James Corden will star as the voice of the narrator in the new pre-school series, Little Charley Bear, launching on CBeebies in January 2011.

Created by Chapman Entertainment, Little Charley Bear is aimed at young children aged up to six years – it is a contemporary, gently-paced show that inspires creativity, discovery and imagination. It has the feel of a classic children’s television show but with brilliant CGI animation by Pinewood-based Annix Studios.

Through imagination, children can learn and develop on a personal, social and emotional level with Little Charley Bear – the way he communicates his ideas, thoughts and feelings through movement and role play can aid and educate children all around the world with visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles.

James Corden, a Bafta award-winning actor, writer and producer, has great attention to detail and his ingenious timing creates television that is pure pleasure to watch, so much so that The Independent hailed James Corden “the hottest property in British television”. As well as Little Charley Bear, his latest work includes The Three Musketeers; Gulliver’s Travels; his own sports quiz, A League Of Their Own; and a return to the stage at the National Theatre.

Greg Lynn, Managing Director, Chapman Entertainment, comments: “We are absolutely thrilled to be working with James Corden on our new imaginative and playful brand, Little Charley Bear. Not only is he an exceptional talent, but his voice is very warm and he creates great humour in every episode – there is a very fun relationship that exists between the narrator and Little Charley Bear!”

Other characters in Little Charley Bear include Frozo, a penguin; Midge, a teddy bear; Rivet, a robot; Nibblit, a rabbit; Caramel, a cow; and Bellarin, a ballerina.

Timmy and his friends are having great fun playing Pirates. Timmy is the Captain and leads his chums on a treasure hunt. But when they find the X that marks the spot, there’s a big surprise in store? And who’s eaten all the clues for the treasure trail!

Disaster strikes when Otus’s truck get’s broken and Harriet and Osbourne make Timmy’s bed in an unexpected place?

Will Timmy and Stripy manage to get the new paper-hat boat to the finish line! And who is the new plasticine playmate…

Everyone joins in for the big spring clean time but Timmy manages to make more mess than ever before. Plus its talent show time but what happens when diva Yabba loses her voice!

Join Timmy and his animal chums who learn how to make friends, create new things, paint, draw and generally learn those very important ‘life lessons’

Timmy Time: Timmy Finds Treasure DVD is packed with 10 Timmy–tastic episodes and makes the perfect Christmas stocking filler available to buy now

Original Drawing of Iggle Piggle by Andrew Davenport

You can see In The Night Garden Live at the O2 until 4th September, followed by a series of shows in Glasgow and Birmingham. For more information or to book tickets please go to the In The Night Garden Live website.

You can read the full article about Andrew Davenport at the Guardian website.

Win a FREE sample magazine. New Kerwhizz Magazine has developed an online game to mark the launch of the magazine: www.kerwhizzmagazine.com. Simply play the game online and enter your details – there are 10,000 free samples and 5 annual subscriptions to give away!

Kerwhizz is a brand new magazine based on the fantastic Cbeebies show. Build confidence at school with quizzes and puzzles based on the National Curriculum. Plus, there are stickers and a fantastic free gift every issue. On sale from Wednesday 30th June 2010.

The series aims to get kids outside and learning about the world around them, including the fun of gardening and caring for living things, the importance of drinking water when it’s hot out, and that everyone is good at different things. Each episode a team of young kids arrive to help Mr. Bloom care for the plants and produce growing in his garden. The puppet veg, aka the Veggie Mates, include:

• Colin the Runner Bean – he’s always first with the wrong answer;
• Margaret the Cabbage – she’s shy but fun and has her heart in the right place;
• Joan the Fennel – a mothering type;
• Raymond the Butternut Squash – who is always saying sorry;
• Sebastian the Aubergine – who enjoys summing up the day’s events with a song;
• and the Wee MacGregors – a group of mischievous radishes that cause havoc.

Auditions for kids to take part in the program are already going ahead – a detailed account of one of the auditions in Leek (the appropriately named town) can be found here.

Veggie Mates is a CBeebies production made in BBC Manchester. Expect to see it on our screens early 2011.

That sentence probably doesn’t convey the strength of his feeling enough.

For my son, telly is like heroin.

Actually, that’s probably overstating it just a bit.  I should really have thought about this before I started writing.  OK, let’s just say that his affection for the goggle box is less than a drug addict’s need for smack but certainly more than the tenderness he feels for either of his parents.

So far it’s been a very happy relationship.  He doesn’t watch it all the time.  He doesn’t even watch it all the time he wants to.  However, occasionally as a way of encouraging some good behaviour in other areas of his life, or if I fancy a bit of peace and quiet, he’ll be allowed to have a gawp.  For heaven sake both his parents have made a living out of TV so the roof over his head, the clothes on his back, the expensive toys that he refuses to play with have all been paid for by TV.

Up until now my son has favoured one of two viewing pleasures.

1. Movies (generally an animated classic such as Jungle Book, Toy Story, Monsters Inc etc)

Or

1. CBeebies.

Over the last three years our viewing landscape has been a world inhabited by yoga performing sprites, creatures with names like Macca Pacca and YoJo Jo, and silly grown-ups who dress up and fall down a lot.  It has been fun and colourful and unthreatening.  I can leave my kids in front of CBeebies safe in the knowledge that as soon as my back is turned it’s not going to start swearing or drinking or bringing up “issues”.

Now though my eldest is in the process of migrating from CBeebies to CBBC and I simply don’t know how to cope.  It’s like watching the first broadcast after an apocalyptic nuclear strike has all but wiped out humanity.  It’s dreadful, his mother and I are jabbering wrecks forever having to monitor what he watches and handing out ridiculous censorship rules like some kind of nightmare-ish Orwellian Government.  We’ve already panicked and banned him from watching Tracy Beaker, although Joe obviously watches it when we’re not with him because he recently called me a super loser and I’m pretty sure his grandmother didn’t teach him that.

This is a bit of a treat for parents really. In the dark ages before digital TV, when the BBC only had two TV channels, childrens shows ruled the airwaves between 3:30 and 5:30 every weekday afternoon. Children’s BBC, or CBBC, for many years came from the broom cupboard with legends Philip Schofield and Andi Peters, amongst others. I’m sure many of you remember it well.

There used to be short animations that led into the programs. These animations, called idents, were often themed and the Christmas idents were particularly good. The fantastic TVARK website has a collection of these, along with a few other clips, which should bring back a few memories. To get you started, here is the ident from CBeebies last Christmas.

If the My Kids TV Advent Calendar isn’t really doing much for your little ones, then try this one instead. The CBeebies Advent Calendar opens a new door every day, behind which is a song, video or game from a favourite CBeebies character. My son gets genuinely excited to check the calendar every day to see what each new surprise is, and I’m sure your child will too.

And if you haven’t bought an advent calendar yet, Amazon still have a great range of advent calendars available (plus free delivery!)