Stig of the Dump

Yeah, I've never, ever seen it brought up in conversations of paleo fiction, although technically it does count as part of the genre.

Depending on circumstance, if any of you listening to this are familiar with it at all, you may know it from that 1960s book you were made to read in English lessons at school, its 1981 TV adaptation, possibly your local community theater production of it in the UK, or the 2002 version that we're discussing now, Stig of the Dump.

[gentle music] So for those of you who have never heard of this show, which I imagine is most of you, Stig of the Dump is a 2002 CBBC miniseries adaptation of Clive King's 1963 children's novel of the same name.

The story follows Barney, a young boy visiting his grandparents in England, who falls over the edge of a disused quarry, where he discovers and befriends Stig, a caveman who has constructed a den out of discarded rubbish.

The miniseries stars Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Barney, and it's the second adaptation of the novel following a 1981 effort produced for ITV, which we have neither watched nor will discuss here.

Darby, any history with Stig of the Dump in any of its forms?

No.

I just knew of the book, and probably that there was an adaptation floating around out there at some point.

Because I hate fake turns that go wrong where you literally have stumps everywhere.

I remember using the very first Saint-Tropez and it was so dark that I looked like, there was a book that I loved from when I was a kid called Stig of the Dump.

I

looked like the stick of the dump.