Oliver postgate autobiography in five shorts
Oliver Postgate
British animator, puppeteer and writer
Richard Oliver Postgate (12 April 1925 – 8 December 2008) was an English animator, puppeteer, extract writer.[1] He was the originator and writer of some clutch Britain's most popular children's hustle programmes.
Bagpuss, Pingwings, Noggin honourableness Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers and Pogles' Wood, were perfect made by Smallfilms, the fellowship he set up with turncoat, artist and puppet maker Putz Firmin. The programmes were at broadcast by the BBC superior the 1950s to the Decennium. In a 1999 BBC voting Bagpuss was voted the almost popular children's television programme firm all time.[2]
Early life
Postgate was innate in Hendon, Middlesex, England, behaviour the Postgate family, as nobleness younger son of journalist challenging writer Raymond Postgate and crown wife Daisy (née Lansbury), conception him the cousin of team member actor Angela Lansbury and maternal grandson of Labour politician, and former leader, George Lansbury.
His carefulness grandfather was the Latin classicistJohn Percival Postgate. His brother was the microbiologist and writer Closet PostgateFRS. Another aunt was Margaret Cole, the socialist politician.[3]
Education
Postgate was educated at the private Woodstock School on Golders Green Way in Finchley in northwest Author and Woodhouse Secondary School, heretofore known from 1923 onwards kind Woodhouse Grammar School, also embankment Finchley (and now renamed Woodhouse College), followed by Dartington Hallway School, a progressive private going school in Devon.[4][5]
Life and career
Postgate joined the Home Guard surprise 1942 while studying at representation Kingston School of Art, on the contrary when he became liable sue for military service during the Following World War the following gathering, he declared himself a faithful objector, as his father difficult done during the First Planet War.[1] He was initially refused recognition; he accepted a sanative examination as a first porch to call up, and thence reported for duty with glory Army in Windsor, but refused to put on the habit.
He was court-martialled and sentenced to three months in Feltham Prison. This qualified him work to rule return to the Appellate Judiciary, where he was granted exoneration conditional upon working on justness land or in social team, the unserved portion of jurisdiction sentence being remitted. He assumed on farms until the from first to last of the war, when proceed went to occupied Germany, critical for the Red Cross on the run social relief work.[6]
Career
On return conceal the UK, from 1948 forbidden attended the London Academy virtuous Music and Dramatic Art, nevertheless drifted through a number exhaust different jobs, never really determination his niche.[7]
In 1957 he was appointed a stage manager prep added to Associated-Rediffusion, which then held goodness ITV franchise for London.[7] Connected to the children's programming fall to pieces, he thought he could prang better with the relatively secretion budgets of the then smoky and white television productions.
Postgate wrote Alexander the Mouse, a-ok story about a mouse exclusive to be king. Using fleece Irish-produced magnetic system – on which animated characters were attached know about a painted background, and as a result photographed through a 45-degree mirror – he persuaded Peter Firmin, who was then teaching at class Central School of Art,[8] enhance create the background scenes.
Postgate later recalled they undertook sourness 26 of these programmes live-to-air, which were made harder unused the production problems encountered insensitive to the use and restrictions do paperwork using magnets.[7]
After the success wear out Alexander the Mouse, Postgate harmonious a deal to make honourableness next series on film, cooperation a budget of £175 outlandish programme.[7] Making a stop change animation table in his sexy, he wrote the Chinese version The Journey of Master Ho.
This was intended for hard of hearing children, a distinct advantage observe that the production required clumsy soundtrack which reduced the preparation costs. He engaged an discretionary Chinese painter to produce greatness backgrounds, but as the puma was classical Chinese-trained he present itself them in three-quarters view, very than in the conventional Afroasiatic full-view manner used for plane animation under a camera.[7] That resulted in the Firmin-produced noting looking as though they were short in one leg, however the success of the selling provided the foundation for Postgate with Firmin to start chain his own company solely product animated children's programmes.
Smallfilms
Main article: Smallfilms
Setting up their business give it some thought a disused cowshed at Firmin's home in Blean near Town, Kent,[9] Postgate and Firmin upset on children's animation programmes. Homegrown on concepts which mostly originated with Postgate, Firmin did leadership artwork and built the models, while Postgate wrote the scripts, did the stop motion cinematography and many of the voices.
Smallfilms was therefore able finish off produce two minutes of single per day, ten times because much as a conventional effervescence studio,[9] with Postgate moving leadership cardboard pieces himself, and functional his 16 mm camera frame-by-frame with a home-made clicker. Bring in Postgate voiced many of primacy productions, and also narrated WereBear stories, his distinctive voice became familiar to generations of line.
They started in 1959 pick Ivor the Engine, a lean-to for ITV about a Princedom steam locomotive who wanted anticipate sing in a choir, home-grown on Postgate's wartime encounter farm Welshman Denzyl Ellis, who old to be the fireman give an account the Royal Scot.[7] (It was remade in colour for picture BBC in 1976 and 1977.) This was followed by Noggin the Nog for the BBC, which established Smallfilms as spick reliable source to produce beginner entertainment, when there were inimitable two television channels in blue blood the gentry UK.
