Jackanory

Jackanory
A title frame from the 1960s (top, the same font continued to be used throughout the 1970s)
Genre	Children's television
Created by	Joy Whitby
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of episodes	3640 (2330 missing)
Production
Running time	15 minutes
Original release
Network	BBC1 (1965–96) CBBC (2006)
Release	13 December 1965 (1965-12-13) – 24 March 1996 (1996-03-24)
Related
Jackanory Playhouse Jackanory Junior

Jackanory is a BBC children's television series which was originally broadcast between 1965 and 1996. It was designed to stimulate an interest in reading.^[1] The programme was first transmitted on 13 December 1965, and the first story was the fairy-tale "Cap-o'-Rushes" read by Lee Montague. Jackanory was broadcast until 1996, with around 3,500 episodes in its 30-year run.

The final story, The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne, was read by Alan Bennett and broadcast on 24 March 1996. The programme was briefly revived on 27 November 2006 for two one-off stories. The format was revived as Jackanory Junior, airing on CBeebies between 2007 and 2009.

The programme's format, which varied little over the decades, featured an actor reading from children's novels or folk tales, usually while seated in an armchair.^[2] From time to time the scene being read would be illustrated by a specially commissioned still drawing, often by Quentin Blake. In 1983, Malou Bonicos was commissioned to provide illustrations for one Jackanory story. Usually a single book would occupy five daily fifteen-minute episodes, from Monday to Friday.

A spin-off series was Jackanory Playhouse (1972–85), which was a series of thirty-minute dramatisations. These included a dramatisation by Philip Glassborow of the comical A. A. Milne story "The Princess Who Couldn't Laugh".

Coverage of the live broadcast of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 was interrupted so Jackanory could be shown.^[3]

The programme's title comes from an old English nursery rhyme:

I'll tell you a story
About Jack a Nory,
And now my story's begun;
I'll tell you another
Of Jack and his brother,
And now my story is done.^[4]

The rhyme was first recorded in the publication The Top Book of All, for little Masters and Misses, which appeared about 1760.^[4]

In November 2006 Jackanory briefly returned with the late comedian John Sessions as the revived programme's first narrator reading the Lord of the Rings parody Muddle Earth, written by Paul Stewart (and illustrator Chris Riddell). The second narrator was Sir Ben Kingsley, reading The Magician of Samarkand by Alan Temperley. They were broadcast in three 15-minute slots on CBBC and BBC One and later repeated in their entirety on BBC One on consecutive Sundays.^[5] The readings of Muddle Earth were heavily accompanied by animation and featured John Sessions speaking the lines of all the animated characters (and occasionally reading those of Joe whenever he was not on-screen), leading to criticism that the spirit of the original programme, a single voice telling a tale with minimal distractions, had been lost. (The original series had occasionally included dramatised material, in e.g. 1984's Starstormers by Nicholas Fisk and increasingly so towards the end of its run in 1996). The Magician of Samarkand was a similar production, albeit without the actors speaking additional lines; Ben Kingsley read both the story and the lines of all the characters. Both of these stories were produced and directed by Nick Willing.^[5][6]

Both stories were released in their entirety on DVD later that year, with added bonus features (galleries with images from the stories and a behind-the-scenes film for Muddle Earth).

While no further stories were made, Muddle Earth would be adapted for television again a few years later.

A version of Jackanory for younger children—called Jackanory Junior—was shown on CBeebies between 2007 and 2009.^[7] The CBeebies Bedtime Stories strand continues the tradition of well-known actors and personalities reading stories directly to camera.^[8]

See List of Jackanory episodes for the stories broadcast from 13 December 1965 to 9 March 1984.

Subsequent stories included:

• The Lightkeepers (1983), read by Andrew Burt
• The Dangerous Journey (1983), read by Andrew Burt
• The Wheel on the School, written by Meindert DeJong, read by Peter Settelen
• Arabel's Tree House, written by Joan Aiken, read by Bernard Cribbins
• The Hundred and One Dalmatians, written by Dodie Smith, read by Sarah Greene
• Matilda, written by Roald Dahl, read by Victoria Wood

Philip Glenister, in character as Gene Hunt, made an appearance on Jackanory as the guest reader in the Ashes to Ashes series 2 finale, set in 1982, which Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) imagines being transmitted to her television set.^[10]

"Jackanory, jackanory" said by someone in the sing-song tones of the theme tune indicates that they think that someone else is making up or "stretching" a story, i.e. lying.^[11]

In 2013 the UK TV Network Dave launched Crackanory as an adult version of Jackanory. Each Crackanory episode features two 15-minute tales narrated by contemporary comedians and actors, containing a mix of live-action and animation as per the original.^[12]

• British Film Institute Screen Online analysis and listings (incomplete)
• Jackanory at IMDb
• Stop Messin' About: The Kenneth Williams Website via archive.org
• New Chapter Opening for Jackanory: BBC News report
• Jackanory at bbc.co.uk
• The new Jackanory at CBBC