Mr Majeika is the title of a series of children's books, written by Humphrey Carpenter and published between 1984 and 2006. It was adapted into a children's television series of the same title and produced for the ITV network by TVS. The show aired between 1988 and 1990 and starred Stanley Baxter as Mr. Majeika.[1] The stories have also been broadcast on radio.

The first volume, Mr Majeika, was published in 1984 and was followed by Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher, Mr Majeika and the Haunted Hotel and The TV Adventures of Mr Majeika.

Plot

The focus of these stories is Mr. Majeika, a teacher at St Barty's Primary School; a typical English primary school. However, he is no ordinary man, as is apparent when he flies into Class Three's boring lesson on a magic carpet, which he then turns into a bicycle, confounding the headmaster: Mr Majeika is a wizard!

"People don't believe in wizards nowadays, so naturally they don't often pay them to do some work."

— Mr. Majeika

He thereafter astounds them with magical trickery which bring lessons to life, whether it is providing chips during dinner for all the children, or turning the nasty Hamish Bigmore into a frog for his insolence. Whatever the consequences, Class Three students are sure that with Mr. Majeika around, they will not be bored again. A recurring character is Wilhelmina Worlock, a witch who first appeared as a music teacher and has turned up regularly since in various disguises.

In the television series, Mr. Majeika is an irrepressible wizard sent to "Britland" from the planet Walpurgis because he failed his O-level sorcery exam for the seventeenth time. He drops into the sleepy village of Much Barty, finding a post at St Barty's School as Class Three's new form-teacher, where he quickly befriends two of the children: Melanie Brace-Girdle and Thomas Grey. Both of these characters are also in the books, but Melanie is a much less important and very different type of character in the books, and is replaced by another character as female lead, Jody. Also in the books, Thomas has a twin brother called Pete.

Majeika enters into his magic with reluctance, however, because he is trying hard to behave himself on Earth, and because the Worshipful Wizard of Walpurgis is keeping an eye on him from above. All the same, trickery becomes more and more necessary, leading Majeika, Melanie and Thomas into some remarkable adventures. Their fun is despised, but usually prompted, by the horribly spoilt Hamish, a pupil so ghastly that his mere presence caused the resignation of the previous class teacher and frightened off the 79 applicants for the post. But one waggle of Mr. Majeika's oddly tufted grey hair is all that it takes for Bigmore to be put firmly in his place.

Books in the series

Series numberingTitlePublication dateLengthNotes
1Mr Majeika17 May 198496ppFirst book in the series. Mr Majeika arrives at St Barty's school.
7Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher29 October 198796ppFirst appearance of Wilhelmina Warlock.
8Mr Majeika and the Haunted Hotel27 October 198880pp 
5Mr Majeika and the Dinner Lady2 August 199096pp 
13Mr Majeika and the School Play6 August 199296pp 
11Mr Majeika and the School Inspector29 April 199396pp 
9Mr Majeika and the School Book Week5 August 199396pp 
15Mr Majeika's Postbag24 February 1994128ppNot part of the St Barty's continuity. A mix of stories and activities.
4Mr Majeika and the Ghost Train5 October 199596pp 
6Mr Majeika and the School Caretaker31 July 199796pp 
14Mr Majeika Vanishes30 July 199896pp 
2Mr Majeika and the School Trip29 April 199996pp 
10Mr Majeika and the Internet7 June 200196pp 
3Mr Majeika and the Lost Spell Book4 September 200396pp 
12Mr Majeika Joins the Circus2 February 200696pp 
 The TV Adventures of Mr Majeika25 February 1988144pp 
 More Television Adventures of Mr.Majeika5 January 1989176ppBased on scripts by Jenny McDade.
 Further Television Adventures of Mr.Majeika4 January 1990128ppBased on scripts by Jenny McDade.

TV show

Mr Majeika
StarringStanley Baxter
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of episodes19, plus 1 hr special
Production
Running time25 min
Production companyTVS
Original release
NetworkITV
Release13 March 1988 (1988-03-13) –
14 February 1990 (1990-02-14)[2]

The series was written by Jenny McDade. Carpenter wrote the fourth book based on McDade's scripts, The Television Adventures of Mr Majeika. Three series of the programme were made, comprising twenty episodes in total. The location for St. Barty's Primary School was Matfield House in Tonbridge, Kent.

Cast

Availability

There has been no commercial release of Mr Majeika on DVD in the UK. This is possibly due to ongoing rights issues after the production company, TVS, dropped out of the ITV network in 1992 and subsequently went through a number of take-overs. This problem affects the majority of the TVS programme archive as much of the original production paperwork and sales documentation has been lost during the intervening years. According to Kaleidoscope's TV Brain website, nine episodes of the series no longer exist in broadcast quality, although all but one of these is available on YouTube.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Humphrey Carpenter; British Biographer". Washington Post. 9 January 2005. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
  2. ↑ "BBC - Comedy Guide - Mr Majeika". Archived from the original on 6 April 2005. Retrieved 19 August 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. ↑ TV Brain website
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