Jackanory is a long-running BBC children's television series that was designed to stimulate an interest in
reading. The show was first aired on 13 December 1965, the first story being the fairy-tale Cap o' Rushes read by
Lee Montague. Jackanory continued to be broadcast until 24 March 1996, clocking up around 3,500 episodes in its 30
year run. The show returned on 27 November 2006, with a new series beginning in 2007 on CBBC.
The show's format, which varied little over the decades, involved an actor reading from children's novels or folk
tales, usually while seated in an armchair. 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."
A version of Jackanory for younger children—called Jackanory Junior—is shown on CBeebies
Jackanory has been reinvented for the 21st Century. All the elements of the Jackanory of old are still there. Our
storytellers are well known and well loved British TV and Film actors, including Lenny Henry, Martin Clunes,
Sophie Okonedo (Oscar nominated for Hotel Rwanda), Holly Aird (Waking the Dead, Soldier Soldier), Shobna Gulati
(Coronation Street, Dinner Ladies), Art Malik and Chris Marshall (My Family).
The show still presents the story told to camera but the new series brings the book illustrations to life using
animation and 'green screen' to place the story teller on the page, interacting with the story landscape. Elements
of the books illustrations also appear as animations in the studio, ranging from lazy cats lounging on walls and
butterflies flitting around a jungle clearing, to a plague of elves in an ordinary kitchen
