Angelina Ballerina - Friends Forever (DVD)

.../> '''INTRODUCTION'''

Angelina Ballerina is a mouse. A mouse who loves to dance and who dreams of being a prima ballerina. Along with her best friend, Alice, she gets into lots of scrapes and adventures, often hindered by those pesky Pinkpaws twins, Priscilla and Penelope.


'''EPISODES'''

This particular DVD consists of four episodes, all approximately 12-15 minutes long.

Ballerina ...
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Angelina's Surprise - Angelina is so jealous when the Pinkpaws twins show off their new baby brother that she tells everyone that her mother is having a baby too. Only she isn't and Angelina finds her lie growing out of control. How can she put things right now?

Treasure Tandem - A village tandem race and those dastardly Pinkpaws twins are trying to cheat their way to victory. Angelina and Alice are determined to win too, ... more

ANGELINA BALLERINA - FOREVER FRIENDS

INTRODUCTION

Angelina Ballerina is a mouse. A mouse who loves to dance and who dreams of being a prima ballerina. Along with her best friend, Alice, she gets into lots of scrapes and adventures, often hindered by those pesky Pinkpaws twins, Priscilla and Penelope.

EPISODES

This particular DVD consists of four episodes, all approximately 12-15 minutes long.

Ballerina Rag Doll - Angelina gives away her old rag doll and then immediately regrets her decision. She ropes in Alice to try to track her doll down, only to find the lost doll where she least expects, when she is helping Miss Lily teach a new ballet class.

Angelina's Surprise - Angelina is so jealous when the Pinkpaws twins show off their new baby brother that she tells everyone that her mother is having a baby too. Only she isn't and Angelina finds her lie growing out of control. How can she put things right now?

Treasure Tandem - A village tandem race and those dastardly Pinkpaws twins are trying to cheat their way to victory. Angelina and Alice are determined to win too, though, so who will solve the treasure hunt clues and pedal their way to victory?

Alice's Present - Angelina and Alice fall out due to a misunderstanding. The best friends are miserable not talking to each other. The Pinkpaws twins are stirring it as well. Can they ever be friends again?

ANIMATION

This animated series is based on the books written by Katherine Holabird and illustrated by Helen Craig. The animation is not overly sophisticated and the characters are very appealing. The colours are muted, mostly pastels, it's not gaudy, but quite easy on the eye. The animation has kept very true to the original book illustrations and are, therefore, very recognisable to children.

VOICES

The main voices are provided by Finty Williams and the marvellous Dame Judi Dench. Angelina's friend Alice has a great Northern English accent which always reminds me of Jane Horrocks in Little Voice. Considering all the characters are mice, the voices are not irritatingly squeaky or high!

CHARACTERS

Angelina is feisty, funny and determined, passionate about her ballet and a big favourite with our nearly-four-year old twin daughters. Alice is her faithful sidekick and fellow ballerina, always slightly in Angelina's shadow, her other passion in life is eating sweets. Miss Lily, their ballet teacher, is a total "luvvy" with an exotic, Mediterranean accent and a propensity to call everyone "Dahhling". The Pinkpaws twins are dancers as well, desperate to usurp Angelina as Miss Lily's top pupil. Our twins find it quite amusing that the twins are the villains in this series and they are fond of repeating one of Angelina's lines; "Those twins....they are TOO much!"

STORYLINES

The storylines used on this DVD are not too complicated and they are something that a child can relate to. There is also a bit of a moral to the stories too; emphasising the importance of telling the truth crops up more than once, but that is no bad thing to my mind.

FEATURES

The extras feature that is popular in our house is the short snippets of footage of ballet classes from the Royal Academy of Dance. Our girls love seeing the "real" ballet dancers in the tutus and tights, and try to copy their moves in our living room.

APPEAL

Although the blurb on the back of the case claims that Angelina is a character that children of all ages will relate to, I have to dispute this to a degree. Angelina is a character that will appeal to girls predominantly, probably those up to age 6 or 7 years. This is not a sexist or gender-stereotyping attitude, far from it (I was a TOTAL tomboy as a girl) but an opinion formed from observations of our nephews who are completely disinterested in watching this. I don't doubt that some boys will enjoy this but I do think it is more appealing to young girls.

Although I am not a particular fan of ballet, I find this quite watchable, a lot less grating than some kids' DVDs!

SUMMARY

Our two love it, and the episodes are nice and short. If I just need a few minutes to get some peace and quiet to get something done without them murdering each other, this is perfect. The only trouble is, now they want ballet lessons too.....

FURTHER INFORMATION

Length: 64 minutes
Subtitles in English
Special Features: Character biographies, Angelina's Dance Class, Weblink, "Little Stars" series clip, interactive menus, scene selection.
£4.99 on play.com, from 49p plus £1.21 P&P (used) on Amazon marketplace

(This review has been previously posted on Dooyoo by me under the same username carcraig) 

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