The 2023 incarnation keeps the initials and the dog, then strips away the post-war cosiness. Julian, Dick, George and Anne are now inter-war teenagers with bicycles, torches and a Bearded Collie called Kip who stumble across jewel thieves, vanished uncles and travelling circuses along the cliffs of Port Isaac and the galleries of Gloucester Cathedral. Each 90-minute film is a standalone caper shot by Ewan Mulligan in supersaturated 2:1 widescreen that looks closer to Refn’s “Neon Demon” than to 1990s Children’s BBC, yet the scripts by Matthew Read, Priya K. Dosanjh and Matthew Bouch still ration the violence and preserve the Famous Five formula of secret passages, smugglers’ caves and midnight boat trips.
The casting is the sharpest trick: Diaana Babnicova’s George is a cropped tomboy itching to escape her lighthouse laboratory while Jack Gleeson’s silk-scarred Thomas Wentworth swaggers through three episodes like a RADA-trained Dick Dastardly. James Lance and Ann Akinjirin provide the only recognisable adult authority as Quentin and Fanny, leaving the children to decode Morse, tail suspects on clifftop trains and rescue Timmy from booby-trapped dungeons. Guest villains arrive thick and fast, from Ed Speleers’s sadistic schoolmaster to Jason Flemyng’s top-hat conjuror, each granted just enough screen time to feel like a genuine threat rather than panto.
Production started in June 2023 across Cornwall, Somerset and Monmouthshire, with a second run filming by autumn 2024. The BBC released the opening film on 9 December 2023, followed by two more in spring and summer 2024; Hulu picked up the trilogy for the US in May.
Production Details
CBBC / 2 Seasons / 5 Episodes / 2023 - Present
Created by: Matthew Read, Nicolas Winding Refn
Showrunner(s): Matthew Read, Will Gould, Frith Tiplady
Writer(s): Matthew Read, Priya K. Dosanjh, Matthew Bouch
Producer(s): Sophie MacClancy
Cinematography: Ewan Mulligan
Main Cast
Diaana Babnicova as George
Elliott Rose as Julian
Kit Rakusen as Dick
Flora Jacoby Richardson as Anne
James Lance as Uncle Quentin
Ann Akinjirin as Aunt Fanny
Jack Gleeson as Thomas Wentworth
Diana Quick as Mrs Wentworth
William Abadie as Mister Boswell
Phillip Roy as Butler
Nora Arnezeder as Sabrina Grover
Julia-Maria Arnolds as Frau Winter
