The fun of this series comes from the contrast between the innocence of sweet-faced Edward, played bynbsp;12-year-old Joe Prospero, and the wily charm of Silas (Albert Finney), who bends the truth and breaks the rules but somehow never exposes his great-nephew to any serious danger or immorality.
In one episode, Edward is sent to pick fruit in an orchard while Silas engages in tipsily chasing the curvaceous widow whose garden it is. Joe had to spend some time lolling in an apple tree while the adults made for the cottage bedroom.
Joe is already a professional. Chatty and open, he has none of the false charm of some stage-school children and came to acting almost by accident. His elder sister Kelly went riding at weekends and he needed a hobby, so he started going to acting classes.
At school (Cardinal Wiseman RC secondary, in Greenford, London borough of Ealing) he does one lesson of drama a week like everyone else. He didn’t do much acting at primary school, although it may have helped that his favourite game was charades.
Now, he is used to squeezing in lessons between takes with the help of a tutor, although he was lucky in that half the Uncle Silas filming took place in holiday time. The rule is that child actors have to receive lessons on set if they miss more than two weeks of normal schooling.
He was chosen for Joe after four auditions and he thinks Finney himself had a hand in the casting. They certainly play well together.
The stories have been out of print, but some have been reprinted by Vintage to coincide with the series ( My Uncle Silas , pound;6.99).
Picture: Joe Prospero as Edward
A longer version of this feature appears in this week’s Friday magazine
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