Clangers 50th Anniversary Moon Landing Episode Screening At Bluedot Festival

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landings. It also, as it happens, marks the 50th anniversary of the beloved British animation The Clangers. To celebrate both these historic anniversaries, a special episode of the new Clangers series has been commissioned and will make its debut as part of a special screening event at The Bluedot festival, at The Jordell Bank Observatory, Cheshire. 

The episode of the stop-motion series is made by UK studio Factory, and will screen on CBeebies for the first time on July 20 (and will also be available on iPlayer). In the episode, a female astronaut will land on the Clangers' Little Blue Planet. The astronaut is inspired by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE, space scientist and The Sky At Night and CBeebies presenter. The episode will be screened at Bludedot on the same day and will be followed by a panel hosted by Dr Maggie and featuring the show’s co-directors Jo Chalkley and Chris Tichborne from Factory, series producer Dan Maddicott from Coolabi and executive producer and writer Dan Postgate, son of the original series co-creator Oliver Postgate.

Image credit :Jody Hartley (c)

The episode The Visitor is a kind of tribute to the episode of the original series The Tablecloth, that was commissioned to mark the original landing back in 1969. The whole series was originally inspired by the space race.

"When writing the new episode ‘The Visitor’, we really wanted to make the episode special and reflect modern-day society" said Postgate. " Maggie has been such a good friend and advocate for Clangers for many years and we could not think of anyone more inspirational than her to be featured in this special moon landings inspired episode. I can’t wait for everyone to see it."

You can get your tickets for the event here. There's also a screening of both moon landing episodes hosted by London's Science Museum on the 20th, hosted by Sir Micheal Palin, national treasure and narrator of the new series. If you can't make either the episode will air on CBeebies at 6:20pm, as the first episode of the new third series of the revived show.