Balamory - Panto And Other Stories (DVD)

Balamory Panto and Other Stories.

This is the DVD that was brought out at around Christmas time 2004, as all the stories have either a Christmas or wintry feel. The Balamory set is between Tobermory in the isle of Argyll/Bute Scotland and Mainland BBC studios in Glasgow and surrounding local areas.

If you are unsure of whom all the characters are in Balamory he is a quick run down.

• Firstly you ...
...the nursery with all the Balamory children. She also wears a lot of green.

• PC Plum, he lives in the white house, he is your helpful local policeman, who looks after everyone on the island including all the animals and insects. He wears the policeman's uniform.

• Eadie McCreadie, she lives in the blue house, she drives the local yellow daisy bus and takes all the children to the nursery. She is also the local ... more

Balamory Panto and Other Stories.

This is the DVD that was brought out at around Christmas time 2004, as all the stories have either a Christmas or wintry feel. The Balamory set is between Tobermory in the isle of Argyll/Bute Scotland and Mainland BBC studios in Glasgow and surrounding local areas.

If you are unsure of whom all the characters are in Balamory he is a quick run down.

• Firstly you have Miss Hoolie; she lives in the green house, and works in the nursery with all the Balamory children. She also wears a lot of green.

• PC Plum, he lives in the white house, he is your helpful local policeman, who looks after everyone on the island including all the animals and insects. He wears the policeman's uniform.

• Eadie McCreadie, she lives in the blue house, she drives the local yellow daisy bus and takes all the children to the nursery. She is also the local mechanic and lives above the garage. She also wears blue.

• Spencer, he lives in the orange house, he is the local painter and decorator. The wears an orange hat and paint overalls. He is also very musical and plays lots of different instruments. He helps a lot with drawings and paintings in the nursery.

• Archie, he lives in the pink house/castle. He is the inventor and makes lots of interesting and helpful things for everyone in the village. He wears a pink jumper and pink kilt!

• Josie Jump, she lives in the yellow house. She wears a yellow tracksuit. She is full of energy, loves sports and dancing and is always full of life and helps everyone if they are feeling down and helps out with activities at the local nursery.

• Lastly you have Penny and Suzie, who live in the red house and run the local shop and café. Penny wears blue and is in a wheel chair and Suzie wears red (remember Effie from take the high road).

This DVD is just over an hour long and includes a pantomime filmed in front of a live audience and three other normal episodes of Balamory.

The DVD starts with PC Plum telling us all what's coming up in the DVD; it shows you him decorating a Christmas tree and how he is organising the Balamory panto. (This section you can fast forward to the main menu if you little ones are impatience like mines!)

On the Main Menu Screen you have the option to

• Play All
• Episodes (select any episode )
• Extras
• Subtitles.

The Extras are great in this DVD sometimes my son just wants to play with the extras rather than watching the DVD. The extras include:

• Sing a long - It is the original PC Plum song, not the new one that is one the screens now. It is karaoke in style, the words are on screen.

• Web link - This is for the Balamory website. www.bbc.co.uk/balamory

• Photo Gallery - lots of pictures of the Balamory stars dressed up in their pantomime costumes, which is quite funny.

• Cinderella Game - Miss Hoolie plays a game where you have to turn over the stars to find Cinderella's shoes, this part is easier to play on the pc, but it is a bit trickier on the DVD remote for the little ones.

• More Fun - Advertisements for all the other Cbeebies character, Fimbles, Tweenies, and Teletubbies Etc.

• Bonus Episode - Storm in a nursery.

Episodes available on the DVD:

• Panto
• Snow
• Ice Skating
• Bonus Episode - Storm in a nursery.

The first episode on the DVD starts with:

Panto - Cinderella.

Pc Plum organises a Balamory pantomime in the local town hall for everyone. It starts by everyone being given their parts in the Play. Miss Hoolie Plays Cinderella, Dandini(narrator of the play) by Josie Jump, Spencer plays Buttons, Archie and PC Plum play the ugly sisters, Eadie plays prince and Suzie and Penny play the fairy godmothers. I thought my son would find it hard to understand the Balamory characters playing different characters, but each Balamory character is seen through the Cinderella characters, Archie still invents things, Spencer sings and plays musical instruments, so the kids still know who's, who's, which I thought was very well done. This has been shown on TV over Christmas I think, but on the DVD there are 8 whole extra minutes never seen before. This part of the DVD lasts approx 27 mins.

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Snow

It's snowing in Balamory. PC Plum feels sorry for Mrs MacLeod as she is unwell and not able to get out in the cold weather, as she loves the snow. Pc Plum seeks the help of his friends to help cheer her up and help bring the outside inside. Spencer helps by drawing and making snowflake pictures and then Archie helps make a snow machine for Mrs MacLeod (a snow globe). They both go to visit Mrs MacLeod who is delighted with her gifts. Pc Plum and Archie then go outside with her grandchildren to play snow balls. This part of the DVD lasts for about 20mins

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Ice Skating

Josie wants to go ice skating, but wants to listen to music whilst she skates. She visits Miss Hoolie who gives her a cd to listen to. Next stop was Archie's house who gave her a cd player with a belt attached and made her a musical pair of ear muffs (headphones). Last stop was to visit Spencer in the orange house as she wanted to learn about figure skating and making patterns on the ice. Spencer agreed to help and they set off to the ice rink (which is in East Kilbride shopping centre, if anyone from Scotland recognises the rink). This episode is around 20 mins long

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Storm in a nursery (bonus episode)

Eadie is preparing for a boat trip with PC Plum. The weather turns bad (as it always does in Scotland) so PC Plum had to cancel. Eadie had been so looking forward to her trip, so she goes to see Josie Jump, they decide to go to the nursery and make a boat there and enjoy an imaginary trip on the water with the children, and they sing and dance and have fun. This episode is around 20 mins long.

This is a great DVD especially to watch in the winter time. Balamory is a fun show with all the bright colours, music and the fantastic imagination of the writers of the show. The only problem is my son thinks all policemen are called PC Plum!

Balamory DVD was bought from asda and cost £9.77 which I think is a fair price considering it is watched regularly.

You can find out more about Balamory from their website www. Bbc.co.uk/balamory.

Balamory is also available in Video, cd-rom and monthly magazine, which always includes a free gift.

Other Balamory titles available on DVD are

• Mysteries with PC Plum
• Archie's Inventions
• Days Out
• What's the story Miss Hoolie
• Dancing party
• Jump with Josie

Hope you enjoy the review 

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