Series / Bad Boyes

Bad Boyes was a British children's television comedy series which aired on CBBC in the UK in 1987 and 1988, repeated in 1989 and 1990. It starred Steven Kember as Bryan Arthur Derek Boyes (hence 'BAD Boyes'), a 14-year-old Young Entrepreneur, Loveable Rogue and self-styled Best Dodger in the Universe. Bryan was never far from a Zany Scheme designed to make a fast buck, yet always created ever-increasing chains of trouble for himself, often involving innocent bystanders, crooks, bullies and his own particular nemesis, school bully Edward Slogg, better known as The Slug. Bryan was aided in his endeavours by his best friend and fellow dodger Bernetta Vincent (Nicola Greenhill) and abetted by his largely-oblivious parents and stern but hapless form teacher, Mr Wiggis.

Father-and-son writers Jim and Duncan Eldridge first created the character of Bryan as simply 'X' in three children's books published by Arrow Books in the 1980s: How to Handle Grown-Ups, What Grown-Ups Say and What They Really Mean and More Ways to Handle Grown-Ups. Each of these mock self-help manuals for the young climaxed with extracts from The Diary of X, advice written in the first person by a young teenage trickster and dodger. The BBC felt there was comic potential in the character, and X was given a television series, and a name. Bryan's parents and schoolfriend Weed (Weedon) also first appeared in these books, with the other characters being added for the television series.

Two series were made, of six and ten episodes respectively, but following complaints from parents to Points of View about Bryan's unpunished bad behaviour and the naughtiness of some of the humour (allegedly leading to the involvement of the BBC Director-General), plans for a Christmas special and third series were abandoned. Bad Boyes has never been seen since 1990, nor released on video or DVD.

The Eldridges novelised both series - series 1 as Bad Boyes and series 2 as Bad Boyes and the Gangsters and these were also published by Arrow Books. Jim Eldridge later worked again with producer/director Jeremy Swan and composer Jonathan Cohen on Uncle Jack (CBBC, 1990-1993).

Bad Boyes provides examples of:

• The '80s: Bad Boyes has aged surprisingly well, but phone boxes, cassette recorders and references to BMX bikes, Eamonn Andrews and Bob Geldof's fundraising work all date this. So does Bryan's school, Glenwood High, with its blackboard, desks with lids and complete lack of security (people pursuing Bryan are able just to walk straight in, and even impersonate teachers or pupils).
• A Dog Ate My Homework: Bryan comes up with spectacular excuses for not doing homework, on one occasion telling Mr Wiggis the family cat was sick on his homework. He is equally imaginative around lateness, once claiming the school bus driver collapsed at the wheel and he had to perform first aid until the ambulance arrived.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Mrs Boyes's friend Rose Moncrieff becomes this to Bryan's Headmaster Mr Blake, in series 2.
• Adults Are Useless: Almost every adult in this is utterly clueless and easy prey to Bryan's scheming. His Dad, teacher and Headmaster are completely oblivious to his activities. Only his Mum and Gran are occasionally wise to him, though even they don't know exactly what he's up to.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Averted (ironically considering the title!) - Bernetta is a loyal friend to Bryan, but nothing more, and denies that he is her boyfriend. No other girls show any interest in Bryan at all, though perhaps it's a little early.
• Angry Collar Grab: The Slug does this to Bryan on at least three occasions, actually lifting him off the ground.
• Animal Lover: Bryan poses as one when asked to look after the Worples' cats while they are away, taking the opportunity to earn money by turning their house into an animal sanctuary. Subverted, as by the time the Worples return most of the animals have either eaten each other or are missing.
• Artistic License – Law: In a one-off episode, Bryan's obnoxious cousin Angelina and her equally scheming fiancé Tarquin both wrongly believe the other one is rich, and plan to marry, then divorce, planning to sue each other for damages on grounds that sound like Breach of Promise of Marriage. This would not take place after a marriage, and breach of promise actions were abolished in England in 1970 anyway, eighteen years before this episode was made.
• Bank Robbery: When Bryan and his family find themselves in a seaside Hell Hotel, the 'proprietors' are actually bank robbers who are trying to tunnel into the bank next door.
• Best Friend: Bryan and Bernetta.
• The Boxing Episode: After wrongly being hailed as a hero with a champion punch at the climax of series 1, Bryan finds himself in the ring against Potter. It falls to Mrs Boyes and Bernetta to save him, respectively by hypnotising his opponent and ringing the fire alarm.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Bryan. He uses great intelligence and ingenuity in his own schemes but will do anything other than sit down and do some schoolwork, or do the household chores.
• British Brevity: Only sixteen episodes, over two series, were ever made, albeit with more cancelled owing to parental complaints and Executive Meddling.
• Bucket Booby-Trap: Variations from Bryan: the one for Wiggis is suspended above the blackboard, with a string saying PULL that's obvious to everyone except him as a trap; then when Rose Moncrieff practises 'bucket therapy' (putting her head in a bucket to combat stress), he leaves water in it, and later, a pizza.
• The Bully: Edward Slogg, known as The Slug, though not to his face. He's of the traditional, pre-Internet "Give me 50p or I'll hit ya" variety of Barbaric Bully. He's a very large and slow-witted schoolboy, and Bryan surmises his parents must have been a gorilla and a Centurion tank. Thanks to Bryan, he soon ends up in hospital, then a detention centre.
• Bully Magnet: Subverted with the tiny, bespectacled Simon Spinks. He appears to be this, but Bryan has set him up to be beaten up by The Slug, who doesn't know that Spinks' father is actually a professional wrestler and Barbaric Bully himself. He promptly beats up The Slug.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Bryan/Steven Kember.
• Class Clown: Bryan, with numerous pranks and wind-ups on Mr Wiggis. Occasionally the entire class joins in.
• Class Trip: Bryan and his class (and almost all the other characters) go off to Boulogne for the two-part finale to series 2.
• Cliffhanger: Ends all but the final episode of each series, each with a new peril or revelation threatening to make life even harder for Bryan.
• The Comically Serious: Mr Boyes, Mr Blake the Head, Bernetta, and even Bryan himself when events overtake him.
• Crazy Homeless People: Mrs Boyes fills the house with them in the first episode of series 2, when she's volunteering with a homeless charity. In an episode that probably wouldn't pass today, they're portrayed as eccentric, sponging and ungrateful. Perhaps not surprisingly, this episode was omitted from the novelisation.
• Dead Drop: Bryan originally falls foul of the gangsters when they are acting as industrial spies and have hidden a coded secret formula in a never-read library book on cake decorating, for their contact to collect. Except Bryan's Mum wants that very book...
• Delinquents: Slug, Wally and Juggs.
• Demoted to Extra: Weed (Weedon) was Bryan's main schoolfriend in the original books, but with the introduction of Bernetta, he gets increasingly little to do on TV or in the novelisations.
• Dodgy Toupee: Clyde the gangster wears a very obvious and bad wig, which is frequently knocked off, mutilated or otherwise used for comic effect.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: So naturally Mr Wiggis teaches it.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Edward Slogg is always referred to as The Slug.
• "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Running through entire series. With the Children of the Flowers, Bryan tricks them in episode 1 and is still paying for it when they're pursuing him at the climax of the series. The same thing happens with the gangsters he inadvertently thwarts and annoys in series 2.
• First-Person Smartass: Bryan's narrative technique in all of the books.
• Flashback: When the Children of the Flowers return in series 1, and the gangsters in series 2, we see flashbacks of their previous encounters with Bryan as reminders.
• Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Mrs Boyes has a different hobby almost every episode, including martial arts, ballroom dancing, cake decorating and most usefully to Bryan, hypnotism.
• Frame-Up: The Slug has finally caught up with Bryan, who offers him a TV, video recorder and other electrical equipment in exchange for not hitting him. The Slug comes round at night with a barrow and removes all these items from Bryan's own home. Bryan then phones the police and reports a burglary, leading to the Slug's arrest and ultimate imprisonment in a detention centre.
• Framed for Heroism: Happens to Bryan once in each series - when he is wrongly credited with knocking out three 'muggers' (actually The Slug and the vengeful Children of the Flowers, who have got into a fight with each other), and again when he is credited with setting off the fire alarm to evacuate the school before the science lab explosion, sustaining (entirely fake) injuries in the process.
• Framing Device: Averted. The original draft scripts used Bryan's diaries from the original books as a framing device to the action, but this idea was abandoned to avoid comparisons with Adrian Mole.
• Funny Foreigner: The Italian shopkeeper and French police in series 2.
• The Good Old British Comp: Blackboards, lidded desks and lockers; pupil bullies and bookmakers; and at least one Sadist Teacher. Plus, there was a fire recently in the school hall (an excuse for us never to see it). It's not clear whether the fire had anything to do with Bryan. The Head Teacher, however, is a Benevolent Boss.
• High-School Dance: Mr Wiggis organises a - very 1980s - school disco in the opening episode of series 2. It's enlivened not in the usual ways, but by Bryan's enemies, itching powder and the arrival of all the homeless people who have been staying at Bryan's house.
• High-School Hustler: Bryan.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: On the school trip to Boulogne, Bryan and Bernetta overhear The Slug, Juggs and Wally planning to get their revenge on Bryan by locking him in the lavatory and stranding him in France. They promptly trick all three bullies into the lavatory and... lock them in.
• Holding the Floor: Bryan has gone to the Worples' house to be briefed about looking after their cats while they're away. He then sees The Slug waiting for him outside, and stalls for two hours by making the Worples tell him the entire history of all of their cats.
• Illegal Gambling Den: Bryan turns his home into a secondary school one in series 2, with a toy roulette wheel. In the end it's the gangsters and his own parents who get arrested.
• Instrumental Theme Tune: By Jonathan Cohen.
• It's All About Me: Bryan is dangerously self-centred.
  Bryan: You're right, there's me to consider.
• Just Friends: Bryan and Bernetta. She denies being his girlfriend, though she's certainly always there for him (walking what must be considerable distances to keep him updated when he skips school) and he shows genuine concern when she's kidnapped by the gangsters in series 2.
• Large Ham: Bonnie and Clyde, the gangsters in the second series. "REVENGE!!!"
• Late for School: Bryan, often.
• Manchild: Herbert, the gangsters' sidekick in series 2. He's childlike, forever worrying about what his Mum will say, and even passes himself off as a new boy at Bryan's school.
• The Mentally Disturbed: Rose Moncrieff's anxiety and depression are Played for Laughs in both the TV series and books, with words like "loony" being freely used by Bryan, in a way that would be unlikely to pass muster today. This includes her therapies, which include putting her head in a plastic bucket, and later, singing Gilbert and Sullivan.
• Moral Guardians: Back when parents noticed and cared about what their children watched, and complained about Grange Hill (to which the school scenes in Bad Boyes bear a passing resemblance), complaints to Points of View led to a Christmas special and third series being cancelled.
• Named by the Adaptation: Bryan himself. His parents, simply "Mum and Dad" in the original X diaries, are named as Susan and John Boyes.
• Never Mess with Granny: Bryan's formidable Gran. All three Boyeses live in fear of her, and her visits.
• No Full Name Given: The first names of Weed, Juggs and Wally (Weedon, Juggins and Walters) are never revealed.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Bryan remained the same age throughout the series, yet Steven Kember was noticeably taller, darker-haired and deeper-voiced by series 2. In an interview for Going Live! at the time, he recalled having to shoot home scenes sitting down, to disguise the fact that he was now taller than the actress playing his mother.
• Not So Above It All: Bryan's wicked humour very occasionally succeeds in making his Mum, Dad or Gran laugh. This is averted with Bernetta who, while being devoted to Bryan, takes him completely seriously and never laughs at anything he says.
• Not What It Looks Like: Mr Wiggis gets a moment of this with Miss King in series 1 (when they've been locked in the school boiler room by Bryan). In series 2, it's the Head's turn with Rose Moncrieff, on two occasions. The second time, Mr Wiggis even apologises for interrupting.
• Novelization: Two - Bad Boyes and Bad Boyes and the Gangsters, both by the screenwriters, Jim and Duncan Eldridge, and both told in the first person by Bryan.
  • The first book provides an introduction from Bryan revealing he is 'X' of the previous books, and follows the scripts very closely, though the climactic boxing match is reworked slightly, taking place in the school hall and omitting the extra twist of the bell not working. The re-ordering of events arguably improves the suspense as we don't know (as neither does Bryan) that Mrs Boyes has hypnotised Potter until after the fight. Bernetta is used as Bryan's spy to allow the inclusion of scenes in which Bryan was not present.

