Asterix in Britain's Broadcasting Corporation

Well, the history of Asterix cartoons on the BBC is perhaps not as interesting or mysterious as Tintin, which we covered last week, but there's still some interesting stuff there.

The first animated outing for the band of indomitable Gauls was a film adaptation of the first book, Asterix the Gaul, in 1967; Goscinny and Uderzo were not consulted on it at all, and were so dissatisfied with the outcome that all work on a sequel adapting the second book, Asterix and the Golden Sickle, was scrapped. This film came to the BBC in 1970... but for reasons perhaps best kept to themselves, the film was apparently re-edited into eight 10-minute chunks (the inverse of what happened to some of the Tintin serials, in other words!) One other notable thing is that in the UK dub Panoramix kept his original name, even though Asterix the Gaul had been published in English the previous year with the character renamed as Getafix. Prior to that, the story had been serialised in Valiant in 1963, with some absolutely appalling renames, including Asterix and Obelix becoming "Little Fred and Big Ed", and Getafix becoming "Hokus Pokus", and the action now meant to be taking place in England rather than Gaul - Asterix the Gaul was the only album serialised in Valiant, but heaven knows what they would've done if they'd ever had to adapt Asterix in Britain.

More than that, Cacofonix and Vitalstatistix both had completely new names in the UK dub of the film, becoming Stopthemusix and Tonabrix; apparently the dubbing for the UK was done before the first album was released in English, despite being released afterwards. The film was re-edited into three 25-minute episodes for repeats later in the seventies and eighties; it appears the cartoon was popular, as it got quite a few outings in that format.

The next we heard of Asterix and Obelix, it was something made by the BBC themselves: in December 1984, Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of Asterix in Britain, running across Christmas week for 6 15-minute episodes adapted by the legendary Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge, who also translated the albums for publication in the UK. The cast list tells us that Asterix was voiced by David Ross, probably better known (to readers of this blog, in any event) for being the original Kryten in Red Dwarf. I can't find out anything else about this adaptation; it is not to be confused with the audiobook based on Bell and Hockridge's translation of the album, which was released in 1987 and narrated by Willie Rushton. The dramatisation does not appear to have ever been issued on CD or cassette, which I find surprising. Asterix and the Big Fight received a similar treatment in 1986 for the children's radio slot Cat's Whiskers, although I am unsure of the cast details for that one (it appears that most of the actors from the Britain adaptation reprised their roles, going by the Genome's rather fragmented information).

The next Asterix adaptation to hit the BBC was the 1986 film adaptation of Asterix in Britain, which premiered at 10am on BBC Two on Christmas Day 1991. Asterix and the Big Fight premiered in the summer of 1996; how curious that those two were also the ones the BBC themselves had adapted (although the animated film version of The Big Fight has very little resemblance to the original album, whereas the Radio 4 version was presumably much closer). Asterix Conquers America also airs on the BBC in 2000, and 2002 for the Easter holiday week CBBC air an Asterix film every day. This appears to include Asterix the Gaul in its original form, and also the BBC's debuts of Asterix and Cleopatra and Asterix vs Caesar (presumably they had first been aired on another channel, but I'm not sure which one). The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, the only Asterix film to date to be based on an original story rather than one of the albums, looks like it first showed up on the BBC in 2004, but given the film dates from 1976 I'd be very surprised if that was its free-to-air premiere. That covers everything the Genome goes up to, anyway (the next film was Asterix and the Vikings, which was released in 2006, not counting the various live-action films, which I don't think the BBC ever aired).

An amusing endnote: In the UK dub of Conquers America, the voice of Asterix was done by Craig Charles. In a parallel universe where David Ross had been available to play Kryten full-time when Rob Grant and Doug Naylor decided to make the character a regular, that would make for a great piece of trivia, as opposed to a mildly interesting one.