Happy 50th Anniversary to our Friend and Yours, Bagpuss!
On the 12th February, our lovely friend Bagpuss, the most important, the most beautiful, the most magical saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world, celebrated his 50th anniversary.
We were honoured to mark the day, working with our long-standing client, international media group and rights owner, Coolabi, working to place interviews with Emily Firmin, who played Emily in the show and Daniel Postgate, both children of the late Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate, who created the show 50 years ago.
The anniversary was a huge success, with 47 pieces of targeted high- quality coverage via a range of key national, regional, consumer, business and broadcast titles with potential reach of over 430 million.
Highlights included the Radio Times, the Guardian How We Made It, The Times Relative Values, BBC News, ITV News, Channel 5 News, and BBC Radio 6’s Radcliffe and Maconie dedicated an entire show to celebrate.
Just thirteen episodes of the iconic Smallfilms animation were created by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate, which live on in the hearts of the British public, and to this day Bagpuss is considered one of the greatest ever TV shows. The remastered show was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2023 by Fabulous Films, a long standing UK/US distributor specialising in classic and cult television and is available to stream on Britbox and ITVX, plus iTunes, Amazon and more.
To mark the moment, leading distributors of collectable coins and stamps, The Westminster Collection, released a brand new collection of five 50p coins in base metal and sterling silver with quotes from the show.
Guernsey Post will issue a set of four commemorative stamps, on the 25th July, including souvenir sheets, first day covers and a presentation pack. Rainbow Designs, creators of high quality, forever toys, inspired by the beloved characters from children’s literature, has launched a new range of Bagpuss plush toys
Bagpuss – The 50th Anniversary Edition, is a special edition Bagpuss from Steiff, the inventors of the teddy bear, exclusive to Danbury Mint. And Practical Publishing will be releasing a Bagpuss collection available at CraftStash, featuring cutting dies, beautiful printed papers and toppers.
Dedicated news about the products created to commemorate the moment were placed in Skwigly, Total Licensing, Licensing.biz, Animation For Adults, Animation Magazine, License Global and Planet Radio.
The celebrations continue as The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge is hosting The Smallfilms Gallery, renamed in honour of the studio, a family gallery showcasing work by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate, who created their iconic children’s programmes from their studio near Canterbury. The exhibition, created in close conjunction with the Firmin and Postgate families and Dr Chris Pallant, Canterbury Christ Church University features the original Bagpuss, and many of the original film props.
As he enters his 50th year, Bagpuss continues his role as mascot to Hospices of Hope, the only UK charity dedicated to supporting hospice care in South and East Europe.
Women on Screen
Looking back on 2023, it was an honour to have been trusted with the stories of such strong, creative and talented women, all at different stages of their journey on screen.
We’ve worked with Sally Lindsay and Caroline Roberts-Cherry for a number of years now, from their first project together, Emmeline Pankhurst: The Making of a Militant, back in 2018, to where they are now. They have just celebrated the 5th anniversary of their company Saffron Cherry, and the third season of The Madame Blanc Mysteries, created, co-written and starring Sally, is currently airing on Channel 5 to over 2m viewers each week.
Their dedication to improving representation on screen and behind the scenes, for women of all backgrounds, is incredibly refreshing in an industry that just doesn’t need to be as difficult as it sometimes is. It’s been inspiring to share the changes they are making, and there was a huge outpouring of gratitude from women across the industry when Sally spoke about this in her recent The One Show appearance.
Sally already has a brilliant profile, but this year we’ve contributed to campaigns that have seen some huge successes including a cover shoot for Prima, the cover of TV Times and also a blog in Televisual to celebrate 5 years of Saffron Cherry.
Jackie Adedeji is a true force of nature; a whirlwind of positivity who is truly making things happen for herself and other women. We supported her during the release of her first documentary, Untold: My Big Boobs for Channel 4 which resonated with thousands of women across the country, and as a result we were able to place her on Steph’s Packed Lunch, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Naga Munchetty on BBC Radio 5 Live and a BBC Newsbeat interview aired across BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1Xtra and BBC Asian Network.
