It is not often that you get to append the term “feel-good” to the word “documentary” but that seems like the best way to sum up Stephen La Rivières wonderful two-hour film about the works of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. To most people who are old enough to remember shows like Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 the story of the rise and fall of this unique strand of television will no doubt be familiar, but it is enthusiastically retold here with great charm, verve and wit, and with contributions from many of those involved.

The various interviews and clips are introduced by Lady Penelope and Parker, voiced as they originally were by Sylvia Anderson and David Graham, respectively (an early laugh comes when Parker puzzles out loud about “a hexistential crisis”). The late Gerry Anderson appears in archive footage to tell of how he “nearly vomited on the floor” when he was first assigned the task of producing a puppet show. Anderson wanted to direct real people, but needed to earn a crust so took the work that came his way. But it was his very ambition that drove the improvements in the successive puppet programmes (the word “Supermarionation” was coined to distinguish the lifelike marionettes whose lip movements were synched to speech from the puppets that went before them). The pinnacle, of course, was Thunderbirds, in which the puppets, the characterisations, the plots, and Barry Grays incredible music came together like never before.

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