Rent The Strange World of Gurney Slade: Series (1960)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Both firmly of its time and spectacularly ahead of it, 'The Strange World of Gurney Slade' is to television comedy what 'The Prisoner' has become to television drama - brilliantly inventive, startlingly surreal and unlike anything previously seen on television. Anthony Newley stars as an actor who walks off the set of a banal sit-com and into a fantasy world of his own imagination. In this surreal odyssey through his own personal alternative reality he indulges in random conversations with both animals and inanimate objects it s a world in which characters can step out of advertising posters and where he can hear the most intimate thoughts of passers by. An unpredictable, absurdist fantasy, Gurney Slade created an indelible impression upon anyone who saw it. - Actors:
- Anthony Newley, Edwin Richfield, Joy Stewart, Margaret Cox, John Bosh, Bernie Winters, Douglas Wilmer, Charles Lloyd-Pack, Una Stubbs, Anneke Wills, Keith Smith, Ann Lancaster, John Bennett, Dilys Laye, Hugh Paddick, Newton Blick, William Kendall, Louie Ramsay, Erik Chitty, Maureen Connell
- Directors:
- Anthony Newley, Ken Hughes
- Producers:
- Alan Tarrant, Frank Godwin
- Writers:
- Sid Green, Richard Hills, Anthony Newley, Ken Hughes
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- British TV, TV Classics, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi & Fantasy, TV Sitcoms
- Collections:
- The Golden Age of British Pop Musicals, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 24/05/2021
- Run Time:
- 156 minutes
- Languages:
- English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Three Saturday Spectacular shows: Featuring Anthony Newley alongside Shirley Bassey, Peter Sellers and Janette Scott, these archive rarities showcase Newley's initial attempts at building the character that would become Gurney Slade
- 'The Small World of Sammy Lee': The classic 1963 British crime film starring Anthony Newley - also features an alternative ending and interview with Newley
- Promotional Shorts
- Galleries
- Disc 1:
- This disc includes episodes 1 - 6
- Disc 2:
- This disc includes the following:
- Three Saturday Spectacular Shows
- Special Features - Disc 3:
- This disc includes the following:
- The Small World of Sammy Lee
- Special Features
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Reviews (2) of The Strange World of Gurney Slade: Series
Extraordinary - The Strange World of Gurney Slade: Series review by KG
Normally I don't write reviews because I'm too busy but I'm making an exception here (albeit brief).
I could write a long essay if I had time but I'll be very brief. This is a surreal series so be warned - you'll either love it or hate it and in 1960 most viewers hated it, apparently. Personally I think it's brilliant and way, way ahead of its time. Maybe, 60 years later, it still is.
Brilliantly Surreal Prototype Truman Show that influenced David Bowie - The Strange World of Gurney Slade: Series review by PV
I heard about this on a David Bowie documentary - he loved it as a 12/13 year old in Bromley in 1960/61 and based himself on Anthony Newley in so many ways, copying his accent and style (see the way he introduces THE SNOWMAN from 1982).
This is all very surreal - a prototype TRUMAN SHOW in a way.
And part 4 of 6 is very risque too - I can only assume the pofaced censors were unaware of the double entendre.
Una Stubbs is here and Bernie Winters and a young Geoffrey Palmer in part 1.
I loved it - it only feels dated with some comments and attitudes that our pofaced judgemental feminist puritan metoo age would consider sexist. Maybe 1960 was a more intelligent age! AND of course, the computers shown back then look hilariously dated because NOTHING DATES AS FAST AS A VISION OF THE FUTURE> Watch Westworld (1973) to see that. I could not help a smile when two men ballroom dance and we are informed that dancing should be with people of the opposite sex. Not now, Newley!
Anthony NEwley died in 1999 and seems forgotten BUT cowrote the song FEELING GOOD made famous by Nina Simone and the score of the early 70s US Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film incl the famous IMAGINATION song - I suspect Anthony Newley wrote the lyrics. Multi-talented.
I loved it anyway. More entertaining than most drama on TV now. I see it was on ITV then as there are ad breaks minus the ads - shows how far TV has gone downhill, NO WAY would any TV channel risk something like this now - not terrestrial anyway.
This is a gem. really. 5 stars