Jackanory is a long-running BBC children’s television series that was designed to stimulate an interest in reading. It began on December 13, 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 March 24, 1996, clocking up around three thousand five hundred episodes in that time, but the series returned on November 27, 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. Usually a single book would occupy five daily fifteen-minute episodes, from Monday to Friday. A few Jackanory stories took the form of a play rather than stories being read, in a series of thirty minute fully-cast and costumed dramas entitled Jackanory Playhouse. These included a dramatisation by Philip Glassborow of the comical A. A. Milne story, “The Princess Who Couldn’t Laugh.”
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.
In November 2006 Jackanory returned with 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 entire on BBC One on consecutive Sundays The readings of Muddle Earth were heavily accompanied by animation and featured actors speaking lines (all animated characters were voiced by John Sessions), leading to criticism that the spirit of the original programme, a single voice telling a tale with minimum distraction, had been lost. (The Magician of Samarkand was a similar production, although without the actors speaking lines. Sir Ben Kingsley reads all the lines of the characters.)
Rather than a series of books taking a particular time slot consecutively for a number of weeks in the year, it is envisaged that new readings will be dropped into the schedule as specials from time to time at irregular intervals.
CBeebies is running a series of Jackanory Junior weekly .
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 disposed of by Adam Lee of the BBC archives in 1993.
Six actors who have played the Doctor in Doctor Who have recited Jackanory: Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann.
The series was cartoon-parodied on the 1989-1991 CITV series “Round the Bend”, in a segment titled Nursery Crimes.
British post-punk group Television Personalities wrote a song titled “Jackanory Stories.” The song beings with the sing-song phrase “Jackanory, jackanory” (See “Slang” below).
“Jackanory, jackanory” said by a someone in the sing-song tones of the theme tune indicates that he/she thinks that someone else is making up or “stretching” a story, i.e. lying.
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