Lizzie Dripping

Series production

In 1972, the makers of the long-running children's television series Jackanory started to develop new story-telling format. Whereas Jackanory had been a simple 15-minute reading of a story, designed to encourage children themselves to read, the new Jackanory Playhouse would be a full-cast anthology series dramatizing traditional folk tales. The producers of Playhouse, however, quickly made an exception for noted British children's author, Helen Cresswell. She was commissioned to write a wholly original play, and delivered Lizzie Dripping and the Orphans. It is unclear whether this was originally meant to be a pilot, but following the success of the December 1972 broadcast, a full series of Lizzie Dripping was ordered by the BBC.

Unlike other BBC properties by Cresswell, Lizzie Dripping's status as a series based on previous novels is somewhat ambiguous. The characters and situations were original to the so-called pilot. The first series followed too closely on that pilot for Cresswell to have written and published books in the intervening time. However, the 1975 series was mostly based upon three Lizzie Dripping novels that she had published in 1974. Thus, the property is a mixture of elements which first appeared on television and some that first appeared in print.

The show's location work was filmed in Eakring, Nottinghamshire, which was, at the time, Cresswell's home. The episodes were directed by Paul Stone, who had been a director on Jackanory since 1969 and would later spend the 1980s producing some of Britain's top children's dramas.

Structure

Unlike many other limited-run British children's shows, Lizzie Dripping is mostly episodic, rather than serial. Stories are confined to a single episode, although minor elements may be shared across several episodes. This self-containment is ensured by the use of in-story narration. In the pilot this narration was supplied by Hannah Gordon. However, when the series proper began in March 1973, the narration was provided by the titular character, played by Tina Heath. Thus, the contextual perspective of each episode had been shifted from the third person to the first person.

Title character

To those outside the United Kingdom, a confusing aspect of the show is the name of the main character. "Lizzie Dripping" is a slang term in the Nottingham area for a spunky girl who has difficulty distinguishing between fact and fiction. It is therefore not the name of the main character, but a label applied to her. The eponymous character's proper name is Penelope Arbuckle.

Lizzie in other media

The series has been at least partially released on VHS. In 1990, the BBC put out the first three stories of the second series under the banner, Lizzie Dripping and the Little Angel. At that time, the British Board of Film Classification gave the collection the rating of U. This video was only released in PAL format.

While an adaptation of the 1973 series appeared at the conclusion of the broadcast of that series, original Lizzie books have been in continuous publication in the UK since their publication as Jackanory Story Books in 1974. Though most of the publication activity in the years since the television show ended has surrounded republication of work done in 1973 and 1974, there have been occasional new stories, such as 1994's Lizzie Dripping on Holiday.

Some of the stories have seen audio release as well. The most notable may be a 2001 BBC Audiobooks "Cover to Cover" recording by Tina Heath called simply, Lizzie Dripping.