Bernard Cribbins criticises 'noisy' children's TV
Actor Bernard Cribbins, who provided the voices of 1970s TV favourites The Wombles, has said modern children's TV has become too "fast and noisy".
He said some shows now neglect traditional storytelling for the sake of "gratuitous" use of CGI graphics. The 84-year-old, who was a fixture on Jackanory from the 1960s to '90s, said: "You can't help but notice how children's TV has changed". Cribbins is returning to the genre in the new Cbeebies show Old Jack's Boat. He said the series, which starts on Monday, has "a very nice balance" between traditional storytelling and animation. But of other children's programmes, he said: "It's all very fast and noisy now I think. "You think of the gentleness of Jackanory, somebody would walk onto the set, sit down and say 'hello I'm going to tell you about Ratty and Mole and the Wind in the Willows' and off you went. "Nice and gentle, and the only thing you saw, apart from the guy or lady talking to you, was a few captions and illustrations, which were stills. That was how it used to be. Pure, simple storytelling. "Now there seems to be - sometimes, not always - a tendency to use every single opportunity to put in CGI and animation and a lot of it is, I think, gratuitous when the story is actually doing the work for you. "I think we've got a very nice balance with Old Jack's Boat of story and little bits and pieces [of animation] as well." Old Jack's Boat was co-written by former Doctor Who scribe Russell T Davies and features ex-Doctor Who actress Freema Agyeman. Cribbins is also known for playing Wilfred Mott in Doctor Who as well as for roles in Coronation Street, Last of the Summer Wine and Worzel Gummidge. He holds the record for the most Jackanory appearances - 111 in total - and played station porter Albert Perks in classic 1970 film The Railway Children.