Sophie has been revisiting her past, thanks to BBC radio…
A couple of weeks ago, BBC Radio 4 Extra brought me up short with a magic memory. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. So I thought I would share.
For some readers of this blog, this will bring back memories of their own. I hope that, like mine, they will be good ones. Well, mostly.
But for most this will be a small vignette of a time that is past.
Before the Internet changed all our lives and habits. Before social media brought us infinite opportunities, along with monsters.
Come back with me, then, to a time before Twitter, X or Facebook. Before people walking down the street talking to themselves and/or staring at a small screen. Before widely accessible citizen journalism, Netflix and the billionaire broligarchy. (Pick your own monsters.)
Magic Radio
I’ve always been a radio girl and the BBC is the best of the best. I should declare an interest here. My affection for the BBC is engrained, since my mother worked there with enormous satisfaction for six life-transforming years. But, after listening widely to other English language broadcasts on my travels, I still think that BBC radio, at its best, is unbeatable.
Radio 4 Extra is the station which mines their phenomenal archive. And just occasionally offers new programmes about the Corporation’s history. And this month it gave me a wonderful present: Let’s Go Round Again.
The programme celebrates the 60th anniversary of a really short, really strange children’s television programme called Magic Roundabout. It aired from October 1965 to the late 70s. It became a classic, listened to, at its peak, by an audience of 8 million.
And what an audience! All ages, all genders (though actually there were only two recognised back then), rich, poor and all conditions in between. When I got to university, every Monday to Thursday evening we all crowded in to the JCR to watch Magic Roundabout. And we loved it.
Magic Roundabout Origins
It originated in France and was indeed called Le Manège Enchanté. It was a story about a toy roundabout and assorted toy characters. And when it arrived in England, an inspired BBC Head of Family Programmes, Doreen Stevens, invited Eric Thompson to narrate an English version. She was also the “inspired scheduler”, who decided to broadcast it just before the News, which pulled in all those different people.
NOTE this was a time when there was no repeat on demand.
If you wanted to see Magic Roundabout, you jolly well rushed home in order to do so. Later, someone, less inspired but possibly more politically correct, tried to broadcast it earlier, to fit in with children’s tea time. There was such an outcry from deprived adults that it went back to the original slot. Ah, those were the days.
Thompson, of whom more later, agreed. But he didn’t speak French, so he wrote his own words and, indeed, stories. Not to mention characters. The Magic Roundabout I loved, was wholly Eric Thompson’s creation, fired by those stop-motion little figures.
Magic Roundabout Characters
They were all clearly toys. But two were human-shaped — Florence, notionally a small girl who may or may not have owned the other toys, and Mr Rusty, who hardly appeared at all, even in the French version, and was notionally the owner of the magic roundabout itself.
I have the impression that Mr Thompson wasn’t much interested in ownership. The power struggles in the stories were all pretty much between equals.
Zebedee usually appeared to close down proceedings, though, with a twanging boy-oy-oying and “Time for bed!” This injunction the broadcaster obeyed. Not really clear whether the other toys did, to be honest.
Zebedee is generally described as a Jack-in-the-box. But I don’t remember seeing the box. Maybe he was homeless. His corkscrew spring was always much in evidence. (Of which also, more later.) Additionally, there were Brian the snail, a practical chap, man-in-the-street type who always looks on the bright side, in a practical, unsanctimonious way; Ermintrude, a kindly rather up-market cow, who calls people Dear Thing, and a dopey rabbit called Dylan (thank you, Bob!) whom Mr Thompson turned into one of the world’s hippies.
And Dougal
Ah, dear Dougal. He was allegedly a Skye terrier. Not at all the lively little playmate that dog lovers wourld recognise. Apart from the long hair he was unrecognisable. And in person, utterly frightful. Pompous, opinionated, irascible, hypochondriac, gloomy, dismissive, impatient, quarrelsome, entitled, endlessly getting the wrong end of the stick, never admitting he didn’t know something, much less could get anything wrong …
We adored him. Adults and children alike, Dougal, was Our Man. Mostly he was the one we quoted.
For instance — Dylan is feeling under the weather and Florence, in her frequent carer role, suggests beef tea.
Dylan is mildly interested. “Beef tea?” he asks, like someone considering an unfamiliar joint for the first time. “What’s in it?”
“Well,” says Dougal authoritatively, bustling about, “Beef. And – um – tea.”
Wikipedia, out and proud, calls Dougal the main character. At the time, it always seemed to me that Florence, peacemaker and voice of reason, was the protagonist. Maybe that was just because she looked human. But, even to me, Dougal was undoubtedly the sparkling Star in this universe.
Rumour had it that Mr Thompson based Dougal on the character inhabited by comedian Tony Hancock. If so, it does credit to all three.
Mr Thompson
You really need to listen to the radio programme to get a feeling for Our Author. His wife Phyllida Law, not the sort to be a fan girl, even about a much-loved life partner, one feels, says he was “exceedingly quiet and mysterious. So you wanted to poke him about a bit to see if he squeaked. And, lo – he did.”
She is no slouch in the National Treasure Stakes, with an OBE and a couple of Honorary Doctorates and several books to her name. (Any rumour that she was a model for Ermintrude, must surely be a fantasy.)
The radio programme also makes it absolutely clear that his daughters, 2nd generation National Treasures Emma (Sense and Sensibility etc.) and Sophie (a heartbreaking Miss Bates in Emma etc), completely ignored Mr Thompson’s authorial activities and, indeed, their international cultural significance.
Not so, one of my favourite and fighteningly well-informed film ciritics, Mark Kermode. He says that Dougal and the Blue Cat, an extended story produced by Serge Danot in France and, as usual, completely rewritten by Mr Thompson, is his favourite film. Kermode is convincing.
The film is, he says, unlike anything else he’s ever seen. He cites surreal sets, “like the Cabinet of Dr Caligari”, the nightmare sequences delivering the hallucinatory atmosphere of Hammer Films and “a fundamental, genetic level of Mary Poppins level of brilliance.”
A recent blog agrees, especially on Florence’s Sad Song — written and performed by Mr Thompson, of course. Mark Kermode says it reduces him to tears. Me too, sir. Me too.
Mr Thompson (and Me, sort of)
Mr Thompson was an actor and director. He already had a track record with BBC Playschool, before he created his Magic Roundabout. He also had a track record with me.
When I was very young, my mother took me to the Old Vic. There was a school trip to a local amateur theatre production. I wasn’t old enough to go. I cried. “Nonsense,” said my mother, always a problem solver. “We’ll go to a proper theatre.” And we did.
In those days, the Old Vic was battered, run down, not yet home to the embryo National Theatre.
But I still remember the chill of pure excitment, when we pushed through a threadbare velvet curtain and stepped onto the wildly sloping floor of the Stalls. I’m not sure whether it was then or later, but that was where I saw the quiet and mysterious Mr Thompson in a production of The Merchant of Venice there. I’ve always remembered him.
Now I love Shakespeare, and that production was traditional, lovely costumes, beautiful scenery, at least as it seemed to me at that age. But it upset me horribly. Shylock broke my heart. (Played by Lee Montague, I see now.) My only consolation was lovely Mr Thompson, playing romantic Lorenzo, who runs away with Shylock’s daughter. He convinced me that here, at least, was someone genuinely in love, uncontaminated by greed, self-interest or manipulation. And he spoke the loveliest poetry in the play as if he’d just thought of it himself.
I never forgot him. The voice that did hippies, posh cows and bad-tempered dogs saved the evening and (well almost) the play for me. Thank you, Mr Thompson.
Students and Magic Roundabout
CONTENT WARNING: Persons with a low embarrassment threshold, such as myself, might want to give the following paragraphs a miss.