We also had the pleasure of working with sex educator Ruby Rare as she made her first foray into presenting, straight in at the deep end as co-host of Sex Rated alongside Rylan Clark on E4. This was a high profile show that garnered a huge amount of attention and we supported Ruby throughout, ensuring she was able to tell her own story and retain her voice in all of the noise. Ruby had features in iNews, The Times and on BBC Newsbeat, plus appeared on podcasts including It Can’t Just Be Me, Sex Talks, Wednesday We Drink Wine, Dirty Mother Pukka, Should I Delete That and The Secret To.
As we head into 2024 we are inspired to continue this journey, helping interesting, creative and talented people tell their stories in their own way.
📸: Scott Kershaw, Katie Silvester
Cat/Person… The purrfect project furr us
You know, sometimes things just work out, don’t they? I’m not sure if we’ve ever mentioned it, but those who know us well, know we are cat people, and earlier this year we did some work with award-winning writer and producer, Chris Heath (The World According to Grandpa) as he announced his new audio sitcom Cat/Person.
A series of overheard conversations between a broken man Matthew (Chris Heath) and Hobson (Sue Vincent), his sarcastic, selfish, sociopathic rescue cat… the podcast is bang on the money in terms of accuracy, properly funny, and we, of course, loved it.
So, you can imagine our pure joy at getting a call from our very good friends at Saffron Cherry Productions, creator of the international hit show The Madame Blanc Mysteries, telling us that they have secured the TV rights for it and that they’d love for us to announce it to the media… it went right off in the office, trust me!
The announcement comes as brand-new episodes of the audio sitcom were set to be released weekly on all major podcast platforms, while plans for a Cat/Person live show are also well and truly underway (we’ll see you down the front!).
Cat/Person accurately and hilariously encapsulates the kind of relentless emotional hazing that cats love to lavish on their eager-to-please ‘owners’. Matthew is doing his best to keep himself from falling into a black hole following an unhappy divorce. To get him through the dark days, his friends recommend that he gets himself an emotional support animal.
Unfortunately, after a trip to the local Animal Shelter, he chose Hobson, a rescue cat played by Sue Vincent (The Madame Blanc Mysteries, Alma’s Not Normal, Blindspot). Matthew is sentimental, messy and lonely. Hobson is hungry and is insisting on a treat. Immediately.
In each episode, we’re privy to a selection of conversations between human and cat, as Matthew tries his best to navigate his new life as a near shut-in, with Hobson conveniently on-hand to point out just how badly he’s doing at this. We listen in as Matthew tackles the biggest obstacles in life as he now knows it: social media, insomnia, love, death, sex, comfort eating and drinking.
In announcing this incredible news for humans and felines alike we racked up coverage aplenty with an interview feature with the simply iconic Sue Vincent and news piece in British Comedy Guide, as well as features in Broadcast Now, Televisual, C21, World Screen, TBI Vision, The Knowledge, and Prolific North.
This is just the beginning of Cat/Person’s tail, we can’t wait to see what’s next, and don’t worry we’ll tell you as soon as we find out!
Tom x
Queen legend Brian May makes acting debut
We have been keeping a huge secret for our brilliant new client Andy and the Odd Socks, but the news is finally out! Queen legend Brian May is making his acting debut in the brand new series of Andy the Band, which will land on CBBC and iPlayer from 24th January.
The New Year has been an absolute whirlwind of activity over a Sundae HQ, and it’s safe to say we hit the ground running orchestrating this out of this world announcement alongside Brian May’s brilliant team, Odd Socks HQ and of course our friends at the BBC.
We’ve been honoured to join the team, as Andy and the Band features a band like no other. The Odd Socks can sing, they can play instruments, and they can completely ‘rock out’ until all their hair stands on end. Famously making their live debut at Glastonbury, Andy the Odd Socks also share a very important message as being an Odd Sock means digging your differences, bigging-up your bizarre bits, taking on the world AND helping everyone else in the world be whatever kind of Odd Sock they want to be too.
Rockstar royalty Brian, stars as the Godfather of Rock in brand new episode Planet Rock and even joins Andy and his band the Odd Socks for the ‘best jam ever’ while also helping them overcome a global ‘rocktastrophe’! The single, Planet Rock, by Andy and the Odd Socks featuring Brian May will be released on 18th February.
As anticipated, the response to the announcement was huge, and the story and accompanying interview were picked up by the Sun Online, Mail Online, Daily Star, Mirror Online, Metro, Independent, the NME, Planet Rock and uDiscover Music, plus hundreds of other titles across the UK and beyond, many of which shared a clip of the Planet Rock music video, creating huge excitement for both the series and upcoming single release.
Brian also did an exclusive interview with the Express Online, where he gave further insight into why he wanted to be in the show and what working with the Odd Socks means to him.
Meanwhile, children’s TV legend Andy Day, was in his element undertaking a series of interviews we placed with the likes of Fun Kids Radio, First News and Kidzcoolit, ensuring that parents, and children across the UK were all ready to tune in to Planet Rock, and find their own air guitar.
Now the planet is ready to rock, our work here is done and we’re going to sit back and enjoy the show x
Truly Extraordinary Portraits
Over the last few months, we’ve had the pleasure of working with Chatterbox and the BBC to support the campaign for Extraordinary Portraits, which launched on BBC One and iPlayer Arts in February.
It’s an absolutely stunning art series which matches real people with extraordinary stories to a selection of portrait makers, who are challenged to turn their experiences into compelling portraits.
Tonight’s episode sees Kelvin Okafor, a hyperreal artist who specialises in pencil portraits, draw Catrin Pugh, a survivor of a bus crash that left her with burns across 95 percent of her body. Kelvin goes to Wales and meets Catrin’s family and speaks to them about how they supported her during her physical and mental recovery. Kelvin describes Catrin as the phoenix that rose from the ashes. We get to see if, after 650 hours of work, Catrin is prepared to see every detail of herself through his eyes.
Kelvin is a hyper-realistic portrait artist, drawing both regular people and celebs. In 2017, he became the first black artist to be permanently exhibited in the House of Commons with his pencil portrait of Bernie Grant. He has drawn model Winnie Harlow, portraying her skin condition vitiligo and now provides a course in hyper-realistic art.
We managed to place a brilliant interview feature with Kelvin in The British Blacklist if you’d like an interesting read before catching the episode later on.
Tom x
Image Credit: BBC / Chatterbox / Robert-Douglas & Tom Grancia
A brand new series of Hoopla Animation’s Daisy & Ollie is coming soon!
It only feels like yesterday that we were celebrating the premiere of the brand new fourth series of Daisy & Ollie on Channel 5’s preschool block Milkshake in March 2020 but we were absolutely delighted to hear the recent news that our client Hoopla Animation had received the green light from Channel 5 once again to produce a fifth series, which will air in 2022.
Since launch, the show has proven hugely popular with Milkshake! viewers and it comes as no surprise that Channel 5 has also inked a five-year deal with Hoopla to air all five of the Daisy & Ollie series on Milkshake! too, including series 1 and 2, which originally launched on Cartoonito in 2017.
The Channel 5 commission will see Hoopla produce a further 26 x 7 minute episodes, bringing the total number of episodes created to 130. The show is based on an original idea by Hoopla’s Helen Brown and co-written and exec produced by comedian Jason Manford, who also voices some of the main characters including Daisy’s Daddy and Whizzy the Robot.
Fun and educational, Daisy & Ollie encourages pre-school children to be naturally curious about the world around them. Each episode follows best friends Daisy (voiced by Sarah Hadland) and Ollie (voiced by Claire Morgan) on their adventures, as they seek out the answers to questions that many children ask each day such as ‘How Do Bats See In The Dark?’, ‘Why Do We Have To Wash?’, ‘How Do You Make Magic?’, ‘What does adoption mean?’, ‘What’s my Imagination?’ and ‘How BIG is big school?’.
We announced Hoopla’s fantastic news to regional and trade press in October and received some fantastic support from a range of titles including Prolific North, Kidscreen, Licensing Source, Skwigly and Licensing Biz .
Daisy & Ollie has been a wonderful show to promote over the years and has featured a host of celebrity guest stars to date from comedian Paddy McGuinness and his wife TV Star Christine McGuinness, to TV presenter and comedian Romesh Ranganathan and Mrs Brown’s Boys actor Brendan O’Carroll, so we are really excited for what is to come and to continue collaborating with Hoopla to announce further news on Daisy & Ollie.
