Come Back, Lucy

1 9 7 8 (UK)
6 x 25 minute episodes

Lucy (Emma Bakhle) is a timid and old-fashioned girl brought up by her Aunt Olive (Aimée Delamain), who prefers the cosy nostalgia of years gone by to modern life.

When her Aunt Olive dies, Lucy is taken in by her kindly aunt (Phyllida Law) and uncle (Royce Mills) but cannot stand the modern reality of her three high-spirited cousins – Rachel (Oona Kirsch), Patrick (Russell Lewis) and Bill (François Evans) – finding them brash and uncouth.

Retreating into her own company, she is only too happy when she realises she can travel back in time to play with 12-year-old Alice (Bernadette Windsor, who was actually 19 years old), a Victorian girl living in a time of governesses and rocking horses in the playroom.

Alice becomes demanding of Lucy, however, and eventually turns malevolent when she conspires to trap Lucy with her in the Victorian era.

Lucy must genuinely believe that the 1970s is her rightful time and must fight with all her will to return to her cousins.

Alice would appear unbidden in mirrors and other reflective objects, and the visual style of the series was almost certainly a major influence on the adult fantasy series Sapphire and Steel – itself originally conceived as a children’s programme – which the producer of Come Back, Lucy (Shaun O’Riordan) would work on the following year.

Lucy
Emma Bakhle
Alice
Bernadette Windsor
Aunt Gwen
Phyllida Law
Uncle Peter
Royce Mills
Patrick
Russell Lewis
Rachel
Oona Kirsch
Bill
François Evans
Mademoiselle
Ève Karpf
Dr Brown
Blake Butler
Aunt Olive
Aimée Delamain
Mrs Clayton
Carol MacReady
Mrs Naylor
Joan Savage