In the Night Garden... is a British preschool children's television series created, written and composed by Teletubbies co-creator Andrew Davenport for CBeebies and BBC Two and produced by Ragdoll Worldwide, a joint venture of Ragdoll Productions and BBC Worldwide. The show was aimed at children aged from one to six years old. The programme is narrated by Derek Jacobi. It is filmed in live action and features a mix of actors in costume, stop motion, puppetry and CGI animation.
Production Andrew Davenport stated in an interview with The Guardian that the key inspiration for the series was his own dream world as a child. This started coming into place in 2004 when Davenport created sketches for the characters of Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka. The series would go on to be publicly announced a year later, and filming would eventually start in March 2005.
Chroma key sets would be constructed for use on the show. Backdrops would be used as well and would come in the form of a modified video of an actual forest. The show was filmed at Smatchley Wood, a private forest located in Warwickshire, England. Hundreds of props would be built too: the majority were spherical flowers resembling pom-poms as well as several types of oversized oval-shaped stones.
The constant usage of gigantic inflatable structures, hundreds of props, expensive chroma key, heavy costumes and radio controlled vehicles meant for an estimated amount of £145,000 per episode.
Overview The show features a large cast of colourful characters with unusual names who live in a magical forest scattered with large daisies and brightly coloured flowers. The characters mostly speak short and repetitive phrases and each one has its special song and dance. The garden is a sunny and colourful environment and the music is jaunty and music box-like. According to Wood:
Each episode starts with a shot of a night sky with the stars appearing, followed by a shot of a child in bed while the narrator introduces the programme's episode. The scene then cuts to Igglepiggle in his boat, getting ready to travel to the Night Garden whilst the theme music plays. The camera pans up to the night sky, followed by brightly coloured flowers. Then, we see Igglepiggle going to the gazebo to meet his friends. Afterwards, the title appears on a bush, and either the Ninky Nonk or the Pinky Ponk appears.
The episodes end with the Tittifers singing their song, and then one character gets ready to go to sleep. At the same time, they hear a bedtime story, which is generated by the magical gazebo that sits at the centre of the Night Garden. This story is a summary of the plot of the episode. Sometimes, the characters all dance together under the Gazebo. Then, we see all the characters except for Igglepiggle going to sleep while Igglepiggle delivers his goodbye sequence. Then, the theme music plays as the Night Garden turns and retreats into the night sky, and Igglepiggle is seen asleep on his boat as the end credits roll over.
In the Night Garden... is intended to help children relax and achieve calming relationships with their parents. Producer Anne Wood also states, "We became very aware of the anxiety surrounding the care of young children which manifested itself in all kinds of directions, but the one big subject that came up, again and again, was bedtime. It's the classical time for tension between children who want to stay up and parents who want them to go to bed. So this is a programme about calming things down whereas most children's TV is about getting everything up."
In 2007 and 2008, the show won the Children's BAFTA for "Pre-School Live-Action;" it was also nominated for the award in 2009.
Characters The Narrator (voiced by Derek Jacobi) is a voice who can often be heard describing the day-to-day activities of the Night Garden as they happen. Though they never physically appear in the show, all the other inhabitants of the Night Garden are aware of them and will usually respond whenever they speak to them. They are featured in every episode. They tell the characters what to do and sing along to a character's song when they're introduced into the episode. Igglepiggle (played by Nick Kellington) is a blue teddy bear-like creature with a bean-shaped head, a doll-like nose, a sideways red mohawk and average-sized legs. He always carries his red blanket and tends to fall flat on his back when surprised. He is the main character of the show but not featured in all episodes. He arrives in the Night Garden at the beginning of each episode and leaves the Night Garden at the end of each episode in a boat-like bed for himself, for which the blanket doubles and serves as a sail. Igglepiggle does not speak, but he has a bell in his left foot, a squeaker in his tummy and a rattle in his hands. His best friends in the garden are Upsy Daisy, Makka Pakka and the Tombliboos. He is the only character to walk on the Stepping Stone Path and in the Garden and the only character to ride in two carriages of the Ninky Nonk. He sleeps on his boat. Igglepiggle is not a full-time resident of the Garden but a visitor; the garden exists in Igglepiggle's dream. Upsy Daisy (played by Rebecca Hyland) is a rag doll-like creature, with a brown skin colour, a chime in her tummy and brightly coloured clothes. She likes walking through the Garden and blowing kisses to the other characters or the audience. She often hugs and kisses other characters, particularly Igglepiggle. Her catchphrases are "Upsy Daisy", the more emphatic "Daisy Doo!" and additionally "Pip pip onk onk!", which is her way of saying goodbye. Her hair stands on end when excited or surprised and her skirt inflates to a tutu when she dances or pulls the ripcord on her waist. Upsy Daisy loves to sing, especially through her megaphone. Usually, when she kisses Igglepiggle, Igglepiggle kisses back. In Davenport's earliest sketch of the character, her face was more of a flower-like shape. Makka Pakka (played