Make sure you stay tuned for more Sundae updates but in the meantime, you can catch Daisy & Ollie everyday on Channel 5’s Milkshake!.
Marie-Clare x
A fang-tastic Sundae celebration for Scream Street Series 2
We first launched Scream Street back in 2015, so we’re dead-icated fans, and it’s been a spooktacular delight to create a hybrid live and digital campaign to launch the new series on the BBC iPlayer and CBBC this Halloween for our long standing clients and co-producers of the show, Coolabi Group.
From laugh out loud jokes to silly spooks, it’s undeniable that Scream Street, co-produced and animated by award-winning Altrincham-based animation studio Factory (Clangers, Strange Hill High), is a very funny show and this October the brand has also launched its very own ‘Spooktacular Joke Book’ this year with Walker Books.
Our campaign focused on the rib-tickling themes of the programme, partnering with family entertainment company, Comedy Club 4 Kids, to deliver a super fang-tastic dead or alive family screening and interactive kids stand up comedy show, plus a content partnership with MEGA Magazine filled with comedy tricks and treats for kids across the UK to enjoy.
One of our very first live events of 2021 took place at Everyman King’s Cross Cinema, featuring three brand new episodes on the big screen, lots of tasty popcorn, free goodies from MEGA magazine and Walker Books. Comedy performances and games were delivered by some of the finest family friendly comedians in the UK; Tiernan Douieb, Bec Hill & Howard Read, performing for an audience of families, influencers and press.
In attendance we had First News, who brought along a junior reporter, TV Times and Families South West. Family and parenting influencers also included London Mums Blog, Gabi Gandolfini, Lauren Chella and family travel blogger A Moment With Franca.
For families at home, Comedy Club 4 Kids and MEGA also co-produced a four part comedy tutorial series for MEGA’s channel, which has now had nearly 20k collective views. The series, ‘Screaming with Laughter’, features an engaging crash course on how kids can kick start their comedy careers. Episode topics include ‘How To Be A Fangtastic Comedian’, ‘How To Write Spooktacular Jokes’, ‘Doing A Dead Good Performance’ and ‘Scary Stage Fright’.
Scream Street is fun for all the family, so we also delivered a media partnership with Girl Talk magazine, as part of which talented 13-year-old chef Sienna Cecco, a specialist in Italian cuisine, cooked up a delicious spooky storm for the Girl Talk World YouTube Channel, creating a Scream Street themed cook-a-long video to make eyeball spaghetti, which accumulated nearly 5k views in the first few days.
All of this, in addition to a wide reaching TX campaign with placements across Daily Mail Weekend, TV Times, First News, The Week Jnr and much much more, delivered a hugely successful launch for the show.
The brand is going from strength to strength, and the overall brand strategy also takes in a brand new Roblox game, new promotional partnership with Frankie & Benny’s and Deliveroo, a live experience at Alton Towers, and the return of the ‘Halloween at Home’ party pack available free to all families, via the CBBC and Scream Street websites, all of which generated some excellent trade and licensing coverage in titles such as License Global, Kidscreen, Total Licensing and Licensing Biz.
Don’t miss all new episodes of Scream Street available NOW on BBC iPlayer.
MC x
The Madame Blanc Mysteries set to launch on Channel 5
Today is the first day of the broadcast publicity campaign for The Madame Blanc Mysteries, due to launch on Channel 5 this Saturday at 9pm.
A glorious cocktail of sunshine, mystery, comedy and drama, this show, created, co-written and co-exec produced by Sally Lindsay (creative director at Saffron Cherry), is the perfect antidote to the cold weather and dark nights, as Autumn makes its presence felt.
The show is a co-production from Clapperboard TV and Saffron Cherry Productions, a match made in TV heaven, creating a truly magical piece of television.
This morning Sally appeared on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio, which you can listen again to here, and can be found later tonight on The One Show and also BBC Cymru on the Janice Long Show. Tomorrow is This Morning and the wonderful Carole Vorderman.
