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Hixxy sharkey toytown
Toytown was a BBC radio series for children, broadcast for Children's Hour on the Home Service. The plays were based on a set of puppets created by S. G. Hulme Beaman, who also wrote the stories for the series. The first Toytown plays were broadcast in 1929, and the pool of stories was re-used until the end of Children's Hour. There were 31 plays in all. During the 1970s, most of the plays were adapted as short films which were broadcast on ITV.
Contents
The series starred Larry the Lamb, the central character, and his clever sidekick, Dennis the Dachshund. In each story a misunderstanding, often arising from a device created by the inventor, Mr. Inventor, occurs which involves Ernest the Policeman, the disgruntled Mr Growser the Grocer and the Mayor.
During the early-1950s series on BBC Children's Hour, Larry the Lamb was always played (at least when broadcast from London) by Derek McCulloch, Dennis at various times by Norman Shelley, Ernest Jay and Preston Lockwood, the Mayor by Franklyn Bellamy and Felix Felton, Ernest the Policeman by Arthur Wynn, Peter Claughton and Stephen Jack and the Inventor usually by Ivan Samson.
The opening music was "The Parade of the Tin Soldiers" by Leon Jessel.
The first radio performances were as follows:
Trouble in toytown
Stories from Toytown
A puppet show called Stories from Toytown Featuring Larry the Lamb was first broadcast on ITV between 1972 and 1974. Twenty-six of Hulme Beaman's stories were adapted for television by his friend Hendrik Baker.
- Toytown Goes West
- The Tale of Captain Brass the Pirate
- The Extraordinary Affair of Ernest the Policeman
- The Disgraceful Business at Mrs Goose's
- Golf (Toytown Rules)
- The Arkville Dragon
- The Tale of the Inventor
- The Tale of the Magician
- The Theatre Royal
- The Toytown Treasure
- Tea for Two
- Mr Noah's Holiday
- The Toytown Mystery
- A Portrait of the Mayor
- Pistols for Two
- How the Wireless Came to Toytown
- The Brave Deed of Ernest the Policeman
- The Tale of Ernest the Policeman
- The Showing Up of Larry the Lamb
- Larry the Plumber
- The Mayor's Sea Voyage
- Dreadful Doings in Ark Street
- The Great Toytown War
- Mr Growser Moves
- Mr Mayor
- Dirty Work at the Dog & Whistle