Sketch of Children’s TV Presenter Brian Cant

This is the first of a number of sketches and pieces I’m planning to put up about some of the presenters of the children’s TV programmes I used to watch in the 70s. Cant was the lead presenter on Play Away, a sister programme of the long-running children’s TV favourite, Play School, on which Cant had also appeared, but aimed at slightly older children. Play Away was also more of an ensemble programme with a whole team accompanying Cant. There was somebody Cohen at the piano, and a number of other co-presenters, some of whom I’ve now forgotten. I think one of them was Toni Arthur, who I’ve since learned was a folk musician and the author of a book on seasonal customs for children, the All The Year Round Book. One of the presenters I do remember was Jeremy Irons, who has gone on to become a Hollywood star. I was really surprised in the ’90s when I read that he was playing the lead characters in David Cronenberg’s psychological horror film Dead Ringers. This was about a pair of twin gynaecologists, one of whom goes insane and believes that the women he’s treating are all mutants. The film includes a credit to H.R. Giger, the Swiss artist who designed the Alien in those movies, for designing ‘radical surgical instruments’. It’s as far from Play Away as you can get and is a reminder that the cast of such programmes are actors, who also take adult roles. Somebody must have seen Irons in Play Away and recognised his potential.

Cant was also the narrator for three interlinked children’s series, Chigley, Trumpton and Camberwick Green each set in one of these small fictional towns. These were animated series using small figurines and were similar in style, using the same type of figures and music. Trumpton started off with Cant announcing, ‘Here is the clock, the Trumpton clock. Telling the time, steadily, sensibly, never too quickly, never too slowly, telling the time for Trumpton.’ The various characters also had their own theme songs. One of the characters, whose figure I’ve drawn being looked at by Cant, was Windy Miller. Miller appropriately enough lived in a windmill. His song began, ‘Windy Miller, Windy Miller, sharper than a thorn’. The theme song for the local fire brigade began with a rollcall of their names, ‘Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb.’ The railway also had its own song with the words, ‘Time flies by when you’re the driver of a train as you ride on the footplate there and back again.’ These shows have developed a cult following. In the 1980s the band Half Man Half Biscuit released a record Trumpton Riots, about what would happen if Trumpton had a riot. According to rumour, it parodied the train song with the words ‘Time flies by when you’re the driver of a train, as you ride on the footplate with a cargo of cocaine’. You can find videos of ‘Trumpton Riots’ on YouTube, including the lyrics. These words don’t seem to appear, but perhaps they’re on another song with a similar theme. Half Man Half Biscuit, as their name suggests, had a peculiar sense of humour. One of their other songs was ‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit’. This was just before Communism fell, when there were far fewer people from eastern Europe in Britain, who might genuinely want such a football kit for their collection.

The series’ visual style has also influenced pop video producers. One of the series began, if I recall correctly, with one of the characters spiralling up out of an opened music box. Something similar occurs in the Ting Tings’ video for ‘That’s Not My Name’, where the two leads seem to spiral up into view from something off camera below them. The producers of another pop video for a song with the delightful name ‘Burn The Witch’, deliberately based its style on the three children’s series. He also appeared in a pop video for Orbital’s The Altogether in a sequence which was similar to Play School, the children’s TV programme that preceded Play Away and in which Cant also appeared as a presenter. He also appeared in a number of other programmes and theatrical productions. Wikipedia notes that Cant won a poll as the best-loved voice from children’s TV in 2007, and three years later in 2010 he won a special award at the BAFTAs for his work in children’s television. Accepting it, Cant said: “When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. When I became a man I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, and they paid me for it.”

For further information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cant

I found this rendition of the Play Away theme with a still of its cast on Bobby Gathergood’s channel on YouTube.

