Yesterday, the BBC announced the
return of children’s TV series Play School after 38 years. The news prompted me to look out the piece I wrote in 2019 for the magazine
TV Years (from the team behind
TV Choice), in which I interviewed series creator Joy Whitby and presenters Carol Chell and Carol Leader. I grew up on
Play School and wanted to know what it and they had done to me...
With the kind permission of editor Graham Kibble-White, here it is as published, including the pages designed so beautifully by Richard Atkinson.
Ready to play?
Generations of children grew up with Play School – but what were they learning? We spoke to original producer Joy Whitby and presenters Carol Chell and Carol Leader
INTERVIEWS BY SIMON GUERRIER
(originally published in
TV Years #4 —
Classic Children’s Television (2019), pp. 70-73)
Joy Whitby: ‘We were pioneers’
‘Are you an exhausted parent of a child under the age of five?’ asked Radio Times in April 1964. ‘If so, Play School may be just what you are looking for.’ The programme would, it promised, ‘use all the advantages of television to do the job of a nursery school in its own exciting way,’ and children would ‘benefit from the leading authorities on nursery education.’ Parents were assured the presenters were, ‘young and resourceful men and women, most of them with children of their own.’
If today that sounds rather worthy, Play School was revolutionary for its time. ‘Yes, we were pioneers,’ says creator and first producer Joy Whitby. ‘I started my career in radio, on the children’s programme Listen With Mother. I learned a lot from that, and then from having to write a report on Watch With Mother, which consisted mainly of puppet shows such as Andy Pandy and The Woodentops, all on film. My report was fairly critical, because there was no new thinking going into these programmes. They had that “kindergarten smile” approach, which tended to talk down to children, like saying, “puff puff” instead of “train”. The nanny we had at home talked to my boys as grown-ups from the start, and I’d seen how that helped their development.’
Joy’s insights impressed Michael Peacock, BBC2’s newly appointed Head of Programmes. ‘He also had small sons and was very aware of the dearth of nursery education for children under five. He allocated 25 minutes from Monday to Friday to serve this audience and wanted somebody to devise the programming. I was lucky to get the job.’
‘I was really starting from scratch,’ Joy admits. ‘I went to the government office overseeing young children’s education, and they directed me to Nancy Quayle, who became our consultant – everyone knew her as “Q”. She was an ex-teacher and very knowledgeable about learning through play, though the title, Play School, preceded her. Then I got Marjorie Fisher, who was an expert on picture books, and Wendy Duggan was an expert supplier of animals – I remember her house was full of birds in cages. I didn’t want to say, “I’ve got children so I know all about it.” But of course, I knew what had worked with my own, like opening up an old clock or melting soap into water to create a kind of bubble bath with a straw. All those sorts of things from personal experience I fed into the programme.’
Joy’s sons weren’t the only family members to influence Play School. ‘My husband also worked for the BBC on a programme called Tonight – sort of the forerunner of Newsnight. Cliff Michelmore famously presented that, but he was one of a team. So I set up an inter-changing roster of presenters for Play School, which had many advantages. It meant we weren’t dependent on any single person who might decide to leave, and there was built-in variety. We had the same two presenters Monday to Friday, then two more the following week. I was also keen they came from different backgrounds. Marla Landi was Italian and her English was sometimes rather broken, but her charm was what mattered. We also had one of the first black presenters for children – Paul Danquah, from Ghana.’
‘I looked for people who could bring different skills to the programme. Actor Brian Cant applied for an audition and was given a cardboard box and told to row out to sea. He improvised an imaginary fishing rod to catch an old boot full of custard. And he made you believe it, even as an adult. Then there was a play I went to because I thought an actress might be right for us. The audience was spellbound by someone else, a singer, so immediately afterwards I went backstage and asked him to be in Play School. That was Rick Jones, from Canada.’
Carol Chell: ‘People put their children in front of the television — we were known as “25 minutes’ peace”!’
Carol Chell was in the play Pink String And Ceiling Wax when she heard, via a friend who was going out with one of Play School’s directors, about auditions. Having improvised a hat out of napkins to be worn by doll Jemima, she was given the job and made her debut appearance on 28 February 1966.
‘My first week, I was on with Eric Thompson,’ Carol tells TV Years. ‘I was just out of theatre, so it was quite a shock to be in this tiny TV studio at Riverside [in London]. Of course, I’d learned all my lines but Eric didn’t look at his script and ad libbed away. Recording was stop and start, so that was OK, but in later years we had to do it with as few stops as possible and many times just went straight through as if it was live.’ She laughs. ‘That was a huge pill without autocue.’
