The Flipside of Dominick Hide

The Flipside of Dominick Hide was a wonderful BBC Play for Today from the early 1980s, and possibly the best SF ever done by the BBC. Although it now appears to have sunk from sight it was so well received at the time that the BBC commissioned a sequel (unique for Play for Today?) called Another Flip for Dominick. The plot is a fairly standard time-traveller-goes-back-in-time-and-gets-tangled-up-in-his-own-timeline but it is so well done as to be an almost perfect piece of SF. Dominick was played by Peter Firth, but it wasn't really a big name production. One key ingredient in the whole thing was also the theme song - "Are There Somewhere Island" by US band Meal Ticket, which just fits the tone of the whole thing perfectly.

My own history with it was quite a journey. I saw it when first broadcast and loved it instantly. Then whilst at Uni in London I discovered that the American actor across the road from us was going to star in the sequel, so watching that had added interest. It then just lingered in the memory as something wonderful, but in those days there weren't too many BBC VHS releases, and we hadn't had a machine to record it ourselves. But I didn't give up hope of seeing it again. In the mid 80s on exercise in Cyprus I was browsing the Base's video store - which was full of pirated stuff to keep the military community happy - when I found a pirate copy of both episodes. I then bored the rest of the Squadron by showing it at a film night (they knew I was pretty mad anyway!) but more importantly borrowed another VHS machine so I could make a copy and take it home.

For the next few years my grotty VHS copy was it. When I met Deborah I was delighted that she also had fond memories of the series and we watched the VHS copy multiple times, and I kept scanning the BBC lists for a formal release, and I'm sure wrote to them after it too. Then in 1991 they finally issued it and I picked a copy up from the BBC shop in Belfast where I was serving. Then some time later in the 90s they released the DVD copy and it was solidly out there - although still not widely talked about or mentioned. This micro-site is to try and address that and encourage more people to watch this beautiful piece of British TV SF.

The Story

Life in 2130

The Music

The Video

BBC Enterprises released the double video on 5th August 1991, but deleted it on 7th December 1993. An Aug 2000 enquiry to the BBC yielded the statement that "Unfortunately, the twinpack of 'The Flipside of Dominic Hyde(sic)/Another Flip for Dominic' had been withdrawn from sale, and is no longer available for purchase in the UK." In 2005 the BBC released both episodes on DVD. The DVD can be bought through Amazon - if you don't own a copy go buy it right now!

Original VHS Cover

Current DVD Cover

Cast

See the Cast page for more information.

Crew

Director and writer Alan Gibson was born 28 April 1938, in London, Ontario in Canada. He
had an extensive TV and film career as a Director, mostly in horror, thrillers and SF from 1965 through
to his death in 1987. Dominick Hide was his only writing credit. He died on 5th July 1987, in London, UK.

Chris Cherry (producer) and Jeremy Paul (co-write AFFD) both had careers in UK TV and film. Jeremy has been heavily involved in the BBC's By The Sword Divided, Granada's Sherlock Holmes series, Lovejoy, Hetty Wainthropp and Midsomer Murders. He had web sites at http://www.singwillow.co.uk and at http://www.jeremypaul.org.uk and died in May 2011.

Visual Effects designer Peter Wragg cut his teeth on Thunderbirds Are Go, and went on to do effects for
Threads and Red Dwarf.

Glossary

A few words and terms from the series and life in 2130.

Corro - Short for correlator (qv)
Correlator - Dominick's occupation. Someone who collects data on the past.
Double Return - A trip back from the past to Dominick's present.
Flip - A journey back in time to "the flipside"
Flipside - A previous period in time
Reprogrammed - Having a new partner assigned by the computer
Return - A trip back to the past
SOO - The domestic computer which monitors a house

A Few Choice Quotes

Kaleb to Dominick - "Your great grandfather was born in 1981 in the Portobello sector of London. Or would be, and now will be".

Dominick to Ava - "You smelt the rose".