The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

- Season 2

(1965)

En route from Brazil to Guyana, Robinson Crusoe's ship, the Esmeralda, is sunk during a violent storm; Robinson swims for his life and comes ashore in an apparently deserted land. He quickly finds water from a stream, and food in the form of papaya. Wary of being attacked by wild animals, Robinson makes his first bed in the branches of a tree. In the first of a regular series of flashbacks, Robinson recalls when he was first drawn to the sea, and when he is caught up among a band of gunrunners and facing a criminal charge and the wrath of his disciplinarian father as ...

On his second day, finding a man's footprints in the sand, Robinson is convinced that he is not the sole inhabitant of this place he has found himself - until he realises he has simply walked over the same stretch of beach twice. Climbing to a high vantage point, his worst fear is confirmed: he is stranded on an island. Robinson attempts to make fire by rubbing sticks together but fails; then breaks the tip off his only tool, his knife, trying to prise a shellfish from a rock. He successfully climbs a treacherous rock face to raid a gull's nest for eggs to eat. His ...

On his third day, Robinson traps a mother goat to suckle his new companion. Robinson dreams of when, as a young man, he was wounded in a fencing match - his resulting incapacity earning the renewed wrath of his father. Robinson leaves home in the dead of night, selling his horse to finance his new life. Arriving at the port of Hull, his plans of finding work and childhood friend Willy are fruitless. Back in his island reality, the hulk of The Esmeralda has washed up a short distance from shore. The ship is deserted apart from a small dog whom Robinson names Dick, ...

On his fourth day on the island, Robinson removes the last items of value from the wreck of The Esmeralda before it disappears beneath the waves. He tests his new weaponry by shooting a bird which he roasts and shares with Dick, despite his (groundless) fears its flesh might be poisonous. Robinson takes some brandy as a theoretical antidote, falls asleep and dreams of his first voyage: stowed away aboard the ship of the uncle of his friend Willy. Sadly, Robinson suffers badly from sea sickness and is immediately put ashore.. Vowing to return to sea at the first ...

Relatively happy with his dog, goat and parrot as companions, Robinson fortifies his cave against possible intruders and makes furniture. In reverie, he recalls his first voyage as a sailor aboard Captain Darrik's ship where he learns seafaring skills and trades profitably with natives. Sent ashore to find fresh water, Robinson is captured and enslaved by a cruel Emir. Back in the reality of his shipwrecked status, he begins a program of work starting with fishing and goatherding.

Robinson thinks his solitude is driving him insane - he spies a ship, but it transpires to be an illusion. He makes a rudimentary calendar and a suit of clothes, then a fire damages his cave. Robinson cheers himself up by recalling his time enslaved by the Emir and his attempts to escape. He is traded successively from a camel down to a basket of oranges. Enslaved now to a fishmonger, from whom he escapes with a cache of gold taken from his captor, he is rescued by a Portuguese ship which takes him to Brazil where he becomes a successful farmer. Back in solitude on ...

His canoe completed, Robinson is unable to move it to the water as it is too heavy. He recalls his time in Brazil when commissioned to use his business and sailing skills to become a smuggler of slaves. His mission is curtailed when his ship, The Esmeralda, is sunk and him being washed ashore on the deserted island.

Eighteen months have now passed; Robinson sets about improving his home by hacking away a large piece of protruding rock which results in a partial roof collapse - but there is an unexpected bonus of a second entrance created by the cave in. Robinson tries pottery making with limited success; but is slightly more successful at cheesemaking, and more blessed yet at the growing of corn which encourages him to make bread. He next becomes a proficient fisherman; and teaches his parrot to mimic the phrase "poor, poor Robin". Hearing cannon fire from a passing ship, ...

Now three years on the island, Robinson gives an anniversary party for himself and his companions. Somewhat the worse for drink, he swims out to the pirate vessel in search of more alcohol. Awoken from a drunken slumber by the movement of the ship, he finds himself adrift at sea, but the ship runs aground within sight of the island. When he comes ashore, Robinson finds grisly evidence that in his absence the island has had visitors ..........

Realising that cannibals are using the island for their practices, Robinson sets an ambush which scares them away. In the process one of their intended victims escapes and becomes Robinson's first human companion, Friday.

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