I like the Just William stories, the best adaption I saw was in the late 70s series from LWT, which went out at Sunday tea-time with Bonnie Langford as Violet Elizabeth Bott and Diana Dors as her mum - perfect!
This however, I struggled to watch this - dunno why, and noticed a coincidence on the IMDb inasmuch as both the boys playing William all those years apart did virtually nothing after it and seem to have disappeared into obscurity.
There were faces to recognise - Joan Hickson on screen for all of about 10 seconds as the village gossip, AE Mathews (you have to be very old like me to know who he was) in a totally pointless part as a tramp, Stanley Baker as an uncredited fur thief in only his second film - didn't recognise him at all, Michael Medwin (died this year aged 96 I notice!) and Michael Balfour as co - thieves, and one of William's gang was played by Brian Roper who played Bob Cherry in the superb 1950s BBC TV series of Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School.
Perhaps he liked to slum it sometimes.
That's never going to happen - thick , you see.
Oooh, so bold.