Bagpuss - The Ballet Shoe

Bagpuss - The Ballet Shoe

'The Art Of Smallfilms' is a hefty tome and quite right too. Edited by Jonny Trunk and Richard Embray it's a lovely collection of Postgate and Firmin bits and pieces. Scripts and storylines, design drawings and lots of photographs of the characters taken from almost every possible angle. Just leafing through it for this blog post made me want to sit down and study it again, but we'll hopefully be able to look at it more thoroughly in a video fairly soon.

But it illustrates just how much care goes into even tiny details in Smallfilms productions. For example, although Bagpuss himself has teddy bear eyes, they've been backed with foil so that they sparkle.

The music rolls on the Mouse Organ are  actually made from strips of computer paper tape with punch holes, found by Peter Firmin hanging from a tree after there had been a paper chase in the local woods.

But let's not copy out all the fascinating facts from the book. Treat yourself to a copy and just marvel at the thought that went into these charming shows.

'The Ballet Shoe' is Episode Four of 'Bagpuss', though the typewritten piece of paper detailing the storyline just calls it 'The Shoe'.

We open, of course, with the montage of photographs of Emily. There's a real 'Alice In Wonderland' atmosphere as we are introduced to Bagpuss and his friends. Most of the photos  were taken at Peter Firmin's house, though there is one old postcard of children in a Devon village that looks like it's come from 'Sapphire & Steel' Adventure Four...

This week's Thing That Emily Has Found is a dirty old ballet shoe, which doesn't impress Professor Yaffle very much.

There's a drawing in the book of the original idea for a 'Professor Bogwood' who seems to be some sort of cross between Doctor Mopp from 'Camberwick Green' and a rather sinister gnome. The illustration has 'rejected by the BBC' written on the bottom and I can't really argue with that decision, as he looks a little creepy in comparison to the rest of the cast.

The mice point out that you could live in a shoe and Madeleine (originally made as a nightie-case) encourages them to crank up their organ and treat us all to a blast of 'There Was An Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe'.

Rendered with cardboard cut-outs, this song worries me a little. Apart from the questionable treatment of her kids (giving them broth with no bread and whipping them before sending them to bed) there's also the inherent hazards of cramming so many into the back of her open-top car and the design flaws of her Shoe abode.

The central brick portion seems sturdy enough, but the heel is quite a way off the ground, which seems potentially unstable. If everyone went up that end, would the whole structure topple over? And having the hot chimney stack poking through the leather is surely also asking for trouble...

Yaffle is not having it, pointing out that the Woman in the rhyme was blessed with a enormous shoe. The one Emily has found could hardly accommodate many residents with much in the way of comfort.

But the mice all get in it to prove a point and after at least nineteen of them (clearly the same half a dozen ones going round again like that cliffhanger in 'The Power Of The Daleks') somehow emerge from it, Yaffle loses his patience, saying it's all getting very silly in the manner of Graham Chapman's 'Monty Python' Colonel...

Bagpuss argues that the shoe doesn't look very serious and Charlie Mouse says he would like to sail it like a boat using feathers as oars, which they just happen to have in a bottle that came from Holland and Co of Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Gabriel the toad (whose skin was made from Peter Firmin's mother's old coat) joins the mice in an original version of 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' that tells of two mice who lived in a stately house and rowed a similar shoe-boat on a quest in search of Stilton cheese.

The song goes a bit Chas & Dave at one point when they tumble down the 'apples and pears' before finding their goal. Falling into the Stilton, they wash themselves with orange squash, which frankly isn't much of an improvement..

Professor Yaffle writes this off as a lot of bosh and Madeleine (who always reminds me of Cally from 'Blakes 7') starts to lay down the law, saying that the mice should get on with some work and not just piddle about singing all day.

The mice don't take kindly to this and threaten to go on strike if they cannot sing while working. Madeleine is forced to make some concessions in the cause of union harmony and the shoe is soon spruced up with satin ribbon and glittery sequins.

The improved ballet shoe is declared to be fit for a prima ballerina and a clockwork one is brought on to do a dance when Yaffle admits he doesn't know what one is in a rare display of ignorance.

Enchanted with the ballerina, Yaffle has a bit of a dance, but become entangled in the ribbon. The mice rescue the Professor and pull the shoe into the shop window, so that any passing prima ballerina might see it and call in.

Then Bagpuss gives a big yawn and settles down to asleep, with everyone else joining him in the Land Of Nod as usual.

We've got a Bagpuss upstairs, of course, and Rose Cat will happily stamp up and down on it, purring loudly. Sometimes, she activates the built-in yawning mechanism but she never treats this as anything unusual.

Emily loved Bagpuss, of course, but then so should everyone.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)