Even so, Carol was with the programme for 22 years, appearing in 763 episodes – more than any other presenter. ‘Yes, it overtook me,’ she says. ‘I enjoyed it so much. I still did the odd bit of theatre but my love was for the children and this very special programme. We all adored doing it and I worked with some lovely guys – it was always a boy and girl presenting each week, but the next week you came in you were with a different boy. We had such fun, which I think came across on screen.’
Joy Whitby left Play School – and the BBC – in 1967, following Michael Peacock to London Weekend Television. The format of the programme was gently revised, losing the themed days such as dressing up on Tuesdays and pets on Wednesdays. What other changes did Carol see?
‘It was very low key to begin with,’ she says. ‘By the time I left, it was very glossy and slick, and I felt we were doing real performances – proper acting. But it was always charming, wasn’t it?’
She emphasises how much stayed the same over the years. ‘We always had that connection to the child watching: what Joy said, talking to children in an adult way with intelligence. Lots of young mums would come up and say, “You’ve taught me how to speak to my child!” There were no pre-school play groups when I started, and many parents were desperate for help. We showed them how to get the nursery rhymes and stories going. It helped when I had my own children!’
‘Of course,’ Carol continues, ‘we couldn’t rely on parents actually watching. A lot of people just put their child in front of the television – we were known as “25 minutes’ peace”! At one point, our producer told us to imagine we were talking to a child all alone at the top of a high-rise building. We could still make a connection, we could still involve them. “Why don’t you sing along?” I’d say, or, “You could do that, couldn’t you?”’
Does that mean Play School was ‘progressive’? She takes a moment. ‘I don’t know. I think we moved with the times. We certainly tried to be as diverse as possible – we’d cover Diwali, or have African storytellers come in, and later we replaced Hamble with a black doll, Poppy. And I did a course in Makaton, the sign language, and brought that into the programme. I’m very proud of that.’
Carol is also very proud of fellow presenter Floella Benjamin, who since leaving Play School has campaigned tirelessly for causes related to children and young people. ‘She’s our greatest ambassador,’ says Carol, ‘and that’s led to her being in the House of Lords. The stuffy old men there go jelly-kneed when they see her! And that helps her get things done – for children and for children’s television. She’s changing the world!’
Carol Leader: ‘Television can be cut-throat, but in’ Play School I was genuinely supported by other people
Carol Leader presented Play School between 1975 and 1988, and then, in the Nineties, trained as a psychotherapist. ‘I was in my early 40s, and less comfortable crawling around on the floor pretending to be a dragon,’ she explains. ‘I was also busy as an actor but as a result of being in therapy for some time, I was finding the roles I was given unfulfilling and wanted to do a job where I was myself – as my work in Play School had encouraged. Many actors go into therapy for their own personal reasons but also because the two worlds are not that different – actors are always trying to delve into their own inner world or think about different emotional landscapes for the parts they play. Personally, therapy started to pull me in a different direction. So I left acting behind.’
As a psychotherapist, can Carol explain how Play School affected the millions of young children who watched it over the years? She considers carefully. ‘I would have thought that I and the other presenters provided a relationship with each child watching that treated them as an equal, that was good fun, and encouraged and helped them to play – which is where all real learning comes from at that early age. We helped them play with toys, and to understand that they could sort out a problem by seeing how a toy dealt with it. Looking through the windows, we taught them about the real world outside.’
Carol says if she ever watches old episodes of Play School now, it seems very slow compared to modern TV. ‘But I think that was beneficial, too,’ she says. ‘A lot of children’s television today gives too easily and doesn’t invite the child to respond in return. We know, both educationally and therapeutically, that that’s important. Slowing things down creates an atmosphere that’s good for reflective thinking. Those supportive, creative experiences help to form a child’s inner world, which has a massive impact on character development. These things go very deep into a child’s psyche. If they go in in a good way, they become what in my trade we call a good “object” – held as a good experience that can help when times are more difficult, or just there as a good thing for the child. A child with bad objects or experience carries with them a very different internal world.’
So it’s little wonder that people who grew up watching Play School look back on it with such affection. ‘That’s right,’ says Carol. ‘I mean, I carry Play School in me, too. A lot of theatre and television jobs can be cut-throat and competitive, but I remember Play School as a really good experience – I was genuinely supported by other people, I felt they liked my work and that I had a contribution to make. So I hold it as a very good object. And there’s another thing in the theory: if you have a good enough experience, you don’t necessarily feel you want to hold on for ever. I got to a point in my life where I thought, ‘I’ve really loved this but I’m now getting too old.’ Play School was such a good experience I was able to leave it behind.’
See also:
