Imagination rules over reason in the BBC’s bedtime CBeebies hit In the Night Garden.
A large blue teddy-like creature throws himself on his back and squeaks. A colourful, rambling, trundley train with house-shaped carriages drives up and down a tree trunk. Ten peg-doll characters jump in and out of a teeny-tiny hole. These are the seemingly random events that connect with little narrative to create the dreamy, imaginative woodland world of In the Night Garden, voiced almost entirely by Derek Jacobi.
In March 2007, the first of 100 episodes of In the Night Garden was broadcast on the BBC children’s channel, CBeebies. With a budget of £14.5m from the BBC, the Ragdoll production company set about following up its major success of the Teletubbies and has produced a viewer-grabbing bedtime programme for one-to-four-year-olds.
