In the Night Garden

In the Night Garden... is a British preschool children's television series created, written and composed by Teletubbies co-creator Andrew Davenport for CBeebies and BBC Two and produced by Ragdoll Productions. The show was aimed at children aged from one to six years old. The programme is narrated by Derek Jacobi. It is filmed in live action and features a mix of actors in costume, stop motion, puppetry and CGI animation. The characters include Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy, Makka Pakka, the Tombliboos, the Pontipines, the Wottingers, the HaaHoos, the Ninky Nonk, the Pinky Ponk, the Ball and the Tittifers. Production Andrew Davenport stated in an interview with the Guardian that the key inspiration for the series was his own dream world as a child. This started coming into place in 2004 when Davenport created sketches for the characters of Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka. The series would go on to be publicly announced a year later, and filming would eventually start in early 2005. Chroma key sets would be constructed for use on the show. Backdrops would be used as well and would come in the form of a modified video of an actual forest. The show was filmed at Smatchley Wood, a private forest located in Warwickshire, England. Hundreds of props would be built too: the majority were spherical flowers resembling pom-poms as well as several types of oversized oval-shaped stones. Vector art for the show (e.g. the pictures of the characters and props on the gazebo and in the bedtime story) was all designed on Adobe Illustrator.