Ed Stone is Dead – Nostalgia Central

2 0 0 2 (UK)
13 x 30 minute episodes

Actually, 25-year-old slacker Ed Stone is only half dead.

When Death is on his way to crop a new victim (“I am Death, the Grim Reaper, the Harvester of Souls . . . but you can call me Nigel”),  he accidentally sets off a train of events resulting in an out-of-control bus running down poor Ed Stone (Richard Blackwood).

But Ed isn’t due for celestial processing for some 57 years, and so Nigel (Bill Paterson) freezes him at the point of death and returns him to the mortal world.

Ed loses his life-force in the process, being neither alive nor dead – he walks and talks and seems normal to his friends, but he has lost all physical sensations of pleasure. He can eat but cannot taste – and he can never again have sex!

On the plus side, he no longer feels pain, doesn’t age and cannot be destroyed except by fire or venturing more than six feet underground.

Ed contemplates finishing the job, but Nigel – obsessed by the American TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer – is happy on Earth.

Ed is also finally attracting the amorous attentions of Kate (Claudie Blakley, the daughter of Alan Blakley from The Tremeloes). He has pursued her unsuccessfully for a long time, but – while she was able to resist him when he was full of life – the half-dead Ed is a more sensitive and appealing soul.

Based on an original idea by Lisa Opie, the show was conceived for the cable/satellite youth channel Trouble but ended up on BBC Choice instead. This at least meant that the writers could openly address the more adult themes – Ed’s inability to enjoy smoking, drinking, drugs and sex – all of which were taboo with Trouble.

Ironically, after its screening on BBC Choice, the show was curiously deemed appropriate for a BBC2 outing on Sunday mornings, at the conclusion of children’s programming.

Nine of the 13 episodes were shown in an 11.00 am slot from 5 January to 30 March 2003.

Ed Stone
Richard Blackwood
Nigel Winterbourn
Bill Paterson
Kate Carter
Claudie Blakley
Beth Cranshaw
Sasha Pick
Adam Deerfield
Daniel Brockleback
Scotty Wimslow
Craig Parkinson

Episodes

Dead on Arrival | Clubbed to Death | Fall Guy | Dead Poet | Ed Stone Is Gay | To Die-t for | Out for Dinner | The Incredible Ed-man | Doctor Love | City of Angela | All You Can Eat | Hi Honey, I’m Dead | Mortality Bites