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To celebrate the release of Trumpton, available to own on Blu-Ray and DVD from 18th September, we are giving away Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!

Here is the clock, The Trumpton clock, Telling the time…steadily, sensibly; never too quickly, never too slowly…Telling the time for Trumpton. So take a trip to Trumpton and join Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub and the rest of the Trumpton townsfolk in Gordon Murray’s timeless animation classic. Enjoy all 13 original episodes once again, fully restored from the original film negatives.

This iconic British animation, narrated by Brian Cant was originally broadcast in 1967 and was aired regularly by the BBC until 1985. Trumpton comes second in the Trumptonshire trilogy, comprising of Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley.

Freddie Phillips composed the music for all three of the Trumptonshire series. Phillips was a very accomplished musician who also worked on many films (including Michael Powell...

To celebrate the release of Chigley, available to own on Blu-Ray and DVD from 18th September, we are giving away Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!

”It’s a lovely day in Chigley.” Lord Belborough and Bracket are taking Bessie out for a run to Treadle’s Wharf and the workers are making fine biscuits at the biscuit factory. When the whistle blows at the end of a hard day’s work, everyone makes their way to the park to enjoy the 6 o’clock Tea Dance. Enjoy all 13 original episodes once again, fully restored from the original film negatives.

This iconic British animation, narrated by Brian Cant was originally broadcast in 1969 and was aired regularly by the BBC until 1985. Chigley comes third in the Trumptonshire trilogy, comprising of Camberwick Green and Trumpton. Chigley’s first airing on television coincided with the BBC’s changeover to colour broadcasting in 1969, so some episodes were...

Now that’s what I call a summer! Heat, actual heat. Weeks on end of prolonged sunshine and blue skies. This was the kind of summer that only used to exist in the movies. The irony of course is that baking sunshine and relentless barbecue conditions are the sworn enemy of the film industry, keeping its target audience outside drinking cold beers when they should be huddled in the cinema instead, eating unjustifiably expensive popcorn.

Miraculously, the twin threats of unexpected sunshine and the World Cup did not have the disastrous effect on box office takings one might have assumed, which suggests that 2018’s summer movie season was a bit of a decent vintage, offering up blockbusters interesting enough to tempt people off their deckchairs and into the darkened Multiplexes (or maybe they just needed two hours in a room with decent air-conditioning).

A slightly more cynical argument might be...

Iconic children's programme Play School celebrates its 50th anniversary today (April 21).

The show launched on April 21, 1964 and is noted for being the first programme to air on BBC Two.

Play School ran for 24 years until 1988 and was fronted by presenters including Brian Cant, Carol Chell, Johnny Ball, Derek Griffiths and Floella Benjamin.

The programme celebrated landmarks such as becoming the first children's programme broadcast in colour on BBC Two in 1968, and became the first children's show in the UK to feature a black host when Paul Danquah joined the team in 1965.

To mark half a century since the show's launch, Play School will be part of a special exhibition commemorating Children's BBC called 'Here's One We Made Earlier', which is due to open in July at The Lowry in Manchester.

The Children's Media Foundation are also supporting a special reunion of people who worked on the show.

Former head of...

The BBFC have cleared extras for the DVD release of the Second Doctor story The Dominators.

This 1968 five-part story has been expected ever since an official promo for the story was leaked to YouTube at the end of last year. The story stars Patrick Troughton as the Doctor along with Frazer Hines as Jamie and Wendy Padbury as Zoe.

The story is set on the planet Dulkis, under threat from two alien Dominators, Rago and his subordinate Toba, who have landed in a spaceship. It features the robot Quarks.

Guest stars include Ronald Allen, who was well known at the time for his starring role in the soap opera Compact and later for his role in Crossroads and Brian Cant who was a staple of Children's television in the sixties and seventies, well known for his work on Play School and Play Away and for his narration on the popular Trumpton,...

Floella Benjamin is a children's TV institution. The Trinidad-born presenter, who was rightly awarded an OBE in 2001, was one of the driving forces behind the long-running BBC kids shows Play School and Play Away. Alongside the likes of Brian Cant, Jeremy Irons and Johnny Ball, Benjamin kept millions of British children smiling with her enthusiasm in front of camera. Other successful projects from her '80s pomp included Channel 4's Treehouse and the zany sketch show Fast Forward. Aside from her work on children's (more)...