Seven years ago, I sat at my desk and asked myself some big questions. Could I devise a children’s TV show which bursts from screens like a candy store of creativity? One that is bright, sweet and funny, capturing the magic of play and the limitless ability of young children to transcend reality and disappear into their own imaginations? Could I play with the conventions of children’s programming – which had historically excluded 150 million disabled children worldwide – and draw on my own experience as a disabled person to create a world so tangible that little fingers would long to reach in beyond the screen and hold the cute stop-motion characters in their hands?
These questions led to the creation of Mixmups. It’s a new 52-part series about three friends – Pockets the bear, Giggle the cat and Spin the rabbit – who transport themselves on playful adventures along with their guardian, the comical trunk-beaked Lucky Loover Bird. Each episode begins with the friends cooking up an idea for play – to go to space for a moon cheese sandwich, find a magical library where all the books can talk or catch a lost dream in a jar so that they can remember it for ever. They place toys and objects into a blue mixing box, add some sparkles and, using their magical wooden spoon, “Mix up the magic” (of play and imagination) and get swallowed inside the box on an adventure.
