Move over Topsy and Tim, here comes CBeebies’ inner-city crew
CBEEBIES is launching a new drama for pre-schoolers set on an inner-city council estate in a deliberate move beyond the white middle-class world of Topsy and Tim.
Apple Tree House features a multiracial cast and begins with a boy, Mali, moving to the estate and making friends with a girl called Sam.
In the first episode, Mali goes on a mission with his grandmother, Grandma Zainab, to borrow mangoes from the neighbours. Further episodes see the two best friends and another girl, Bella, embark on a series of adventures within the estate.
It was filmed around a real housing estate and community centre in Tower Hamlets, one of London’s most deprived boroughs, where around a third of the population is of Bangladeshi origin. Aamir Tai and Miranda Sarfo Peprah, the children who play Mali and Sam, had no prior acting experience and were found after the production team auditioned via local schools, community groups and social media.
The show’s setting and ethnic makeup of the cast make Apple Tree House very different from the two existing real-life dramas on CBeebies, Topsy
and Tim and Katie Morag. The former
is based on the Sixties books by Jean and Gareth Adamson and set in middle-class suburbia. Katie Morag takes place on a fictional Scottish island and is filmed on the Isle of Lewis.
“The urban setting is important for a lot of children. When you’re a child you do read stories and they are a bit idealistic – this will be more real and more authentic,” said Kay Benbow, controller of CBeebies.
Apple Tree House was initially pitched as an animated series by William Vanderpuye, Maria Timotheou and Akindele Akinsiku, the team that provided voices for the CBeebies show
Rastamouse. “It is based on their experiences of growing up in the UK in a positive community,” Benbow said.
The first of 30 episodes will go out on May 22 and a second series has been ordered. Benbow said: “Even before it has been transmitted I recommissioned the series, which I hardly ever do, because I felt it was so different and doing something absolutely lovely.”