''Tikkabilla'' is a British children's television programme, shown on

CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content targeted for children aged six year ...

. The programme aims to educate

preschool A preschool (sometimes spelled as pre school or pre-school), also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, play school, is an school, educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they ...

children in an entertaining manner. The title "Tikkabilla" comes from the

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

word meaning "

Hopscotch Hopscotch is a playground game in which players toss a small object, called a lagger, into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces and retrieve the object. It is a children's ...

", a popular children's game.

Format

The show features two different presenters and a small dragon puppet by the name of Tamba. Tamba serves as the programme's naïve child; the programme's educational content is introduced as the presenters explain things to Tamba. Whilst Tamba (the talking purple dragon) appears in every episode, a team of presenters take it in turns to pair-up in each show. These presenters include Justin Fletcher,

Sarah-Jane Honeywell Sarah-Jane Honeywell (born 5 January 1974) is an English actress, writer, TV and radio presenter, blogger and singer. She is best known for her work on the CBeebies television channel and her radio shows on BBC Radio Lincolnshire. As well as ap ...

, Simon Davies,

Lorna Laidlaw Lorna Laidlaw (born 1 February 1963) is an English actress. She has appeared on television as Mrs Tembe in the BBC medical soap opera ''Doctors'' from 2009 to 2019 and as Aggie Bailey in the ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'' between 2019 ...

, Paul Ewing, Veejay Kaur (series 3–4), Toni Fruitin and Amit Sharma (both series 4 only) and

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...

(series 1–2 only). Tamba is performed by puppeteer Sue Eves (series 1 to 4) who created the voice for Tamba; Alison McGowan (series 2 and 3) and Katherine Smee (series 4). Sue Eves has also written many scripts for the programme. Much of the show's format follows that of 1964–1988 UK children's programme '' Play School'' and later show ''

Playdays ''Playdays'' (known as ''Playbus'' until December 1989) is a British pre-school television programme which ran from 1988 to 1997 on Children's BBC. The show was the successor to '' Play School'' and, like its predecessor, was designed as an ed ...

''. Tikkabilla presenter Simon Davies also presented '' Play School'' in its later years and ''

'' in its early years and Justin Fletcher played Mr Jolly in the live stage show production of ''

''. In the Tikkabilla studio, which features a large, colourful house, the presenters and Tamba perform songs, tell stories, play games and make things. Occasionally, special guests visit, normally to demonstrate a special skill or performance. The iconic square, round and arched windows made famous by Play School are again used as a device to transport the viewer from the studio to the outside, real world. Location items, sometimes featuring the presenters and Tamba and usually including young children, introduce the wider world to the young audience. Tikkabilla features mini-series inside the programme, such as ''Bonny, Banana and Mo'', ''Sami's Worlds'', ''

Summerton Mill ''Summerton Mill'' is a British children's television series created by Pete Bryden and Ed Cookson. It was first shown on the CBeebies channel in 2005 as a segment of the BBC's Tikkabilla. It has subsequently been repeated both within Tikkabilla ...

'' and ''Higgledy House'', the latter two of which were later shown as standalone programmes on

. Tikkabilla sometimes shows animated clips originally from other educational

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

programmes mostly from '' Words and Pictures'' and ''

Numbertime ''Numbertime'' is a BBC educational numeracy television series for primary schools that was aired on BBC Two from 20 September 1993 to 3 December 2001. For its first four series, it was presented by Lolita Chakrabarti. El Nombre, an animated ...

''. One episode once showed an animated clip from ''Hotch Potch House''.

Production

writes for the programme as well as writing for sister show

The Story Makers ''The Story Makers'' is an educational children's television programme that was broadcast on the BBC's pre-school digital television network, CBeebies as well as being one of the launch programmes for the channel. ''The Story Makers'' is set in ...

. Francis Haines and Liz Kitchen wrote the majority of the programme's music. Francis Haines and

Jake Hook Jake Patrick Robert Hook is an English, million-seller songwriter, producer and arranger. Hook signed with EMI, in December 2009, on the strength of the single " Coming Home" by The Soldiers. Origins Jake Hook was born in the London Borough of ...

co-wrote one of the songs.

External links

* {{BBC programme
CBeebies - ''Tikkabilla''
at

bbc.co.uk BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, t ...

(archived) BBC children's television shows 2002 British television series debuts 2000s British children's television series 2007 British television series endings British preschool education television series British television shows featuring puppetry 2000s preschool education television series CBeebies Television series by BBC Studios Television series about dragons British English-language television shows Television shows shot at BBC Elstree Centre