  • The second book omits the one-off episodes - the homeless people, the seaside holiday and Angelina's wedding - and concentrates on the serial plot involving the gangsters. Most of the scenes in which Bryan isn't present (specifically the ones involving the gangsters plotting) are explained as being based on later police reports, and Bryan's creative writing skills.

  • Both books also include occasional Darker and Edgier moments that wouldn't have passed on CBBC, such as Bryan's Gran hitting him around the head at one point, and Mrs Boyes shouting: "YOU GREAT BIG CHEATING LITTLE RAT!" at Bryan when her blender blows up.

• Ordinary High-School Student: Mr Wiggis's attempt to pass off the new boy as this, in the first episode, works right up until The Slug actually arrives.
• Previously on…: Most episodes begin with a recap of Bryan's misadventures to date, with appropriate stills following in the opening titles. Producer/director Jeremy Swan later used the same technique to open Jim Eldridge's Uncle Jack.
• Pun: Bryan loves puns and silly wordplay, often using them to annoy and bamboozle adults, right from his first meeting with Wiggis:
  Wiggis: Which of you is Boyes?
  Bryan: Half, sir. The rest is girls.
• Put on a Bus: Mrs Boyes goes off to India to do voluntary work in the middle episodes of series 2, though The Bus Came Back when she returned for the two-part Boulogne finale.
• Satanic Panic: Bryan convinces the Children of the Flowers that his parents are witches, and that they will be having some kind of evil gathering on Thursday. He does this purely because his mother's "Third World evening" conflicts with him watching a TV show about BMXes.
• Satchel Switcheroo: The climax to series 2, set in Boulogne, sees Bryan's parents, Bryan's Gran, Mr Wiggis and the gangsters all with identical red suitcases, the latter containing a stolen statuette. True to form, Wiggis ends up unpacking Mrs Boyes's underwear in front of the Headmaster, and everyone but the gangsters is wrongfully arrested by the French police.
• Sadist Teacher: Mr Wiggis, given the chance, although with constant humiliation at Bryan's hands he soon starts to become an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
• School Forced Us Together: Bryan and Bernetta, according to Bryan in the first novelisation.
• Shout-Out:
  • The gangsters in series 2 are called Bonnie and Clyde.
  • The French police in Boulogne, Inspector Oiseau and Gaston Le Gendarme, both owe a debt to Inspector Clouseau of The Pink Panther - one has the hat, coat and a similar name, the other has the moustache, and both have the voice. Oiseau's first name is also Hercule, after Hercule Poirot.
  • Jonathan Cohen's score quotes a variety of well-known pieces, ranging from the Wedding March to the Marseillaise, comically underlining the situations in which Bryan finds himself.
• Skipping School: Bryan, often.
• Spoiled Brat: Mrs Boyes accuses Bryan of being a spoiled child when he complains about being neglected while she goes to India.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Bernetta fixes up an explosion in the school science lab in series 2, so Bryan can play the hero, fake injuries and escape his pursuers. This works, except the gangsters don't know it's about to happen...
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: With The Slug behind bars, it's left to another bully, Potter, to challenge Bryan in the boxing match at the climax of series 1. He never appears again in the series, before or since.
• Take That!: The Children of the Flowers, calling door-to-door in the first series, are an obvious swipe at Jehovah's Witnesses.
  First Child: We wonder if we might stand here and give thanks?
  Bryan: You can stand there and freeze for all I care. (shuts the door)

• Three Cameras: Or possibly four, at the BBC, but the series is an example of the kind of multi-camera, studio-produced children's series that has now disappeared.
• Throwing the Fight: When Bryan is about to fight Potter in the boxing ring, Wally and Juggs try to bully him into throwing the fight so they, as fifth-form bookmakers, can avoid the expected result and make a lot of money.
• Tiny Schoolboy: Simon Spinks, but don't dare annoy him - his father is a professional wrestler...
• Two-Teacher School: For the most part - we hardly ever see school staff except for Mr Wiggis and the Head. However, another teacher, Miss King (played by a pre-Birds of a Feather Linda Robson) appears in a few episodes of series 1.
• Vacation Episode: Episode 4 of series 2 is a one-off in which Bryan, his parents and Gran take a seaside holiday together. Also doubles as a Beach Episode, though this being The Great British Seaside it's absolutely freezing. Gran insists they leave the planned tent and they finish up in a Hell Hotel.
• Video Inside, Film Outside
• Villain Team-Up: With Wally suspended, Juggs teams up with The Slug in the early episodes of series 2. Once Wally returns, all three of them team up against Bryan.
• Visible Boom Mic: One in the first series and several in the second, particularly in scenes set in Bryan's living room, the Head's office and the gangsters' attic flat.
• Who's on First? Bryan has tricked Mr Wiggis into thinking his father has a rare Morgan car for sale, so that Wiggis will treat him well at school. Unfortunately, Mr Boyes then turns up at the school...
  Wiggis: Has your son mentioned anything to you about a Morgan?
  Dad: What Morgan?
  Wiggis: Your Morgan.
  Dad: No, I'm Boyes.
  Wiggis: Yes, I know.
  Dad: Are you feeling all right? I know there's a lot of strain in the teaching profession, Mr... er... What is your name again?
  Wiggis: Wiggis.
  Dad: Not Morgan?
  Wiggis: No. This Morgan's a car. Yours. 1953
  Dad: I haven't got a 1953 car of any sort.