Mr Benn and the lost art of the TV repeat
CHILDREN’S television no longer offers young viewers the reassurance of repetition, according to the creator of classic show Mr Benn.
Small children like to hear the same bedtime story again and again and the same rule applies to television, according to David McKee, but modern animation is too frenetic and keen to offer something different in every episode. Mr Benn, nn, which began in 1971 followed a reassuringly familiar pattern in each episode: after leaving his terrace house at 52 Festive Road, Mr Benn would visit the costume shop with its shopkeeper who appeared “as if by magic”.
There was a short adventure – as a pirate, caveman, knight or zookeeper – before Mr Benn returned to the shop, changed back into his suit and bowler hat, and went home. Only 13 episodes were ever made, but they were repeated on the BBC twice a year for two decades and became one of Britain’s best loved shows. Preparing a display of some of his original illustrations in an exhibition marking Mr Benn’s 50th anniversary, McKee said: “Children wanted the same story repeated. Now series have to be very big to avoid repetition, and I think that’s an error for very young children. And the speed of things which I’ve seen – some of it is even too fast for me.” McKee, 82, said Mr Benn would not get made today. His exhibition, 50 Years of Mr Be Benn, runs at The Illustrationc tioncupboard Gallery in St Jame James’s, London, from Aug 16 to S Sept 16. McKee says the shopk shopkeeper was based on a man in Plymouth, where he went to art school. “There was a small second-hand shop, very dusty, veryv dirty. I went in once and thereth was nobody there and th then suddenly there was some somebody – and he did appear as if by magic. But he absolute lutely wasn’t interested in sel selling. The shop was obviou ously a front for something.”