''Play School'' is a British children's television series produced by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

which ran from 21 April 1964 until 11 March 1988. It was created by

Joy Whitby Joy Whitby (born 27 July 1930) is an English television executive, television, and radio producer who specialises in children's programmes and animated films. Early life Whitby read History at St Anne's College, Oxford, and, after graduating, ...

and was aimed at preschool children. Each programme followed a broad theme and consisted of songs, stories and activities with presenters in the studio, along with a short film introduced through either the square, round or arched window in the set. The programme spawned numerous spin-offs in Britain and other countries and involved many presenters and musicians during its run. Despite a revamp in 1983, ''Play School'' maintained the same basic formula throughout its 24-year history, but changes to the BBC's children's output led to the programme's cancellation in 1988, when it was replaced by ''Playbus'', which soon became ''

Playdays ''Playdays'' (known as ''Playbus'' until December 1989) is a British pre-school television programme which ran from 1988 to 1997 on Children's BBC. The show was the successor to '' Play School'' and, like its predecessor, was designed as an ed ...

''.

Broadcast history

''Play School'' was the first programme shown on BBC2's launch day. It originally appeared on weekdays at 11am on BBC2 and received holiday runs on BBC1 in Summer 1964 and 1965, later acquiring a mid-afternoon

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

repeat as the opening programme of BBC1's teatime children's schedule. The morning showing was transferred to BBC1 on 19 September 1983 when

BBC Schools BBC Schools, also known as BBC for Schools and Colleges or BBC Education, was the educational programming strand set up by the BBC in 1957, broadcasting a range of educational programmes for children aged 5–16. From its launch until June 1983 ...

programming transferred to BBC2, and was shown 30 minutes earlier, at 10.30am. It remained in that slot after daytime television was launched in October 1986 and continued to be broadcast at that time until the programme ended in October 1988. When the BBC scrapped the afternoon edition of ''Play School'' in April 1985 to make way for new programmes in that slot, a Sunday morning compilation was launched called ''Hello Again!''. This came seven months after the programme's length was reduced from 25 minutes to 20 minutes. There were several opening sequences for ''Play School'' during its run, the first being "Here's a house, here's a door. Windows: 1 2 3 4. Ready to knock? Turn the lock – It's Play School". This changed in the early 1970s to "A house – with a door. 1, 2, 3, 4. Ready to play? What's the day? It's..." In this version blinds opened on the windows as the numbers were spoken. The blinds were no longer featured towards the end of the 1970s and the word "windows" was added before "1 2 3 4". The final opening sequence involved a multicoloured house with no apparent windows. This was used from 1983 until the end of the programme. This saw the most radical revamp of the programme overall (not just in the opening titles). The opening legend then became "Get ready. To play. What's the day? It's...". Unlike earlier BBC programmes aimed at preschool children such as ''

Watch with Mother ''Watch with Mother'' was a cycle of children's programmes created by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird. Broadcast by BBC Television from 1952 until 1975, it was the first BBC television series aimed specifically at tiny tots to pre-school childr ...

'', ''Play School'' featured real presenters who spoke directly to their audience. Presenters included the first black host of a children's show, Paul Danquah; Brian Cant, who remained with the show for 21 years; actress Julie Stevens; Canadian actor and television presenter Rick Jones; TV personality Johnny Ball; former pop singers Lionel Morton and

Toni Arthur Toni Arthur-Hay (born Antoinette Alice Priscilla Wilson; 27 December 1940) is an English theatre director, former folk singer and television presenter. Early life and education Arthur was born in Oxford, England. At the age of nine, she won ...

; husband and wife

Eric Thompson Eric Norman Thompson (9 November 1929 – 30 November 1982) was an English actor, scriptwriter and stage director. He is best remembered for creating and performing the English narration for ''The Magic Roundabout'', which he adapted from ...

and Phyllida Law; Italian model and actor Marla Landi; and ''

Balamory ''Balamory'' is a Scottish live-action children's programme on CBeebies for pre-school children, about a fictional small island community off the west coast of Scotland, named ''Balamory''. Four series were produced from 2002 to 2005 by BBC Sco ...

'' producer Brian Jameson.

Don Spencer Donald Richard Spencer (born 22 March 1937) is an Australian singer-songwriter, musician, and former children's television presenter. He had a long tenure as a host on ''Play School'' on both the Play School (Australian TV series), Australian ...

and Diane Dorgan also appeared on the Australian version. ''Play School'' and another BBC children's television programme ''

Jackanory ''Jackanory'' was a BBC children's television series which was originally broadcast between 1965 and 1996. It was designed to stimulate an interest in Reading (activity), reading. The programme was first transmitted on 13 December 1965, and the ...

'' were sometimes recorded at

BBC Birmingham BBC Birmingham is one of the oldest regional arms of the BBC, located in Birmingham. It was the first region outside London to start broadcasting both the corporation's radio (in 1922) and television (in 1949) transmissions, the latter from t ...

BBC Manchester BBC Manchester (often known as BBC Salford) is the BBC's regional headquarters for the north west of England, the largest BBC region in the UK. BBC Manchester is a department of the BBC North Group division. The BBC considers the Manchester de ...

when

BBC Television Centre Television Centre (TVC), formerly known as BBC Television Centre, is a building complex in White City, London, White City, West London, which was the headquarters of BBC Television from 1960 to 2013, when BBC Television moved to Broadcasting H ...

in London was busy.

Contents of the show

A section of each episode was a filmed excursion into the outside world taken through one of three windows: the young viewers were invited to guess whether the round, square, or arched window would be chosen that day, usually by means of the phrase, "...Have a look – through the....(whichever) window". A triangular window was added in 1983. Very often the film would be of a

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

producing something such as chocolate biscuits, or of a domestic industry such as refuse collection, but a number of subject matters were covered, such as watching animals or fish, boats on a lake, children in a playground or at school, a family going tenpin bowling, people in a café and visiting a

jumble sale A jumble sale (UK), bring and buy sale (Australia, also UK) or rummage sale (US and Canada) is an event at which second hand goods are sold, usually by an institution such as a local Boys' Brigade, Boys' Brigade Company, Scouting, Scout group, ...

, among other things. At the beginning of the 1983 revamp, the windows were now referred to as "shapes" as in "let's have a look through one of the shapes...". After the shapes were moved to a spinning disc, the programme went back to using windows which resembled those used in the late 70s, albeit with the addition of the triangular window. Whenever they were shown now, only the window that the show was using for the day would be on the set. Each episode would also include a short story read from a book, introduced by checking the time on a clock. Normally the clock would show either an hour or a half hour and the young viewers were asked, "Can you tell what time the clock says today? Well, the long hand is pointing straight up, so that means it's something o'clock – and the short hand is pointing to the number...two (or whatever). So today, the clock says, two...o'...clock" (the latter phrase always delivered very slowly). This was followed by, "But what's underneath the clock?", and viewers would then see a turntable under the clock featuring certain items such as toy animals or clocks, which were, in a clever twist, always a clue to the forthcoming story. This was all accompanied by a slightly eerie, yet undeniably catchy, clock-like tune. (On one occasion, the item under the clock turned out to be none other than Little Ted, so the presenter concerned said, "What a very odd place for a toy to be!" and the story appropriately turned out to be about odd things.) Both the clock and the three window option live on in the children's programme '' Tikkabilla'', which borrows much from ''Play School'', while a similar choice of portal into a film clip was provided by the abdomen-mounted video displays in the children's show ''

Teletubbies ''Teletubbies'' is a British children's television series created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport for the BBC. The programme focuses on four differently coloured characters known as the Teletubbies, named after the television screens on t ...

''. Most of the programmes were studio-based, but there were a number of outside broadcasts at a variety of locations, such as zoos, seasides, central London, churches, schools and farms. There would also be songs, games, poems and stories, as well as regular painting and craft activities. The presenters would frequently invite the younger viewers to participate at home, usually by means of the prompt, 'Can you do that?' They normally signed off at the end of each episode by saying, "Time for us to go now, but only until tomorrow, so goodbye until tomorrow" – or, at the end of a week, "Goodbye, until it's our turn to be here again". (The latter phrase stemmed from the fact that the presenters changed from one week to the next.) From 1971 to 1984, ''Play School'' also had a sister programme called ''

Play Away ''Play Away'' is a British television children's programme. A sister programme to the infants' series '' Play School'', it was aimed at slightly older children. It ran from 1971 until 1984, and was broadcast on Saturday afternoons on BBC 2.Alis ...

