Saturday, 30 April 2022

The Adventures of Don Quick (1970)

Costume Design by: Michael Baldwin ( notable efforts: Theatre of Blood (1973), The Quatermass Conclusion (1979), Worzel Gummidge (1980), Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future (1985), Jane and the Lost City (1987), Hardware (1990) )

A surprisingly early example of scifi comedy starring Ian Hendry and Ronald Lacey as a pair of deadbeat astronauts, this show sadly is lost without a trace with the exception of just one episode, 'The Benefits of Earth', which there is a copy of on youtube - sadly in absolutely horrendous quality. The other costumes in the lost episodes can only be seen via publicity images and the costume designer, Michael Baldwin, is only known thanks to these costume sketches one of which is for the series.

'The Benefits of Earth'

The aforementioned surviving episode, that again, only exists as a horrible video recording; sorry for the bad quality screenshots. This episode involved a planet shared by two species, with the former being sensitive villagers who all wear these golden mesh bodysuits.
The other species are warlike and dabble in human sacrifice, hence why their outfits are vaguely Mesoamerican in inspiration; whilst it's not exactly a good thing that the Mesomaerican fashion inspiration was partly to use as a byword for savagery, these are some of the best costumes in the series, which makes it sting that there are no other photos of them at all!

'People Isn't Everything'

This episode, which starred Kate O'Mara, is set on the planet Ophiuchus whose residents are all dressed in metallic jumpsuits, the first type being silvery one with slightly rusty looking collars.
The second type of jumpsuits are copper in colour, with plastic tubing around the collars, and the police wearing helmets and bumped shoulder boards.

'The Higher the Fewer'

This episode was set on a ruined planet whose denizens all lived in skyscrapers; these are possibly some of the most elaborate costumes of the series yet, especially the blue robe, tunic and collar worn by Derek Francis!
There is also this lovely pink and gold dress worn by Hildegard Neil in the episode - stunning!
Less outright beautiful but very funny is this trampy uniform worn by James Hayter - a forerunner to the makeshift costumes of the Mad Max series, but fits given costume designer Michael Baldwin would later work on post-apocalyptic works such as The Quatermass Conclusion, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future and Richard Stanley's Hardware.

'The Love Reflector'

Set on a planet populated entirely by beautiful women (ain't that such a classic cliche), led by the 'Queen Bee' Faith Brook who wears a gorgeous jewellery adorned dress.

'The Quick and the Dead'

An episode that of course involved ancient gods on an alien planet (another cliche of science-fiction television during this era); most notable outfit is this dress worn by Patricia Haines as the goddess Aphrodite.

'Paradise Destruct'

The last episode of the series, set on a primitive paradise planet where all the denizens wear outfits made up of imitation planets! As well as a monarch in a plastic crown.