I found this video of Trumpton’s opening titles on the It’s Sam! channel on YouTube:

Donald Trump Now Satirised in Private Eye Cartoon

Donald Trump’s stupidity and bigotry are an increasing concern on this side of the Atlantic to the point where he’s wound up being satirised in the pages of this fortnight’s Private Eye. In addition to the other cartoons, like ‘Dave Snooty and His Pals’, ‘It’s Grim Up North London’, ‘Young British Artists’, and ‘The Premiersh*ts’, they’ve launched another strip featuring him, called ‘Trumpton’. It’s named after the well-loved ’70s BBC children’s programme, and is drawn in the same style as models used in the animated episodes.

In the first edition of the strip, Trump tells Mrs Ladyvoter, that if she’s voting for Hillary Clinton, it must be because she’s ugly, a lesbian or has lost her mind due to being on her period. These are all the offensive or misogynistic remarks Trump has hurled at women, who have dared to disagree with him. It’s shows just how coarse and graceless the man actually is. And as this moron could become President of the USA and leader of the free world, Private Eye are sending him up. Mind you, it’s not as if he needs much help from satirists to turn himself into a laughing stock, but it’s great to see the Eye making jokes at his expense.

And just to remind you how awesome the original was, here are the titles of the Trumpton TV series, and the rhyme about their fire brigade, to delight children of a certain age.

UKIP: Not So Much Trumpton, More Little Britain

Little Britain: Is this the real source of UKIP’s policies?

I found this report by the anti-Fascists over at Hope Not Hate on another bug-eyed rant from the Kippers very revealing. It’s from way back on the 18th May last year, entitled My rivals should be hanged for treason, says Ukip candidate, and covers a story in the Torygraph. One of the Kippers’ candidates for that month’s election, Gordon Ferguson, had declared that Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives had all condemned Britain to slavery inside the EU dictatorship. He stated that they should be tried for treason, and sentenced to death. Moreover, their voters should also be tried and punished, because they were guilty of treason by association.

The nutters were most definitely out in force that month.

Some mischievous individuals on the net have been sending UKIP up with a series of posts about the weird adventures of UKIP’s Trumpton branch. This has annoyed Farage, and delighted just about everyone else who isn’t a fan of Fuhrer Farage and his stormtroopers, but is a fan of the awesome children’s toy town TV series, narrated by the maestro of children’s TV, Brian Cant.

It is, however, almost beyond parody itself. It’s almost identical to a line from David Walliams’ and Matt Lucas’ long running comedy, Little Britain, narrated by that other maestro of British high weirdness, Tom Baker. Every episode begins with an overblow panegyric to this ‘sceptre’d isle’. One week’s episode opened with Baker declaring, ‘Britain! Britain! Britain! … Anyone taking a foreign holiday ought to be tried for treason!’

It isn’t quite Ferguson’s comment, but it’s very nearly there.

Which raises the question: do Kippers watch Little Britain, and think the weird antics on there are a reflection of the real world?

The Hope Not Hate article is at: http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/ukip/my-rivals-should-be-hanged-for-treason-says-ukip-candidate-3764.

UKIP in Trumpton Riots

Those of us of a certain age remember fondly the TV series Trumpton, and its fellow Camberwick Green, narrated by that master of 70s children’s television, Brian Cant. Other fans of the series include 80s pop band Half Man, Half Biscuit, who in a masterpiece of twisted humour produced the song ‘Trumpton Riots’. This was about what would happen if a riot broke out in the televisual toytown. It contained lines like

‘Time flies by when you’re the driver of a train
As I ride on the footplate with my cargo of cocaine.’

It had a nod to Pink Floyd, ‘Careful with that axe, Eugene, causes consternation’.

Now, according to Mike over at Vox Political, twitter has also used Trumpton, as well as the other puppet and animated children’s stars of that period to send up UKIP. There are shots of various scenes from the programme accompanied by a suitable caption making a satirical comment on Kipper policy.

UKIP are, of course, absolutely furious, and particular Kipper politicians are demanding that Twitter censor the images and the twitter feed. Which itself is highly amusing.

Mike’s article on this latest furore is Pugh, Pugh, Nigel Farage, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2014/12/04/pugh-pugh-nigel-farage-cuthbert-dibble-grubb/. Go there for some very funny pics.