SFX

Clangers, Bag puss & Co

Oliver’s Army

- Jayne Nelson

opening dates UNTIL 9 OCTOBER ( 10.00- 17.45) Admission price Free! Venue V& A Museum Of Childhood

There’s no more fitting home for the works of Oliver Postgate than Bethnal Green’s Museum Of Childhood, a warehouse filled with toys from past and present and boundless memories to match. Postgate and partner Peter Firmin ran Small films, a studio in a former pig shed that gave us such delights as The Clangers, Noggin The Nog, Bagpuss and Ivor The Engine.

When you walk into the corner of the museum housing this temporary and also tiny ( its only downside) exhibition, it’s a surprise to discover how small the stars of these shows actually were, given that they seem to take up such huge swathes of our childhoods. Ivor’s driver, Jones the Steam, is nothing more than a selection of drawings of heads, arms and legs; the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ is less cathedral, more bird box; the Soup Dragon is more of a Soup Newt.

After you’ve goggled at the familiar faces you or your kids can learn behind- the- scenes trivia – there are scripts, cameras and even the chance to create your own stopmotion Ivor using an iPad. However, nothing beats the joy of being face- to- whiskers with that saggy old cloth cat, Bagpuss.

A town in Ivor is named “Llanmad” – “damn all” backwards, inspired by “Llareggub” in Under Milk Wood.

 ??  ?? Moments before death by Soup Dragon.
Moments before death by Soup Dragon.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia