It’s only been about two weeks since we discovered In the Night Garden, but having introduced it to my daughter, I’m now as engrossed in it as she is.
I’ve got it bad. Today I had to get to a toy store to buy some presents and had the theme tune for In the Night Garden running around my head. On arrival in the store the tune finally disappeared, replaced by a continual recital of the verbal shopping list my wife had given me, doomed to be partially forgotten. Minutes later I could hear the tune in the air again – was I going mad? Then I looked over to see another parent, sitting at a toy piano with his daughter, playing the theme tune on the keyboard. There is no escape!
In the Night Garden is a TV show made by Ragdoll productions and shown on the BBC channel CBeebies in the UK. The show centres around the main character “Igglepiggle”, which is the imaginary character of a child that falls asleep and travels to the night garden. There he meets a variety of characters, including Tombliboos, Upsy Daisy, the Pontipines and my personal favourite, Makka Pakka.
It’s not unlike the Tellytubbies, but with a slightly more sophisticated script.
Our daughter has taken well to the programme and if we need to get something done in the kitchen it will keep her engrossed for the full half an hour. The amazing thing is it has me equally engrossed too. We vowed before she was born to not allow her to watch TV until she was three or four – then tiredness, needing to get housework done and the practicalities of life set in.
I’m not usually into watching children’s programmes – why am I so taken with In the Night Garden? A couple of year back, I bought a meditiation CD for falling asleep. The meditation/hypnosis script centred around rowing to a private wooded island called the “sanctuary”. There you relaxed in the calm familiar surroundings before finally leaving the island and succumbing to sleep. I’m amazed by the similarity between this and In the Night Garden, and it’s very likely that this is why I am so enthralled by this children’s programme.
I’m not the only one – In the Night Garden is a hugely successful show. Makka Pakka even has his own Facebook page – with over 3500 fans as I write this.
My sister rang today to check what programme we mentioned my daughter was watching – and I excitedly confirmed – she was in the toy store looking for Christmas presents. Looking in the shops today I found a huge range of In the Night Garden dvds, toys and interactive games. My daughter will probably get quite a few of them for Christmas – especially if I have anything to do with it.
In the immortal words of Makka Pakka: Makka Pakka akka wakka mikka makka moo / Makka Pakka appa yappa ikka akka oo / Hum dum agga pang ing ang oo / Makka Pakka appa yappa mikka makka moo!
Further Reading
In the Night Garden - official website of the TV show
In the Night Garden - dvd of the programme from Amazon.co.uk
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That show look amazing. Do you know if it is on anywhere in the regular USA programming? I can’t afford the BBC america channel (I dropped it when they dropped ‘keeping up appearances’).
Hi Bobby, from my understanding it was never aired on a regular U.S. network (perhaps in revenge for such low profile coverage of Sesame Street in the UK?). There are dvds available but it’s not on regular US TV I’m afraid. Here’s hoping!!