Jackanory
Jackanory began in 1965 as a short-term experiment. In
1990 it celebrated its 25th birthday. During that 25 years more
than 650 books had been read, 400 well-known actors and actresses
had appeared and there had been folk tales and legends from 44
different countries.
The idea behind the program was simple: to tell the best
possible stories, of all kinds from all parts of the world, and to
have them told by the best story-tellers available.
When Jackanory started it was quite difficult to find
story-tellers who wanted to participate. Nobody was very
interested. But by the time of its 25th birthday, the roll call of
story-tellers was like a distinguished 'who's who' of the British
theatre: Margaret Rutherford, Wendy Hiller, James Robertson
Justice, Kenneth Williams, Geraldine McEwan, Joyce Grenfell, Judi
Dench, Alan Bennett, Billie White law and many, many more.
There were also people from outside the world of the theatre,
especially in the late 60s. Bob Roberts, who had been the skipper
of a Thames sailing barge, told sea stories. Sir Compton MacKenzie
told Greek myths and legends. Edward Ardizzone told his own Little
Tim stories and Eileen Cowell, a librarian and an authority
on story-telling and children's literature, told English fairy
tales.
Wendy Wood, a fanatical Scottish Nationalist who believed in
fairies and who was a wonderful natural story-teller, told
Scottish traditional stories on a number of occasions.
Bernard Cribbins holds the record for appearing the most times
between 1966 and 1992. He took part in 111 programs. The late
Kenneth Williams followed him with 69 programs between 1969 and
1986.
Williams' ability to create a range of varied and wonderful
voices and facial expressions made him a firm favourite. He had
been loath to accept the first offer he was made as he believed it
involved wearing a special Jackanory hat!
Most Jackanory story-tellers used an autocue system to
read the script without appearing to do so. Some purists felt this
was cheating, but 14 minutes of text is a lot to memorise and two
programs were often recorded in one session. Still, some readers
could not use autocue, or chose not to.
Wendy Hiller, who read Alsion Uttley's Little Grey
Rabbit stories in the second week of Jackanory, was
too short-sighted to see the autocue. She had the script typed in
jumbo type and stuck into a false book.
Although Jackanory started in a very simple style it
soon became more elaborate, involving proper sets and complicated
props and effects. The stories have been presented in everything
from a bare studio to one filled with packs of dogs (Judi Dench's
reading of Phillippa Pearce's A Dog So Small) and in 1988,
Rik Mayall's anarchic reading of Roald Dahl's anti-adult George's
Marvellous Medicine (which concentrates on George's
attempts to get rid of his granny) caused a storm of mail to the
BBC .
When it started in the 1960s its detractors said it would
discourage kids from reading. The opposite was true. If a story
was told on Jackanory it encouraged kids to read the book
and maybe read more by the same author.
The stories were generally illustrated with pictures drawn by
distinguished illustrators including Quentin Blake, Gareth Floyd
and Barry Wilkinson. Sometimes film inserts were used and
sometimes there were no pictures at all, for instance in the
original telling of Ted Hughes' The Iron Man
by Denholm Elliott in 1972. It was told again in 1986 by Tom
Baker.
As well as reading established stories, Jackanory has
commissioned new work. Two memorable characters created for the
program were John Grant's 'Little Nose' - a baby wooly mammoth,
and Joan Aiken's 'Mortimer' - a furniture-eating raven.
In 1972 a sister series of short plays, The Jackanory
Playhouse, was introduced and in 1983 an original Jackanory
creation, Joan Eadington's Johnny Briggs, was spun
off to a series of his own.
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