Zig Zag: Tales from Europe (1992)
Tales from Europe (1992) is a unit of the BBC Schools TV series Zig Zag from the 1990s, covering English for primary school pupils.
A selection of traditional stories from countries all across Europe, re-told and animated for Zig Zag.
The episodes are presented by the enterprising Molly, who burrows her way across Europe in a 'hypersonic mole' vehicle, accompanied by her teddy bear Esperanto. Each week she goes underground and drives the mole to a new country, observing it's geography and lifestyles through her periscope before telling a children's story from that country accompanied by puppetry or animation.
Esperanto and Molly...
... in the hypersonic mole...
... tunneling across Europe.
An introductory teacher's programme was shown in 1992 in the week before the pupils' programmes began, including extracts from the unit and suggestions for using it in the classroom. The teacher's programme was also repeated in the week before the summer 1996 repeat run began.
This unit was soon joined by a Tales from Europe radio series featuring the same tales narrated by noted actors including John Hurt, Helen Mirren and Griff Rhys Jones.
A decade later the unit was re-edited to remove the introductory sequences with Molly and her hypersonic mole, and present just the features about each country and the stories in shorter 15 minute episodes. There is a separate page about the re-edited version of this unit.
Episode List
| # | Title | Broadcast |
|---|---|---|
| - | The Teacher's Tale | 13 Jan 1992 |
| 1. | Switzerland | 20 Jan 1992 |
| 2. | Germany | 27 Jan 1992 |
| 3. | Britain | 3 Feb 1992 |
| 4. | Denmark | 10 Feb 1992 |
| 5. | Netherlands | 17 Feb 1992 |
| 6. | Czechoslovakia | 2 Mar 1992 |
| 7. | Belgium | 9 Mar 1992 |
| 8. | Finland | 16 Mar 1992 |
| 9. | Greece | 23 Mar 1992 |
Broadcasts
| Year | Term | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Channel | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991-92 | Spring 1992 | Monday, 11:00am | Wednesday, 1:40pm | BBC2 | ||||
| Summer 1992 | Tuesday, 10:15am | Friday, 1:40pm | BBC2 | Provision for hearing impaired children | ||||
| 1993-94 | Summer 1994 | Monday, 11:00am | Wednesday, 1:40pm | BBC2 | ||||
| 1995-96 | Summer 1996 | Monday, 9:05am | Wednesday, 1:20pm | BBC2 |
Credits
| Presenter | Denise Coffey as Molly |
| Stories adapated by | Kevin Crossley-Holland |
| Producer | Tom Stanier |
Resources
There were teacher's notes and a book available.
The Tales from Europe hardback story book by Kevin Crossley-Holland was later reissued as a paperback called Tales from the Old World.
Links
Related programmes
- Zig Zag: Tales from Europe (2000)The unit was re-edited in 2000 into shorter programmes without the Molly sequences, but retaining the Tales themselves and some introductory film on the countries.
- Tales from EuropeThe same Tales (plus an additional tenth tale from Iceland) were re-told by famous readers in a 1994 radio series.
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