In The Stage and Television Today dated 16 January 1964, Roberta Leigh was interviewed by Marjorie Bilbow about her puppet television series so far:

Puppet Series for the Children

The keynote of my conversation with Roberta Leigh was struck immediately I walked into her office and voiced my admiration of a giant-sized desk for two, running the full length of the room.

“I designed it myself,” she said. “You see, this is rather an awkwardly shaped room for my partner, Arthur Provis, and me to sit at separate desks. We couldn’t buy the sort of thing we needed so I designed it. Everybody said I wouldn’t be able to get a sheet of plate glass of such a size and shape, but I persuaded the glass manufacturers to make it for me.”

I formed an immediate impression that this is the way Roberta Leigh handles all her problems. Instead of putting up with things as they are, she will set about changing them. And this also means she is the sort of person who is brimming with ideas and opinions. Opinions on children’s television programmes, for instance.

“There’s too much twee bunk put out for children,” she said. “I’m against it. Some people seem to think that if you are writing for children you can give them any old thing. But children are very sophisticated, and what they don’t completely comprehend with their minds they somehow comprehend subconsciously. You musn’t ever write down to them.”

Short-changed

“Apart from the material, are you satisfied with the standards of performance and direction in children’s programmes as a whole?” I asked.

“Not a bit. Children’s programmes in television have been short-changed. Performers are generally underpaid and under-rehearsed, because the programmes are treated as something that can be cut down on whenever there’s an economy drive. It’s the accepted thing that the companies pay less because it’s ‘only for children’. Yet who are children? Only our future citizens! Children can grow up watching any old rubbish and nobody cares.”

“With your recent series Space Patrol I get the feeling that the scientific developments you show in use are quite possible,” I remarked.

“Oh yes, everything is completely accurate, as far as anyone can possibly know, because we have Colin Ronan, Vice-President of the British Astronomical Society, as our scientific adviser. I postulate certain theories and he decides whether they are possible or not. I believe in making everything scientifically accurate, because I’m sure you can make a series interesting while at the same time leading children to absorb facts.

“For instance, when they watch Space Patrol, they realise there may not really be creatures on Saturn that look like lizards. But they also realise that the gravity on Saturn is heavy and there are certain gases in the air that would make it difficult for men to breathe.”

“Are all your weirdies made to look cuddly so they won’t frighten the children?”

“Oh no. Some of them aren’t a bit cuddly. Children don’t mind the weirdies, you know. They like danger when they know it’s coming. What they don’t like is if everything is fine and dandy and the hero is sitting down drinking a cup of tea when some great Thing jumps out at him.”

“Did you know anything about puppets and filming when you started?” I asked.

“I didn’t know one end of a camera from another when John McMillan gave me my very first start with The Adventures of Twizzle. I sent him a manuscript; he loved it, told me to make a film, and put up the money for it. I blithely said ‘yes’ because I was quite determined to do it and I wanted to see my characters come alive.

“We did Twizzle in the old way, with one or two sets, the camera staying in one place and the puppets just walking on and walking off. But I was the very first person in this country to visualise puppet films being made in terms of live action filming, and that’s the way we did our second series - Torchy - with 20 set-ups of the same scene and every scene shot from a different angle so that we could intercut.

No Trick Shots

“At that time I was working with Arthur Provis (who is now my partner) and Gerry Anderson who does Fireball. In fact, Gerry learned the puppet business through me and I’m delighted he’s been so successful.”

“Without revealing your darkest secrets, are there any details about the technical side of making Space Patrol that you can tell me?”

“We don’t use any specific secret except the talents of the people involved. We don’t employ electronic lip sync because we believe it gives the speech an enormous monotony. We never do trick shots - we don’t need to because we have three marvellous puppeteers. They are Joan Garrick, and Martin and Heather Grainger (who are husband and wife). Martin is a brilliant puppet technician as well. When he first came to work for us he said there is nothing a puppet cannot do.

“Our director, Frank Golding, didn’t believe this to begin with and he thought we would have to photograph them from the waist up as they do in most other puppet films. But Martin said ‘I’m telling you, they can walk.’ And he proved it. Ours walk very well - in fact our puppets can pick up and put down glasses, and can even pick up a glass and pour liquid out.”

“Who, in the television companies, have given you the most encouragement?” I enquired.

“John McMillan of A-R, of course, who gave me my very first start. And Howard Thomas and Brian Tesler at ABC who are visionaries and look to the future. They are the three nicest people I’ve had to deal with.”

Roberta Leigh was, of course, already the highest paid writer of women’s fiction in this country before she turned to writing for children and - in particular - making puppet films for television. I asked her why she’d embarked on the new venture.

“Writing books was never really satisfying. A writer of novels is very lonely. Apart from wandering into a bookshop on the off chance that someone is going to buy your book while you’re there, you get no opportunity of seeing what result it has. I’d always envied playwrights who can go to the theatre and watch the audience laughing and crying, and hear their comments.

“I thought if I could make a film I could get some reactions. These films are much more alive and real to me than my books. It’s like giving birth to children instead of being perpetually pregnant.”


© 1964 Marjorie Bilbow/The Stage and Television Today

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