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Jackanory is a long-running BBC children's television series that was designed to stimulate an interest in reading. It began on 13 December 1965, the first story being the fairy-tale Cap o' Rushes read by Lee Montague, it was believed that the last ever episode was on 24 March 1996, clocking up around 3,500 episodes in that time, but the series returned on 27 November 2006.

The show's format, which hardly varied over the decades, involved an actor reading from famous children's novels or folk tales while seated in an armchair, although later episodes took the radical step of allowing the presenters to stand up. From time to time the scene being read would be illustrated by a specially-commissioned still drawing, often by Quentin Blake. A few Jackanory stories took the form of a play rather than stories being read. Usually a single book would occupy five daily fifteen-minute episodes, from Monday to Friday.

Origin of title

The show'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

'bout Jack and his brother;

and now my story is done.

Revival

In November 2006 Jackanory returned, though it will only be on special occasions. Comedian John Sessions was the revived programme's first narrator, reading The Lord of the Rings parody Muddle Earth, written by Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart. 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. [1] The readings were heavily accompanied by animation and featured actors speaking lines, leading to criticism that the spirit of the original programme, a single voice telling a tale with minimum distraction, had been lost.

List of readers

Trivia

Blur frontman Damon Albarn made reference to the show Jackanory in their first number one hit Country House in 1995. The lyrical passage is "He's got morning glory, life's a different story, everything's going jackanory"

Some master copies of Jackanory Playhouse were irretrievably junked by Adam Lee of the BBC archives in 1993.

Slang

"Jackanory, jackanory" said by a listener in the sing-song tones of the theme tune indicates that he/she thinks the speaker is making up or "stretching" a story, i.e. lying.

External links

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 ==External links==
 * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/titles/jackanory.shtml Jackanory] at [[bbc.co.uk]]
+* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/jackanory The new Jackanory] at [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc CBBC]
 * [[The Internet Movie Database|IMDb]]: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177448/ ''Jackanory'' page]
 * [http://www.stopmessinabout.co.uk Stop Messin' About: The Kenneth Williams Website]