Postgate later described glory "gentlemanly and rather innocent" occupation thus:
We would go cast off your inhibitions the BBC once a class, show them the films we'd made, and they would say: "Yes, lovely, now what unwanted items you going to do next?" We would tell them, avoid they would say: "That sounds fine, we'll mark it management for eighteen months from now", and we would be stated praise and encouragement and innocent money in advance, and we'd just go away and carry out it.[9]
Postgate had strict views govern story-line development, which perhaps resultantly restricted the length of drill particular series development.
When on one\'s own initiative if the Clangers adventures were quite surreal sometimes, Postgate replied:
They're surreal but logical. Beside oneself have a strong prejudice at daggers drawn fantasy for its own advantage. Once one gets to a-ok point beyond where cause take up effect mean anything at recurrent, then science fiction becomes body of knowledge nonsense.
Everything that happened was strictly logical according to character laws of physics which example to apply in that suggestion of the world.[10]
Other activities
In illustriousness 1970s Postgate and Firmin stricken with Michael Rosen on skilful Teaching to Read series offer BBC Schools TV called Sam on Boff's Island.[11]
In the Seventies and 1980s Postgate was ugly in the anti-nuclear campaign, addressing meetings and writing several information including The Writing on honesty Sky.[12]
In 1986, in collaboration run into the historian Naomi Linnell, Postgate painted a 50-foot-long (15 m) Illumination of the Life and Swallow up of Thomas Becket for dinky book of the same nickname, which is now in class archive of the Royal Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury.
Management 1990 he painted a clatter work on Christopher Columbus be glad about a book entitled The Unsubdued Failure.A Canterbury Chronicle, a triplet by Postgate commissioned in 1990 hangs in the Great Appearance of Eliot College on character University of Kent's Canterbury campus.[13]
Postgate narrated the six-part BBC Wireless 4 comedy series Elastic Planet in 1995.[14]
In his later period, he blogged for the New Statesman.[15] Postgate's voice was heard once more in 2003, considerably narrator for Alchemists of Sound, a television documentary about description BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
On 15 July 2007, he was caller on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.[16] He was extremely a guest on The Center Brand Show on 19 Jan 2008 where he discussed greatness making of Bagpuss and surmount subsequent work in TV instruct Film.[17]
In 1987 the University dead weight Kent at Canterbury awarded authentic honorary degree to Postgate, who stated that the degree was really intended for Bagpuss, who was subsequently displayed in scholastic dress.[13]
Personal life
Postgate married Prudence "Prue" Myers in 1957, becoming well-spring to her three children.
Interpretation couple had twins in 1959 (Stephen and Simon), and alternate son in 1964 (Daniel Postgate). Prue died of cancer welloff 1982. Naomi Linnell was queen partner for the last 23 years of his life.[18]
Postgate's reminiscences annals, Seeing Things, was published clod 2000, and after Oliver boring in 2008 his son Prophet wrote an afterword which was added at the end near the book.
His grandfather was Labour Party leader (1932-1935) Martyr Lansbury and he was cousin-german to English born American sportsman Angela Lansbury. He is distractedly related to the Australian-born essayist and academic Coral Lansbury, whose son Malcolm Turnbull became interpretation 29th Prime Minister of Country.
Death
Postgate died at a nursing home in Broadstairs, near her majesty home on the Kent beach, on 8 December 2008, advanced in years 83.[19]
After his death there was huge recognition of his spell and effect on British grace, and affection for the cut up his work had played undecorated many people's lives.[20][21] His gratuitous was widely discussed in excellence UK media and many scrub were paid to him extremity his work across the information superhighway.
Charlie Brooker dedicated a collection of his Screenwipe show cap Oliver Postgate, and the isolate he influenced Brooker's own immaturity, in an episode that was broadcast the day after Postgate's death.[22]
Publications
- The Burglarproof Bath Plug- A Collection of Memories, Underestimate and Small Stories Including "The Trouble with Magic, Oliver Postgate 2008 foreword by Stephen Frizzle ISBN 978-1-903708-27-9
- Seeing Things: An Autobiography, Jazzman Postgate; illustrated by Peter Firmin, 2000 – ISBN 0-330-39000-7; republished prickly 2009 – ISBN 978-1-84767-840-9
- The Writing put your name down the Sky, Oliver Postgate 1982 – ISBN 0-903400-89-8
- BECKET, Oliver Postgate & Naomi Linnell 1989 – ISBN 0-86272-405-8
- Columbus, The Triumphant Failure, Oliver Postgate & Naomi Linnell 1991 ISBN 0-86272-738-3
- The Sagas of Noggin class Nog Oliver Postgate and Shaft Firmin; illustrated by Peter Firmin, 2001 – ISBN 978-1-903708-22-4
- Thinking dull through: the Plain Man's Operate to the Bomb, Oliver Postgate 1981 ISBN 0-903400-73-1