Jonny

Jonny Briggs is the schoolboy at the centre of his own noisy household, forever caught between ordinary family scrapes and the elaborate daydreams he escapes into when reality gets dull or unfair. He wants adventure, or at least an escape from chores and telling-off, and drifts happily into fantasy at the slightest excuse.

Richard Holian plays him with the straight-faced sincerity of a boy who genuinely believes his own daydreams, which is what sells the show's leaps between kitchen-table squabbles and swashbuckling fantasy. The character works because his imagination is treated as ordinary rather than remarkable, letting young viewers slip into the fantasy alongside him without a wink.