Arabel's Raven (Arabel and Mortimer Series)

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The first series was originally shown on BBC One on Mondays at 4:15 pm and Wednesdays at 4:20 pm between 15 November and 22 December 1993. Rediscover the A Puffin Book series and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this highly anticipated edition of More Arabel and Mortimer. ARABEL'S RAVEN; THE ESCAPED BLACK MAMBA; THE BREAD BIN; MORTIMER'S TIE; MORTIMER AND THE SWORD EXCALILBUR and THE SPIRAL STAIR.

Another series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. This series was also released on VHS (BBCV 5249) under the same name as the show itself on 5 April 1994, but it is now out of print. Leggitt's pet pigeon Pianono, a Scottish odd-job woman named Flo (known as "Have-A-Go Flo" and "In-The-Know Flo" by Mr.At the post-mortem we came to the conclusion that we’d been too ambitious with the bird, and the mechanisms had been over-complicated. The second series' final third was, again, shown on Mondays at 4:00 pm and Wednesdays at 3:55 pm, between 5 and 21 December 1994. Granny Jones does some Christmas baking, and Arabel and Mortimer make Christmas decorations for Mallards' Bank. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.

They defend him to the last when the need arises and go to extraordinary lengths to extricate him from whatever unbelievable situation he has got the family into.Two years were indeed to elapse while budgets were drawn up and decisions made as to whether Mortimer and Arabel really was to go ahead. C. Barnoff, Arabel's babysitter Chris Cross (who was the only one of the Joneses' neighbours to also have a fondness for Mortimer), Mr. After the initial shock, and helped I’m sure by the fact that Lizza had worked in puppet theatre, they gave their blessing. Her most popular series, the "Wolves Chronicles" which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. The project had by now been so long in the pre-production stage I think Joan was beginning to wonder if it was ever going to see the light of day.

Leggitt's accomplices Bill and Joe, Mayor Saddlejoy and his wife, the Town Hall's secretary Doreen, Sergeant (later Mayor, after Saddlejoy retired from his position at the end of the first series) Cutlink, P. The Jones family live at 6 Rainwater Crescent in Rumbury Town, London NW3½ where most of their neighbours, including Mr. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world. Mortimer and Arabel is a BBC puppet comedy-drama series based on the book series of the same name by Joan Aiken (1924-2004) that was aired on BBC One as part of the Children's BBC strand (as it was known before 4 October 1997) from 15 November 1993 to 21 December 1994. The first part of the second series was originally shown on both Mondays and Wednesdays at 4:20 pm between 3 October and 9 November 1994.

Further Arabel and Mortimer stories arrived, uncommissioned, at regular intervals and so began a long-standing relationship between Joan, Quentin, Bernard Cribbins (who read all but the first story), and all of us in the Jackanory office. Meetings were held between the Director, Roger Singleton-Turner (a long-serving member of the Children’s Department who’d worked on programmes from Jackanory to Grange Hill), me and Lizza over the final points of the script; with the various workers in the Visual Effects Department; with the Costume Designer, and with John Christie, the Lighting Cameraman.

He taught illustration for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, of which he is an honorary professor. A total of thirty-six fifteen-minute episodes were produced over four serials of varying length in two series. Post-production is now under way: editing the entire series, adding opening and closing titles and the specially commissioned music.The stories are about a four-year-old girl named Arabel Jones who adopts an injured raven that her Dad, a cab driver named Ebenezer Jones, brings home after finding him injured in the road and christens "Mortimer", but his only communication is to squawk "Nevermore! Then Quentin became so busy he was unable to continue doing any more illustrations for us and I felt that his pictures were so inextricably tied up with Mortimer and Arabel that it would be almost impossible to ask somebody else to take over the work. Jones takes a herd of cows through the house and is found tidying up when Granny Jones makes a visit.