I was quite sad to hear that author Roberta Leigh died this week.
She'd approached Gerry Anderson and Arthur Provis of A.P. Films after seeing a breakfast cereal advertisement for Ricicles, featuring a puppet of Enid Blyton's ,Noddy character that had been produced by the fledgling film company.
The first series was The Adventures of Twizzle which first aired in 1957.
During 1962 Roberta went on to create and produce another childrens puppet series, Sara and Hoppity with Gerry's former partner from A.P. Films, Arthur Provis directing the episodes.
Roberta and Arthur then produced Space Patrol, more or less at the same time as A.P. Films were making Fireball XL5.
Athough both series featured adventures in space,it's interesting to note both series were very different. I loved Fireball XL5 , but as a child I found Space Patrol quite strange. However, both series were required viewing at the time.
Many years later when Network released the Space Patrol series on DVD, amongst the extras were two pilot episodes dealing with science fiction and building on what had been learnt from making Space Patrol.
The first pilot, which was produced in 1964, and again used puppets was called Paul Starr and featured a space hero, voiced by Ed Bishop.
Watching it now it's fairly obvious that it was heavily influenced by the popular children's TV of the time. The hero's space craft launched from an undersea base to a theme extremely reminiscent of A.P. Film's Stingray. The base is also full of robots not unlike Dr Who's arch enemy's !
The other pilot was an ambitious live action space story called The Solarnauts, Both pilots were great fun to watch, but even as a kid I'd have judged them against Gerry Anderson's shows.
Roberta continued to write childrens books and romance novels right up to 2007.
Janey Scott Lewin a.k.a Roberta Leigh 1927 -2014
Stop the Press -information for every Gerry Anderson and A.P. Films aficionado, missed even by IMDb! Still looking forward to viewing Space Patrol. Thanks for keeping us up to date in all things GA. RIP Ms.Leigh
ReplyDeleteThanks Arto. She certainly was a prolific author, and certainly a catalyst in the rise if AP Films. Without her initial involvement we wouldn't have Gerry's puppet shows, and associated spins offs. In fact this website wouldn't exist.
ReplyDeleteAnother link to all our childhoods gone. Such a shame. It's interesting to speculate how children's TV in the '60s might've been different without her. Must eventually get that Space Patrol DVD set - haven't seen it since I was about 4 or 5.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you make an interesting point about children's tv in the sixties , Kid. If Roberta had never met Gerry , or Gerry's company hadn't produced that puppet ad things would have been a lot different. Remarkably she was an important part of our childhoods and beyond!
ReplyDeleteSad news indeed. Another flame from the Sixties has gone out but her light lives on.
ReplyDeleteThat's right Woodsy . For those of us who were aware of her relevance she was very important.
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