When I say we all watched Magic Roundabout, that is certainly what I thought as an 18-year-old undergraduate. Its merchandising was everywhere. Blue Peter made a Dougal out of a detergent bottle and a ball of wool. This blog’s own Liz Fielding knitted Florence, Brian and Dougal for her Christmas tree and has hung them since 1978.
When two or three students were gathered together in a bar, a discussion on Magic Roundabout would break out at some point. Sometimes it got heated. I remember one on whether Florence was a neurotic worrier or simply a compliant people pleaser.
There were, however, abstainers. Some withheld approval through lofty devotion to Higher Things. (Dougal wannabes, in fact.) Some simply missed the point. I had the misfortune to become friends with one of the latter. He was a nice guy but rather given to monologues and with absolutely no sense of time.
I didn’t mind being monologued at. Well, not as much as some of his mates at college did.
So he had the habit of turning up around dinner time and, well, sticking, even after egg and chips in the Buttery. My friends would look in through my door, see/hear him, and retreat. Getting him out before the college’s ten o’clock curfew on Men, became an increasing problem.
Zebedee (and Me)
One evening I watched the clock tick on relentlessly, as my hints that he might like to get back to his lodgings went unheeded. I suspect unheard. In the end, it seemed good to me to call on contemporary culture to reinforce my message. Keep it light, make it funny. Sounds good, right?
No. At ten to ten, with only 10 minutes left for him to get out past the porters, I leapt to my feet crying, “Boy-oy-oying, time for bed!”
Well, it stopped the monologue dead in its tracks.
We stared at each other in horror. I, because I’d realised too late how that could be interpreted. He, because I now know he was unfamiliar with Magic Roundabout and, well, I imagine had his own interpretation, for which he was completely unprepared.
AAAARGH!
Fortunately we then heard the younger and kinder porter patrolling the corridor. He came armed with a broom which clattered against skirting boards. He might as well have called, “Time, Gentlemen, please.” But he meant well. My companion and I, infinitely relieved, said goodnight. We drifted apart over the next couple of terms.
And yes, I still wince, all these years later. There are some things that even Mr Thompson’s dulcet tones cannot sweeten.
Sophie, still blushing
Thank you so much for this, Sophie. I’m also an avid radio fan and will definitely be listening to the programme about Eric Thompson. I absolutely loved the Magic Roundabout – total joy. For anyone who wants a wallow – here’s the one where Douglas strikes oil! https://youtu.be/0qGSnHMriRM?si=z_FP_QDqJScYIRwc
Oh what a find, Liz. What a treasure you are!
I loved this post, Sophie. I was a young Magic Roundabout fan – Zebedee was my favourite, though I had a soft spot for Dougal (though I’m afraid he came second to Dill the Dog, who definitely makes me think of my youngest spaniel right now). I made the kids go with me to see the Magic Roundabout film on my birthday one year, and tried to explain to them that MR for me was like the Teletubbies for them.
Also loved your college story. (Now there’s a romcom in the making…)
And your mum taking you to the Old Vic – what a woman xx
So glad you enjoyed the post, Pam. Magic Roundabout is certainly lodged in my memory. All the characters drove me mad in one way or another at some point. I wanted to shake Dylan, for instance, time and again. But I still loved them.
As for my mum – absolutely. I am SO never going to be candidate for Tortured Writer With Unhappy Childhood Award.
Thanks so much for this. Wonderful memories. When I was in the RAF, Magic Roundabout was avidly watched by everyone. One of our Directing Staff, by the name of Douglas, was of course always called “Dougal”. In the mess, there were scurrilous tales woven around the MR characters. Can’t remember any of the tales but I do know that the punchline of one was “And Florence is pregnant” 😉
Made me hoot.
It was definitely a bunch of characters that adults took seriously. I remember one of my (male) friends at university exploding after one episode, “That bloody Brian, so damn chirpy. I’d like to smash his face in!” (Think exam pressure might have been getting to him. Friend, not Brian, that is.)