The Tripods boys on Blue Peter

Transcript from the interview with John Shackley, Jim Baker and Ceri Seel, transmitted on 17 September 1984:

Simon Groom- And here are Will, otherwise known as John Shackley, Henry, alias Jim Baker, and Beanpole, who in real life is Ceri Seel. Welcome to the programme.

all three boys - thank you.

Michael Sundin - And if Ceri looks familiar. You might have seen him as William Bagthorpe in the Bagthorpe Saga. Welcome to Blue Peter. Congratulations on getting leading parts. It's such an exciting series.

Simon Groom - Yeah, very well done. Did you know one another before the series, before Tripods?

JB - No, we met at the auditions, it took six months to films so, er, we, know each other pretty well now.

boys - Yeah, yeah.

JS - now and again, you know, don't we Ceri - oh sorry, Jim

Michael Sundin - just as well you got on having to hang around waiting with all those special effects.

JB - yeah that was quite tricky sometimes

JS - yeah, it was

Simon Groom - has any of you ever read the book that the TV series was adapted from?

CS - Well, I - a weird thing was, I read it about seven years ago, in the first year of my school. And as soon as I found out I had the audition I went straight to the library to get the book out and there is this illiterate little signature of mine from the first year when I was really young, yeah.

Simon Groom - and you went back in the sixth form -

CS - and it was the same book, yeah, the very same book.

Simon Groom - how a - that's an extraordinary coincidence!

JS - It is!

CS - And even then I thought 'I fancy this Beanpole guy' so

[laughs]

CS - this is an omen!

Simon Groom - you've certainly got that height for it, I think you're even taller than I am, how tall are you?

CS - six foot three

Simon Groom - perfect for the part!

CS - but I slouch

[laughs]

Simon Groom - Now Jim, what was it like acting with the Tripods?

JB - er, with these things?

Simon Groom - yes

JB - It was quite difficult, they had to be moved around, and we had to wait for them to be moved around, so it wasn't just us sort of pretending to look at the Tripods, on most of the occasions they were there. So we had to wait for them.

Michael Sundin - It must have been hard trying to produce a good performance while you're being hoisted through the treetops by a Tripod's claw.

JB - John would know about that.

JS - Yeah well, I actually did go up on a tripod's claw, on it, basically you just need to be very fit, to be able to do it, because you have to wear harness and things. And you need a lot of agility as well, just to manouevre yourself around.

Michael Sundin - that's good. I noticed, Ceri, you're wearing glasses. And in the first series we know there's no mechanical gadgets. So how did you get by with having glasses on?

CS - Well the thing is, Beanpole -

Simon Groom - Get out of that!

CS - Beanpole is a mega genius you see.

Simon Groom - Ah.

CS - So I got out of it.

Simon Groom - Ahhhh...

JS - Joe Ninety!

JB - haha!

CS - He invents his own glasses you see, out of old different bits of bottle tops and things like that. I don't know actually how he does it.

JB - Sticky back plastic.

CS - Sticky back plastic, yeah.

Michael Sundin - Could you see out of them?

CS - And erm but later on, because I couldn't see through them, you're right, I got a - they got another proper pair - we wrote it into the script that I found a pair, so I could see.

Michael Sundin - that's very handy.

CS - yeah, it was good

Simon Groom - very handy.

Michael Sundin - Apart from, erm, fighting with the Tripods, did you do any hand to hand fighting?

JS - oh yeah, there was, there was one scene later on in the episodes where me and Henry have a fight! And we arranged it with the stunt arranger and erm, and it was very funny cause the stunt arranger took me to one side and said 'ok, we're going to go for a take now, and when we do it, I want you to really' - cos we, cos we were boys, we had to do like boy's fighting, slap on the face and things. 'I want you to really slap Jim on the face, really - really -'

Simon Groom  - for real.

JS - yeah, throw it, and that'll make him go, and you can bounce off him you know, so I thought yeah great! Then he took Jim to one side and he said 'ok, when you fake the slap, I want you to really punch him in the gut, get it... so I go yeah, ok, action! and I go 'shut up, Henry' [raises hand] bang! And he goes pumf! and we sort of like, started fighting ... and biff and all those

Simon Groom - so true

CS - it looked real...

JS - It was real, what do you mean! It was real!

Simon Groom - you didn't get too carried away and black one another's eyes then?

CS - I was there to stop that...

JB - nah...

JS - bit too mad...

CS - macho man here.

JB - I felt the adrenalin pumping round my body really quickly after that...

JS - yeah

JB - because of that. It was real.

Simon Groom - so the stuntman was absolutely right.

JS - oh yeah well, after we did it we were like that, you know.

Michael Sundin - it's a good way of working isn't it?

Boys - yes, yeah

Michael Sundin - at least you get live action.

JS - yeah it's more -

CS - it was so he enjoyed it - oh, you told him to hit me!

JS - you so-and-so!

Simon Groom - it's fascinating to hear all the tricks that went on behind the scenes, and thank you very much for taking time off your very busy rehearsal schedule.

Boys - yes

CS - that's alright.

Simon Groom - and for coming along to talk to us, and we wish you the very best of luck with series two.

JB - thanks

JS- yeah, ta

And we'll end with a final glimpse of the Tripods in action. One of the most terrifying things about them is that they loom up when they're least expected, which Will discovers when he takes a moonlight ride on horseback...

 

IB - John Shackley had his hair short as it was around the time they were rehearsing for series 2. It isn't included on the DVD boxset but it is available on Youtube. Shall we take a peak at it?

 

JL - Yes, lets!

 

JL - God this is awkward. The three lads really don't like each other that much do they? John Shackley is obsessed with his boot. And what's going on with Michael Sundin on the left. His voice is weird, he sounds stoned. And he tries desperately to keep the cat on its cushion at the beginning but the cat is having none of it. I don't blame it.

 

IB - The questions are banal. The segment only lasts two minutes, so we don't see much of what the actors were like in real life. As in the screenplay though, it's Beanpole actor Ceri Seel who comes off as the most warm and charming, it must have filtered into his performance.

 

JL - Jim Baker looks very self-satisfied. I bet he and that Simon Groom snorted all the good stuff in the Television Centre toilets and that's why Will is so pissed off. Can we get back to the actual story now?

 

It’s interesting that Michael Sundin, the blond presenter who interviewed the boys alongside long-serving stalwart Simon Groom, was sacked from Blue Peter because of his inability to engage the audience (however there was quite a lot of evidence at the time it was actually because of his sexuality, which was always denied by the BBC). Sadly Michael died aged just 28 from an AIDS-related illness.