''. Many

2 inch Quadruplex videotape 2-inch quadruplex videotape (also called 2" quad video tape or quadraplex) was the first practical and commercially successful analog recording video tape format. The format uses magnetic tape and was developed and released for the broadcast t ...

master copies of ''Play School'' editions were wiped by the

in 1993 on the assumption that they were of no further use and that only a small number of episodes needed to be retained in the archive. As a result 3664 went missing. On 14 October, 2024, the Film Is Fabulous project announced that they had recovered an episode of the show, namely the black-and-white episode first broadcast on 12th August, 1965, with presenters Marian Diamond and Rick Jones. the recovery of the episode is aptly timed as the show was celebrating its 60th anniversary. This brought the number of episodes missing down to 3663.

Overseas sales and adoption

''Play School'' was sold to Australia, and was then followed by local production. The Australian version has been produced since 1966, and is the only version still in production. Similarly New Zealand bought the programme before producing their own from 1972 to 1982 & 1986 to 1989. The Canadian adaptation was '' Polka Dot Door'' and ran from 1971 to 1993. Other countries including '' Lekestue'' in Norway (1971–81), ''Das Spielhaus'' in Switzerland (1968–1994), ''Das Kleine Haus'' in Austria (1969–1975), ''Giocagiò'' in Italy (1966–1970), ''La Casa Del Reloj'' in Spain (1971–74), and Israel were provided with scripts and film segments so they could produce their own versions.

Presenters

The first show was presented by Virginia Stride and

Gordon Rollings Gordon Charles Rollings (17 April 1926 – 7 June 1985) was an English actor who mainly appeared on television, but also appeared on-stage, radio and in feature films. Biography He was born in Batley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Engla ...

. Other presenters throughout the 24-year run included *Only four of these presenters presented the programme during all three decades of its existence, namely Brian Cant (1964–85), Carol Chell (1966–88), Johnny Ball (1967–84 & 1986–87) and

Chloe Ashcroft Chloe Ashcroft (born 7 July 1942) is a British actress and a former presenter of several BBC children's TV programmes, including '' Play School'', ''Play Away'', ''Hokey-Cokey'', ''Excuse Me'', ''All Change'', and ''Pie in the Sky''. She also ap ...

(1969–88). Chell was both the longest-serving presenter and the one who made the most appearances on the programme (763 in total). In addition, two regular presenters from the 1960s and 1970s, namely Lionel Morton and

Colin Jeavons Colin Abel Jeavons (born 20 October 1929) is a British retired actor and TV presenter. He is known for his character roles and has worked in theatre, television and film, especially in literary adaptations and roles related to the works of Char ...

, made a few guest appearances on the programme during the 1980s. Other presenters who were on the programme for 10 or more years included Julie Stevens,

Derek Griffiths Derek Griffiths (born 15 July 1946) is a British actor, singer and voice artist who appeared in numerous British children's television series in the 1970s to present and has more recently played parts in television drama. Career Griffiths was ...

, Fred Harris,

, Sarah Long,

Floella Benjamin Floella Karen Yunies Benjamin, Baroness Benjamin (born 23 September 1949), is a Trinidadian-British actress, singer, presenter, author and politician. She is known as presenter of children's programmes such as ''Play School (British TV series), ...

, Stuart McGugan and Carol Leader.*Paul R Jackson ''Here's A House – A Celebration of Play School'
Kaleidoscope
**Volume 1 (2010) **Volume 2 (2011) In many cases five programmes would be produced in the space of two days, with one day of rehearsal and one day of recording.

Celebrity storytellers

A number of famous people also appeared on the show as storytellers: many became semi-regulars. They included:

Val Doonican Michael Valentine 'Val' Doonican (3 February 1927 – 1 July 2015) was an Irish singer of traditional pop, easy listening and novelty songs, noted for his warm and relaxed vocal style. A crooner, he found popular success, especially in t ...