It’s been such a pleasure working on the campaign with the brilliant team at Channel 5 Publicity, and newspaper, magazine and TV features and covers abound, so far taking in Yours, My Weekly, Love Sunday, the Daily Mirror and many more to come.
Check out the trailer for the show here:
Launching Low Four Studio
This week, our good friends at online music TV platform Low Four launched a new recording studio and venue on Deansgate Mews at Great Northern Warehouse, with a bar from Cloudwater; we are proud to be an official supporter of the studio and have loved looking after the communications campaign for the announcement.
Low Four officially opened with a live streamed show from Manchester electro-punk-rockers W.H.Lung (no relation) which was incredibly well attended and an amazing night was had by all; after such a long time, it was refreshing to see live music in such an intimate venue, and inspiring to see a forward thinking, innovative studio emerge from the pandemic and set off on a new journey.
The studio released a preview session with Francis Lung, recorded this summer, featuring six tracks from his second album ‘Miracle’ released by Memphis Industries earlier this year, as part of the launch.
Low Four produces high quality, live-streamed and pre-recorded content to spotlight Manchester, supporting its international reputation for music and culture, by showcasing exceptional emerging local talent alongside nationally and internationally recognised touring acts.
Originally launched in 2016, Low Four’s first home was the old recording and dubbing suite at the old Granada Studios site on Quay St until redevelopment began. On Deansgate Mews, they will be joining a growing community of new artisan businesses that include Holy Grain Bakery, The Butcher’s Quarter, Dormouse Chocolate, Three Hands Deli and Another Hand Restaurant.
Previously, Low Four has worked with a vast array of acts, including live streaming performances from the likes of Everything Everything, Alexis Taylor, This is the Kit, Mew and Poliça; recorded albums for GoGo Penguin, Dutch Uncles and Francis Lung, and collaborated with organisations from the Hallé Orchestra to Manchester Science Festival.
The studio will resume its talent development scheme which includes free studio and production development time awarded to Manchester’s most promising artists. Alongside musical talent, the project will also nurture technical skills, most notably through its partnership with the University of Salford, functioning as a teaching and research hub.
The launch was given some lovely support in the press with coverage appearing in Total Production International, Manchester Wire, Confidentials and About Manchester to name a few.
We have been waiting for a studio like this to open in the city centre and we cannot wait to work with the lovely team at Low Four in the future, watch this space!
The VECTAR Project launches state of the art virtual studios
In the Spring of this year, we were so excited to hear the news that industry leading, carbon neutral, independent film and TV production facility The VECTAR Project had launched two brand new state of the art virtual studios in our hometown of Greater Manchester, at its base in Heaton Mersey, Stockport.
The VECTAR Project is the first independent and self-funded studio to bring this game-changing film and television production technology to the North West, and when Managing Director Tom Henderson approached us to help get the word out about his wonderful new facilities, we were more than happy to help spread the news.
Offering a vital service for commercial use, film and television production and even live events, such as virtual conferences, which will be available and accessible to producers of all sizes, the newly refurbished studios offer real time virtual production, which combines live action footage and CGI or photo real backgrounds in real time, using a variety of different techniques.
The VECTAR Project’s ambition to offer no-energy filming, is incredibly exciting for the industry and with the new studios this can be delivered not only by its real-time virtual sets, but by further green enhancements such as LED lighting powered by the sun, paperless production and virtual attendance for producers.
We were absolutely delighted to be able to share the news for Tom exclusively in one of the biggest TV trade titles in the UK, Broadcast in May 2021, where the team shared an excellent piece on the new facilities in their weekly tech newsletter.
In the following days, we went on to achieve further coverage across a variety of other trade press including TV trade titles Prolific North and Televisual, plus local Manchester title About Manchester and business title The Business Desk also shared the news.
So far VECTAR Project has worked with a host of impressive clients including BBC, ITV, Netflix, Universal, Amazon Prime and has helped to deliver content for TV shows including Big Talk Productions’ Cold Feet, Saffron Cherry’s ‘The World According to Grandpa’, which how our team was introduced to Tom.
The VECTAR Project has so many exciting productions in the pipeline and we are looking forward to working with Tom and the rest of the team in the near future. If you would like to find out more information on The Vectar Project and to book the studio, please visit: vectarproject.co.uk