Oliver Postgate
Just learnt from vicarage that Oliver Postgate has died.
His work will need no introduction to those of you who are Brits of +/- 15 years or so of my age, because it played a large and benevolent part in shaping our childhoods. Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss and the Clangers -- any one of them would have made him and the rest of the Smallfilms team immortal. What's nice about them, looking back, is the slightly sinister / disturbing undertone that each show had, plugging in nicely to the childhood sense of dangerous excitement. From the frankly scary Pogles' Wood, through the grim, depressing Noggin, the isolated nihilism of the Clangers up to the solipsistic Bagpuss, Postgate played on our emotions and developing minds like a master -- avoiding the happy smiley resolutions that most kids' TV clings to, but still managing to come away from each episode with something gained. But of course it's the brilliance of the conception of characters and settings that captured the imagination so vividly in the first place. We won't see his like again, I don't suppose.
His work will need no introduction to those of you who are Brits of +/- 15 years or so of my age, because it played a large and benevolent part in shaping our childhoods. Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss and the Clangers -- any one of them would have made him and the rest of the Smallfilms team immortal. What's nice about them, looking back, is the slightly sinister / disturbing undertone that each show had, plugging in nicely to the childhood sense of dangerous excitement. From the frankly scary Pogles' Wood, through the grim, depressing Noggin, the isolated nihilism of the Clangers up to the solipsistic Bagpuss, Postgate played on our emotions and developing minds like a master -- avoiding the happy smiley resolutions that most kids' TV clings to, but still managing to come away from each episode with something gained. But of course it's the brilliance of the conception of characters and settings that captured the imagination so vividly in the first place. We won't see his like again, I don't suppose.