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Trivia / The Gnomes of Dulwich

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  • Actor-Inspired Element: In the final episode, Frank Williams played a society photographer. As only his legs were to be seen on screen, he decided he could choose how he wanted to play the character and so based his role on Lord Snowdon.
  • Costume Backlash: The actors hated the gnome costumes as they took from ninety minutes to a couple of hours to get into and have the makeup applied, they got heated up too much under the studio lights, and because it made them too unrecognisable onscreen.
  • Creator Backlash: The crew were frustrated by the "giant" human effects, as there were numerous imperfections visible onscreen.
  • Creator Couple: Gilda Perry (the wife of writer Jimmy Perry) appeared as an ornament on a bric-a-brac stall in the final episode.
  • Fake Nationality: The Chinese Empire Gnomes - Plastic, Dolly, and Rita - were played by Leon Thau (Palestinian), Anne de Vigier, and Lynn Dalby (both British).
  • Hostility on the Set: Terry Scott (well known for being difficult to work with) was a nightmare behind the scenes, emptying sets by raging at how intolerable the conditions of making the series were. He later remarked that people wanted to shoot him after filming, while he only wanted to shoot himself.
  • Missing Episode: All six episodes were wiped sometime after being re-aired in 1970 (believed to have been around 1974). However, all the scripts are still intact at the BBC Written Archives, and over a minute of audio recorded from "Neighbours" is available on YouTube.
  • Production Posse: The series came out between Series 2 and 3 of Dad's Army, which was co-written by Jimmy Perry. Dad's Army star John Laurie appeared in "Small and the Girl Gnome Consult Tope Gnome" as His Mouldiness, the Tope Gnome, while recurring DA actor Colin Bean played one of the recurring gnomes. Frank Williams also appeared as a society photographer in the final episode of Gnomes only a few months before joining the cast of DA as The Vicar.
  • Those Two Actors: Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd had worked together many times in the past, such as in Hugh and I, and the follow-up series Hugh and I Spy.
  • What Could Have Been: The series was first thought up as a sketch for Morecambe and Wise, but Jimmy Perry's wife Gilda convinced him that the concept could work as a full series.

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