the aesthetic look of the series, with Worzel's grimy, believably earthy appearance contrasting with the bucolic beauty surrounding him.

The show's popularity was such that for Christmas 1980, Waterhouse and Hall penned a stage musical, which premiered at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre before transferring to the Cambridge Theatre in London the following year. Pertwee, Stubbs and Bayldon all reprised their roles, with music by television composer Denis King, who is perhaps best known for performing in the BBC radio, later television, show Hello, Cheeky! (alongside Barry Cryer, John Junkin and Tim Brooke-Taylor). This resulted in the release of a full cast album, which remains in circulation to this day.

Worzel also became a popular target for impressionists, with Ronnie Barker playing the character in Episode 3 of Series 10 of The Two Ronnies, while Bobby Davro did an impression in Episode 4 of Davro's Sketch Pad in 1989.

Worzel Gummidge. Image shows from L to R: Worzel Gummidge (Jon Pertwee), Aunt Sally (Una Stubbs). Copyright: Southern Television

30 episodes were made between 1979 and 1981 over four series. A sequel series set in Ireland entered pre-production shortly thereafter. Sets were constructed and contracts signed, but just a few days before filming was due to begin, the plug was pulled and the finance lost. After a hiatus, a sequel series finally entered production in 1987.

Worzel Gummidge Down Under, as the title suggests, relocated the action to New Zealand, though retained the leading duo of Pertwee and Stubbs. Bayldon, however, declined to participate, so Bruce Phillips replaced him as the local Crowman. Perhaps the most notable thing about this series is that it gave Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson one of his earliest screen credits, working in the special effects department, and is where he met his wife, Frances Walsh, who wrote its second series.

It was Pertwee's last starring role, and though he would continue working in television and straight-to-video Doctor Who spin-off films during the 1990s (as well as developing further ideas for Worzel projects), his career from this point consisted mainly of personal appearances at conventions, after dinner speaking and pantomime work, until his sudden death in 1996. What is clear to see is that Pertwee adored playing Worzel, and he frequently appeared at events in character, revelling in the joy he brought to huge crowds of children: according to his son, fellow actor Sean Pertwee (who also makes uncredited guest appearances in the series), it was his favourite role of his entire career.

Till Death Us Do Part. Rita Rawlins (Una Stubbs). Copyright: BBC

Stubbs reprised her role as Rita in Till Death Us Do Part sequel series In Sickness & In Health from 1985 and appeared in various shows, regaining popularity in her later years as landlady Mrs Hudson in Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's Sherlock, from 2010.

Hall and Waterhouse, meanwhile, continued their careers as hugely successful writers, the latter penning Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, a play that served as a magnificent showcase for Peter O'Toole.

Although the series has been released on home media before, the original film elements were lost for almost 40 years, with only poor quality video copies existing as the "master" material. Following the discovery of the original negatives in storage in Slough in 2018, a new box set is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Fabulous Films. Not only does it include fully remastered and restored versions of all four series of Worzel Gummidge, it is also stuffed full of fascinating bonus features, including brand new audio commentaries, featurettes, out-takes, behind the scenes clips, rare interviews with Pertwee, Stubbs and Bayldon and other archive rarities, including a delightful news item covering the time Stubbs, as Aunt Sally, went to a Downing Street Christmas party for disabled children.

Worzel Gummidge holds a special place in the heart of many a child who grew up during the eighties, and the character is now delighting modern generations thanks to Mackenzie Crook's popular, star-studded 2019 reworking of the original novels - for which he writes the scripts, directs and plays the titular character. Crook replicates not only the characters of Todd's books, but the charm of the more well-known adaptation, with a gentle environmentalist twist. Worzel Gummidge now, as then, trusts its young audience to be drawn into the world of the characters.

With the new box set available, why not relax with a nice cup o' tea an' a slice o' cake and get lost in Worzel's world of whimsy?

Where to start?

Worzel Gummidge. Worzel Gummidge (Jon Pertwee). Copyright: Southern Television

Christmas Special - A Cup O' Tea An' A Slice O' Cake

The double-length Christmas special from 1980 is set on Christmas Eve, a most important day for scarecrows as they must stand in position to guide Father Christmas back to the North Pole. Worzel, however, deserts his post to enjoy the delights of the season.

With a sizeable increase in budget, this episode is peppered with elaborate musical numbers, as Saucy Nancy teaches Worzel about pantomime and the Crowman hosts the Scarecrow Ball. The special is also notable for featuring Billy Connolly as Christmas-hating scarecrow Bogle McNeep, as well as Pertwee sharing a scene with his cousin, Dad's Army legend Bill Pertwee.

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Worzel Gummidge - The Complete Restored Edition

Jon Pertwee stars as Worzel Gummidge, the loveable scarecrow of Scatterbrook Farm. When children John and Sue move to the countryside, they learn that life is never dull with Worzel around. The restless scarecrow dreams of a life away from his post in Ten Acre Field and often wanders off into mischief. Whether getting his heart broken by the creaking fairground doll Aunt Sally (Una Stubbs) or disobeying his maker, the eccentric old Crowman (Geoffrey Bayldon), Worzel is lucky to have his young friends on hand to help rescue him from trouble.

Based on the stories of Barbara Euphan Todd, Worzel Gummidge was produced by Southern Television and ran for four series between 1979 and 1981, enchanting audiences of all ages. For the first time, the entire series has now been fully restored from the original negatives and is packed full of incredible bonus material, both old and new.

First released: Monday 26th December 2022