, Richard Baker,

Rolf Harris Rolf Harris (30 March 1930 – 10 May 2023) was an Australian musician, television personality, painter, and actor. He used a variety of instruments in his performances, notably the didgeridoo and the Stylophone, and is credited with the inventi ...

, Clive Dunn,

Roy Castle Roy Castle (31 August 1932 – 2 September 1994) was an English dancer, singer, comedian, actor, television presenter and musician. An accomplished jazz trumpet player, he could also play many other instruments. In a career as a versatile perfo ...

Pat Coombs Patricia Doreen Coombs (27 August 1926 – 25 May 2002) was an English actress. She specialised in the portrayal of the eternal downtrodden female, comically under the thumb of stronger personalities. She was known for many roles on radio, ...

David Kossoff David Kossoff (24 November 1919 – 23 March 2005) was a British actor. In 1954 he won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for his appearance as Geza Szobek in '' The Young Lovers''. He played Alf Larkin in TV sit ...

, Patricia Hayes,

Sam Kydd Samuel John Kydd (15 February 1915 – 26 March 1982) was a British actor. Most of his film roles were very small but he appeared in more than 290 films, more than any other British actor, including 119 between 1946 and 1952. His best-known ro ...

, James Blades,

Frank Windsor Frank Windsor Higgins (12 July 1928 – 30 September 2020), known professionally as Frank Windsor, was an English actor, primarily known for his roles on television, especially policeman John Watt in ''Z-Cars'' and its spin-offs. Early life Wi ...

Roy Kinnear Roy Mitchell Kinnear (8 January 1934 – 20 September 1988) was an English character actor and comedian. He was known for his acting roles in movies such as Henry Salt in the 1971 film ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'', Algernon in The Be ...

, George Chisholm,

Ted Moult Edward Walker Moult (11 February 1926 – 3 September 1986) was a British farmer at Scaddows Farm near Ticknall, Derbyshire, who became a radio and television personality. Early life Moult was born on 11 February 1926 in Derby. He left D ...

and

Cilla Black Priscilla Maria Veronica White (27 May 1943 – 1 August 2015), better known as Cilla Black, was an English singer and television presenter. Championed by her friends the Beatles, Black began her career as a singer in 1963. Her singles "A ...

. Both existing and former ''Play School'' presenters also frequently made guest appearances as storytellers.

Musicians

Many musicians worked on the programme over the years: they included Jonathan Cohen, William Blezard, Peter Gosling, Alan Grahame,

Paul Reade Paul Geoffrey Reade (10 January 1943 – 7 June 1997) was an English composer. Born in Liverpool, he studied piano and composition (1962-1965) at the Royal Academy of Music with Alan Richardson and worked at English National Opera as a ''rép ...

Spike Heatley Brian John Heatley (17 February 1933 – 10 November 2021), better known as Spike Heatley, was a British jazz double bassist. Early life Heatley was born in Muswell Hill, North London in February 1933. Career He appeared with Vic Ash's sextet ...

, Alan Rushton, Pedro Goble,

Anne Dudley Anne Jennifer Dudley (née Beckingham; born 7 May 1956) is an English composer, keyboardist, conductor and pop musician. She was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in the classical and pop genre ...

, John Gould,

Martin Yates Martin Yates (born in London) is a British conductor. After attending Kimbolton School, he studied at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music, London, where his teachers included Bernard Keeffe (conducting), Richard Arnell (co ...

, Peter Pontzen and Peter Pettinger. Some of them, in particular Cohen, Gosling, Grahame and Reade, occasionally appeared on camera, especially during Christmas editions.

Toys

The presenters were accompanied by a supporting cast of cuddly toys and dolls. The five regulars were: * Humpty, a dark green large egg-shaped soft toy with tweed trousers, to look like

Humpty Dumpty Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle, and is typically portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg, though he is not explicitly described as such. The first recorded versions of the rhyme date from ...

from the nursery rhyme, as he was the first ''Play School'' toy introduced, since the first programme on 21 April 1964. Several versions were made. * Teddy/Big Ted and Little Ted, twin

teddy bears A teddy bear, or simply a teddy, is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. The teddy bear was named by Morris Michtom after the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt; it was developed apparently simultaneously in the first deca ...