by Justyn Towler) is a beige, small, doll-like creature. He has three rounded protuberances on his head, ears and tail to represent stones that he uses to make piles. He lives in a rock cave and likes cleaning things, such as his collection of stacking stones and the other characters' faces. He often stacks freshly cleaned stones into piles resembling his head and body. He sleeps in and on a brightly coloured sleeping stone bag bed, often cuddling a stone as a toy. He travels around the garden with his trolley, the Og-Pog, which carries: his sponge, soap, red/orange trumpet and a bellows-like apparatus device called "the Uff-Uff" which he uses to dry items after cleaning them. His house is approached by a stone-walled ditch, as his home is half-buried in the ground. The Tombliboos are a trio of three cute doll-like creatures who are all dressed in costumes with stripes and spots: red and green, brown and pink and pink and yellow. Their names phonetically reflect how a young child might count to 3 and the Tombliboos always appear in this order by saying their names. They live among the branches of a bush, playing on a series of platforms connected by stairs and chutes; the platforms occasionally tilt when the Tombliboos jump on them as seen in "The Tombliboos Clean Their Teeth". The Tombliboos enjoy playing the drums and the piano, and they also play with large building blocks. When the Tombliboos feel sad, they play "sad" music on their piano. Their trousers (which fall down unexpectedly) are often seen hanging on the washing line outside their home and they usually take them down from the line and wear them before going out. They are sometimes seen brushing their teeth before bed. The Tombliboos enjoy kissing each other whilst cuddling and reciting their names. The Pontipines (red) and The Wottingers (blue) are ten tiny wooden figurine doll-like families (a mother and a father plus four boys and four girls). They have high-pitched voices and live in a semi-detached house at the foot of a tree. The Pontipines appear in most episodes, while the Wottingers' appearances are rare, although they are featured more in Series 2. Mr. Pontipine wears a self-adhesive fake moustache which, in the case of one episode, has an unorthodox tendency of flying off and attaching itself to places around the garden. Mrs. Pontipine carries a pair of binoculars to keep an eye on their children. The Haahoos are five latex pillow or balloon-like creatures who roam about the garden at a leisurely pace. The purple Haahoo is shaped like a jellybean or stemless pear decorated with yellow flowers. The blue Haahoo has cyan spots with red outlines, and it is shaped like the letter X. The orange Haahoo is shaped like a flower, with multi-coloured petals. The yellow Haahoo with red, orange and blue spots is shaped like a star. The red and blue/checkered Haahoo is ball-shaped, with checkered red and blue/white diamonds. The Haahoos appear in the main body of an episode as 10 ft inflatables, but behind the gazebo during general dance sequences as CGI replicas. They are also seen going to sleep, closing their eyes and deflating slightly. They make boinging and squishing noises when moving. The Haahoos are held by wires to keep them standing upright. The Tittifers are a bunch of animated tropical birds with unique songs. There are four small blue tittifers (rufous-crowned laughingthrushes), three larger pink ones (hoopoes), two big green ones (white-cheeked turacos) and one Channel-billed toucan. The Ninky Nonk is a trackless train with five differently sized and shaped carriages. Its size is non-Euclidean: exterior shots of the moving Ninky Nonk show a toy-sized train, quite small compared to the main characters and scenery, while interiors and static exterior shots are done on sets or with life-sized models so that the characters can easily fit inside. When it is moving, the seat-belted passengers jerk sharply in their seats. Bells and green lights warn everyone inside when the Ninky Nonk is ready to leave or when it is stopping. The Ninky Nonk can stop on hills and can stop in a straight line. It also stops outside the character's houses sometimes (mostly for the Pontipines and Tombliboos). It is also able to drive up and down trees and upside-down along branches (albeit mostly for the Pontipines and Wottingers) and also round and round the branches on occasion. The engine is banana-shaped with a green flashing light on top and is followed by a green spheroidal carriage used by the Tombliboos and Makka Pakka, a tiny house-like carriage used by the Pontipines and Wottingers, a blue rectangular carriage used by Upsy Daisy and Igglepiggle when he is travelling with Upsy Daisy, and a tall, rounded single-seater carriage used by Igglepiggle when he is travelling alone. All the carriages have lights on top that flash in sequence when the Ninky Nonk is stationary. The Pinky Ponk is a zeppelin which glides in the air, providing aerial views of the garden for all those on board. It is coloured a bright turquoise and is decorated with an abundance of pink, orange and yellow speckles on each side. The "cockpit" contains multiple small tables with Pinky Ponk juice for each character to drink on their journey and are surrounded by small stones acting as stools. at the front is a huge window for them to look out of and enjoy the spectacular views of the Night Garden.
Episodes
Gazebo Problem Solving Pictures In some episodes, when a problem needs solving, the gazebo spins and chooses a picture until it finds one associated to a solution that will solve the problem.
"Episode 8: Igglepiggle's Blanket in Makka Pakka's Ditch" – Igglepiggle's Blanket and Makka Pakka Blowing His Trumpet. "Episode 9: The Ninky Nonk Wants a Kiss" – All 6 things that Upsy Daisy kissed, then it finally ends with the Ninky Nonk, to tell Upsy Daisy that the Ninky Nonk wanted a kiss. This is the only episode where the gazebo lands on a picture more than once.