What's the story in Balamory (Balamory)

Member Name: adam171275

Product:	Balamory
Date:	19/05/09 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: kids love it

Disadvantages: Adults find it annoying

Having a newly television addict of a son whose 20 months I have to say that of late I have overdosed a bit on the children's channel CBeebies. This morning we watched Balamory, hence why I have chosen to review it here are my thoughts.


First a brief outline of the show, it is based in a fictional town in Scotland called Balamory. It centres on the lives of 8 fictional characters that live there. Each episode there is a different story to be told where they have to solve a problem. Today it was Miss Hoolie asks Josie Jump to teach the children line dancing, but who will teach Josie?



The Characters

Miss Hoolie
To start with what a ridiculous name! Miss Hoolie lives in the green house and is the local nursery teacher. I would say she is the focal character as she tells the story and narrates the problem. She always sticks out in my mind as my daughter used to have a doll of her when she was younger and I have to admit that I hated it. Her hair is all turned up at the bottom which I often wonder how she gets it to stay like that. Her voice is one that will stick in your mind and to be honest after watching it for the hundredth time it will start to grate on you.


PC Plum
He is the local bobby who lives in the white house. He is often in the story when trying to find something, as being the local bobby finding stuff is his job. I do get the impression that he is somewhat dim, he gets rather exited at the smallest things and to put it in the nicest possible way if he was the local booby where I live I would be a little bit concerned to say the least. He does work well with all the other characters though, especially Miss Hoolie who he seems to dote on at times.


Edie McCredie She is the local mechanic and driver. She appears at the beginning taking all the children to nursery and helping them off the bus. She is always there when anyone needs to take a journey somewhere and has travelled the world. I quite like her character as she seems to be the most normal one from an adult's perspective. She lives in the blue house, which is also a garage. The thing that I like about her character as she is a female mechanic, so they are not being gender bias. I think it is important for children to see this so they don't associate car stuff with men, they can see that women work with cars too!



Archie
He lives in the pink castle and is known as the inventor. Although he must hate the fact that he is associated with the colour pink again like above it isn't associating something with gender. Little boys and girls can see that both men and women like pink (so to speak). If anyone needs anything made then they go to Archie, he is the man. He is a patriotic Scotsman and wears a kilt in the show, a little odd some might say, but the show is set in Scotland so why not?


Josie Jump
Josie is the athletic one and is always jumping around and exercising. She lives in the yellow house and is around if anyone needs any help with anything to do with moving around. I do find her energy is great for children as it can encourage them to get active and she does promote exercising. As an adult I find her a bit too much, she does make me feel rather sleepy when watching her, where dose she get her energy?


Spencer
He is the local, artist and musician and lives in the orange house. When thinking about this review he was the one character that I had to look up as sorry to say Spencer but I would say that your are the least prolific character. Anything to do with art or music then he is your man to help. Spencer is American which give this character something different from the rest and does give children an insight into the different accents that people can have when they come from different parts of the world.


Suzie Sweet
Suzie owns the local shop with Penny Pocket, the shop is painted red. Suzie is the oldest character and is like the granny of the show. She is quite ditzy at times and gives the impression at times that she has no idea what she is doing. She has a story about all things sold in her shop which I suppose in a way is very educational for children to hear and can be interesting for them. It always seems to amaze me the amount of stuff the shop actually sells.



Penny Pocket
Last but not least Penny runs the shop with Suzie and is the more straight thinking one. They do have a great partnership and do work well together. This shows children how well people can work together, no matter what the age difference is. Penny is in a wheelchair, which I do feel educates children about disabled people and again showing them that everyone is different.



Why I like it

Firstly the programme is very consistent in each episode, it has a certain structure and it's stuck to. Children like this and it makes it easier to watch, structure for children is good. The simple structure is:
Miss Hoolies goes to work at the school
The children arrive
There is a problem
They figure out whose character is best to help
They solve the problem
A quick re cap on events in the show
Show ends.


Colour recognition, each character is associated with a different colour; they do this by wearing the colour and living in a house of the same colour. This constantly educates children all through the show of different colours. With children the more they see the more they can remember, the repetitive showing of the colours should stick out in their mind (I know it does mine!).


Problem solving
Each show is about solving some sort of problem. This is a great way to really get children thinking logically trying to help solve it. Although they are the simplest of problems, for children they won't be, so a great way to get their little brains ticking.


Different types of characters
I think it is good to show children that people come in all different shapes and sizes etc. They do this by having a mixture of male and female characters, different races and different ages. They also associate cars with women and pink with men, although may not always be true to life it is good to try and educate children not to associate certain things with certain genders, great.


Singing
Although not good for me, they do have songs that each character will sing, some have more than one. The songs are always the same, which is really good as they are short, and easy to learn so children can sing along to them.



Why I don't like it

The characters
They all seem to be a little weird if I'm honest; Archie wears a kilt and likes pink. Josie leaps a round like she is on drugs. PC Plum seems a bit simple and not a good policeman role model in my opinion. Suzie doesn't seem to be quite with it and seems like she is on a different planet. Spencer again is a bit weird and I'm not quite sure how he can make a living with his music and painting especially the way he does it! Miss Hoolie is far too happy and her hair annoys me. Edie has meant to have travelled the world but how can she when she never leaves Balamory? Last it's Penny, to be honest there isn't much that annoys me about her except I can't understand how she works and lives with Suzie especially as they don't seem to be related!


The songs
The only reason I hate these is the fact that from time to time during the day I find myself singing away to them, how awful is that? I think it's the fact that the songs are so repetitive and catchy, they seem to just stick in my mind.


The Stories
Sometimes they are what I would call ridiculous, PC Plum is on the hunt for some missing dog or something, this isn't really hard cutting policing is it? But I have to remember that it is for young children and not 31 year old men so I suppose for a child it would be.

The way they speak and act
Again I have to think, it's for children, but watching it from an adult's point of view they are all a bit strange. They talk like children and behave like children, is this what we want our children to think adults behave like? They get excited over the smallest things and make the simplest of tasks seem like the task of the century. Come on you are grown ups, if I was an actor I would feel highly embarrassed to act he way they do. But I presume they get large amounts of money to do so, so why not! I can imagine the laugh they may have whilst shooting the programmes and I bet they find in their normal lives other people find it hard to see more than their Balamory characters. Are they real people are they Miss Hoolie, Josie Jump and so on.


Their lack of wardrobe
For a start they always wear the same clothes and secondly they are not what I would call good taste clothing. Wardrobe ranges from yellow track suits to kilts, maybe they need to update their wardrobes. The question I would like to know is do they have more than one of their outfits or do they have to keep washing them?



The last thing I hate about Balamory is the fact that both my daughter and my son like it so I have endured many episodes and now know it so well I have managed to do a review on it!

Summary: Great for kids not so great for adults