. Little Ted debuted in 1968. Before this, Big Ted was called "Teddy". * Jemima, a

rag doll A rag doll is a doll made from scraps of fabric. They are one of the oldest children's toys in existence. Today, many rag dolls are commercially produced to mimic aspects of the original home-made dolls, such as simple features, soft cloth bodies, ...

with long red (or pink) and white striped legs. * Hamble was a little doll and one of the original five toys but dropped from the show during the 1980s to be replaced by Poppy. According to Joy Whitby, creator of ''Play School'', Hamble was chosen as representative of a more "downtrodden", humble background than the "

middle-class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Commo ...

" associations that the teddy bears had. She was disliked by presenters as she could not be cuddled.''The Reunion: Play School''

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

, 19 September 2010 on

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...

According to the BBC website Chloe Ashcroft "did a terrible thing to Hamble. She just would not sit up...so one day I got a very big knitting needle, a big wooden one, and I stuck it right up her bum, as far as her head. So she was completely rigid, and she was much much better after that". * Poppy, a black doll, replaced Hamble in November 1986 in response to changing attitudes in society (the Hamble doll was also getting rather fragile at this point). A

rocking horse __NOTOC__ A rocking horse is a child's toy, usually shaped like a horse and mounted on rockers similar to a rocking chair. There are two sorts, the one where the horse part sits rigidly attached to a pair of curved rockers that are in contact wit ...

named Dapple, for Jeremy Bentham's horse, was first seen in May 1965 and made occasional appearances, when a particular song or item suggested it. The final line up of toys are on display as exhibits of the

National Science and Media Museum The National Science and Media Museum (formerly The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1983–2006 and then the National Media Museum, 2006–2017), located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum G ...

, Bradford. The original Humpty was developed by soft toy makers "Ostrobogulous Toys", run by Kristin Baybars—daughter of

Blair Hughes-Stanton Blair Rowlands Hughes-Stanton (22 February 1902 – 6 June 1981) was a major figure in the English wood-engraving revival in the twentieth century. He was the son of the artist Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton. He exhibited with the Society of Woo ...

and Ida Affleck Graves—and Minnie King. Jemima was made by Annette Shelley.Adrian Baldwin (2020
More on Ostrobogulous Toys
blog post, 7 July 2020.

Pets

* Katoo, Charlie and Sparky –

cockatoo A cockatoo is any of the 21 species of parrots belonging to the family Cacatuidae, the only family in the superfamily Cacatuoidea. Along with the Psittacoidea ( true parrots) and the Strigopoidea (large New Zealand parrots), they make up t ...

* Bit and Bot –

goldfish The goldfish (''Carassius auratus'') is a freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae of the order Cypriniformes. It is commonly kept as a pet in indoor aquariums, and is one of the most popular aquarium fish. Goldfish released into the w ...

Rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

s, including Buffy, Mopsy, Peter, Benjamin and Becky. *

Mice A mouse (: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

Guinea pigs The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy ( ), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus ''Cavia'', family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the name "cavy" for the animal, but "gui ...

including Lizzy The pets were cared for by Wendy Duggan, Fellow of the Zoological Society.Bob Chaund
Obituary: Wendy Duggan
''The Guardian'', 4 March 2012

Notes

References

*''25 Minutes Peace – Celebrating Play School'' (BBC TV programme, 1979) *Paul R Jackson, ''Here's A House – A Celebration of Play School'
Kaleidoscope
**Volume 1 (2010) **Volume 2 (2011)

External links

* * - (Archived BBC Cult page) * {{Teddy bears, state=collapsed 1964 British television series debuts 1988 British television series endings 1960s British children's television series 1970s British children's television series 1980s British children's television series British television shows featuring puppetry BBC children's television shows Lost BBC episodes British children's musical groups British preschool education television series 1960s preschool education television series 1970s preschool education television series 1980s preschool education television series British English-language television shows Television series by BBC Studios