The Demon Headmaster
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The Demon Headmaster is a series of books by Gillian Cross which were later adapted as a television series starring Terrence Hardiman in the title role.
The title character is a strange person (it is never made clear whether or not he is human) with the powers of hypnosis and a desire to take over the world - he believes it will be better under his ordered rule.
Contents |
[edit] Reading order
- The Demon Headmaster - ISBN 0-19-275374-6
- The Prime Minister's Brain - ISBN 0-19-275372-X
- The Revenge of the Demon Headmaster - ISBN 0-19-275373-8
- The Demon Headmaster Strikes Again - ISBN 0-19-275388-6
- The Demon Headmaster Takes Over - ISBN 0-19-275389-4
- Facing the Demon Headmaster - ISBN 0-19-275369-X
- Beware of the Demon Headmaster - ISBN 0-19-275236-7 (a short story about the Demon Headmaster, without the other characters)
[edit] Books
[edit] The Demon Headmaster
Dinah Glass moves in with the Hunter family and starts going to the same school as her foster brothers Lloyd and Harvey. It's not easy, as Lloyd seems to hate her, and school is really strange. Pupils suddenly talk like robots and act in order with no school bells at all, even Dinah finds herself acting oddly. She's sure Demon Headmaster has some kind of power over them, and is determined to find out more, with help from SPLAT (the Society for the Protection of our Lives Against Them). This became the first three episodes of the first series of the television adaptation.
[edit] The Prime Minister's Brain
Dinah wins a place in a final of a computer competition, and she and SPLAT go to the finals. Little does she realise that the computer competition is a plot by Demon Headmaster to take over the world, by hacking into the Prime Minister's computer (The Prime Minister's Brain) and hypnotizing the Prime Minister. This became the last three episodes of the first series of the television adaptation.
[edit] The Revenge Of the Demon Headmaster
There's a new craze - Hunky Parker. Everyone's watching the TV programmes and queuing up to buy Hunky T-shirts, trainers like pigs' trotters and pig-swill yoghurt. Is it just normal hype or is something sinister going on? When there are riots, Dinah and her friends start to investigate. But someone has a plan, and they're not going to let it be scuppered by a bunch of kids. Also known as 'Hunky Parker Is Watching You'.
[edit] The Demon Headmaster Strikes Again
Dinah's father is headhunted for a new job at the Biogenetic Research Centre; little do they know that the Demon Headmaster is the director. This time his lust for power sees him meddling with evolution itself. He has created an Evolution Accelerator: a machine to speed up the evolution process and produce the perfect human. But for this he needs Dinah's DNA, and then to put her into terrible danger to test his theories. This became series two of the television adaptation.
[edit] The Demon Headmaster Takes Over
When the army starts dismantling the research centre, Dinah contacts Professor Claudia Rowe, who's an expert on botanical sciences. With Dinah's help, she saves some of the precious 'creeper' plant, and they become friends. Then weird things start to happen. Libraries start closing and their books are taken away. Telephones stop working, and there is no internet access. People start talking like robots, even Claudia Rowe, and more and more of the population seem to be wearing strange badges. Dinah's search leads her to the university where she finds him developing "Hyperbrain", a computer with superhuman intelligence and deadly potential. This became the third and final series of the television adaptation.
[edit] Facing the Demon Headmaster
The new club Purple is the place to go - if you can get in - and Ellie persuades Dinah and her friends to come along too. The man everyone wants to see is DJ Pardoman whose face keeps changing from Elvis to Madonna to Brad Pitt. His electronic mask is mesmerising but no one knows who he really is. When the kids visit his website they find an online competition: the person who finds out DJ Pardoman's true identity will be allowed to lift off the mask. Dinah, thinking the whole setup strange, joins in out of curiosity. In her search she stumbles across something amazing: her real father might be alive after years of thinking he was dead. Dinah must find out more. But she only realises the truth of these strange coincidences too late. This time the Demon Headmaster is intent on ensuring that Dinah will not interfere with his plans.
[edit] Short Stories
In 2003, before the 6th book was released (Facing the Demon Headmaster), Gillian Cross wrote 'Beware Of the Demon Headmaster' which did not feature the SPLAT team.
In 1998, Puffin Books released a series of 'goody bags' on certain themes, which (amongst other things) featured a small book, which in the 'Fantasy' bag was Crash Landing & Other Stories by Gillian Cross. This book contained three short stories, the first about the Demon Headmaster. It is set after The Prime Minister's Brain, and is about Demon Headmaster crashing in a small village. It features SPLAT type characters, the lead girl being called Charity, who and actually reads the Demon Headmaster books in the story.
[edit] Television series
The television series, produced by CBBC, ran between 1996 and 1998 for four series. The first series contained six episodes, and aired twice weekly from 2 January-18 January 1996, the second series contained seven episodes, and aired once a week from 25 September-6 November 1996, and the third series contained six episodes, and aired twice weekly from 6 January-22 January 1998.
On 25 December 1997, CBBC showed The Demon Headmaster Takes Over TV, a recorded version of the CBBC Pantomime performed at the CBBC Big Bash in National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham that year. Whilst the main three series have been repeated several times on TV, this special was only shown once and has never been repeated.
The cast included Terence Hardiman as the Demon Headmaster, Frances Amey as Dinah Hunter, Gunnar Cauthery as Lloyd Hunter, Thomas Szekeres as Harvey Hunter, Tessa Peake-Jones as Mrs. Hunter, Anthony Cumber as Ian, Kristy Bruce as Ingrid and Rachael Goodyer as Mandy.
The first series was released on VHS on 5 January 1998, in which the series was re-edited into two 70-minute long episodes (Look Into My Eyes and The Prime Minister's Brain). The release has since been deleted.
A notable fact from the TV series is that the only character who wear glasses of any kind is the headmaster himself: he is only able to hypnotise people when he removes these.
