Tell me a Story
How I learned to read again, and search for the perfect CBeebies bedtime story
Reading is fundamental, as we all well know. But most of us have been reading for so long that it’s one of those things – like riding a bike, or kissing – where if you stop and think about how to do it, it becomes completely impossible. Go on, just stop for a moment and stare at these letters. Just focus on the squiggles. Hahahaha, meaningless, amirite?
The girls are in the throes of Year One and let me tell you I’m looking at their little “difficult trigraphs” reminder on the fridge and thinking “wow, this is a really inefficient and complicated way to convey sounds and therefore meaning.” You can say what you like about German (and I often do) but the fact is, if you see a German word you don’t know, you can at least pronounce it correctly. English? Just guess and hope. Every week some poor undergrad on University Challenge gets their pronunciation gently corrected by Amol Rajan when answering the question correctly and my heart goes out to them, it just seems so unfair.
Anyway, since having twins/the panny D, I had basically forgotten how to read books and was genuinely terrified that my ability to do so had gone forever, but somehow, this summer, in the midst of chicken pox, I got back on the horse and managed to read the following stack of books. I want to thank
and this Substack post in particular for making me think about a spreadsheet, too. I even took a picture of them, like I’m on TikTok or something.
Huge shout out to
for Pity Party, which is funny, a real page-turner, and had a twist I did NOT SEE coming so I won’t spoiler anyone; I will be forever grateful for its existence for restarting my reading career. Princess Caroline Murat is the bonkers memoir (it’s not name-dropping… it’s name-carpet-bombing) of Napoleon’s great-niece, written in exile in England after the Franco-Prussian War. Britney… had a very patient ghostwriter and her sad tale has made me think less of Justin Timberlake; at the same time, I still want to go and see him next summer. And Alan Cumming, who I’ve loved since Bernard and the Genie, is as good at writing as he is at acting.Anyway, let’s talk about CBeebies bedtime stories, reading, and the celebrity-industrial complex.
Big Names, Small Books
How do you get small children into reading? Obviously the main answer is… reading to them. There’s content galore out there about the best children’s books, so I won’t start off down that route, but “TV presenter reads story to children” has been a staple of the format for decades.
The BBC has decided to capitalise on this with the CBeebies Bedtime Story monolith, where actual A-listers (Kylie! Elton! Dolly!) read new and classic children’s books while the onscreen image Ken Burns-es across the pictures from the book. It is also the last thing on before they close down CBeebies at 19.00 sharp every day; I’ve written before about my love of linear television and having an external, neutral, force announce that IT IS BEDTIME NOW, THE TV IS LITERALLY ENDING is a great thing IMHO.
But which is the best CBeebies bedtime story? That is a tricker question. The first knot to untangle is probably what matters more: the text or the reader? Imagine I’m wiggling my fingers into air quotes and raising an eyebrow as I say this: as a writer, I’d love to say the written word takes precedence. But Alan Cumming got me thinkg about performance as a concept and, if it were that simple, we wouldn’t bother putting on Hamlet again and again, would we?
I’m therefore going to say, for your child the definitive version of any children’s book is the one you read to them (aaaaw). A standout bedtime story reading probably owes more to the reader than the text itself; also, the CBeebies producers seem to give bigger names more famous books, making it an inherently unfair playing field.
Fit for Purpose
The next factor is the viewer’s, uh, feeling towards the reader. There’s a reason this household has watched Mark Ronson read Pom Pom Gets the Grumps multiple times, and it’s not the story. (In fact, I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t tell you the story, despite having instigated every single one of those viewings.) The BBC know exactly what they are doing. Grandma’s watching the kids? Here’s Richard E Grant, or Michael Palin. Grandpa’s turn? Kristin Scott Thomas. You like Tom Hardy? Here he is, with a cute dog to boot (apparently his agent called CBeebies and asked if they wanted him… legend). Harry Kane, Harry Styles, actual Lionesses, whatever floats your boat… CBeebies Bedtime thirst trap, more like.
There’s also the joy of watching very famous people get really into it. I asked subscribers for suggestions for this, and
– who writes the excellent Crib Notes, another important part of my “reading again” journey – says that Tom Hiddleston reading Supertato was “mesmerising,” and it is; he brings genuine, BAFTA-level gravitas to the freezer aisle. “It's like bedtime stories casts a lens of hotness onto these men,” she notes, and I can only agree.Fame will only get you so far, though, and I think you need a bit of old-school radio/stage experience to really nail the Bedtime Story. Look at Jason Momoa. No, not that way, get a grip. Aquaman recently read Julia Donaldson’s Tiddler. Tiddler is the story of an exaggeration-prone fish who one day gets caught in a net, but finds his way back to school as various marine life forms recognise his epic stories. Like all Donaldson books, it is everywhere all the time; many parents could recite it with ease.
But Jason simply doesn’t read it very well. Tiddler’s greatest virtue is the metre – it just rattles along. The rhyme, the rhythm, it reads itself. Except Jason adds in the odd word, so it doesn’t scan, and at one point just gets it wrong; at the dramatic climax, where a plaice shows Tiddler the way back, he says “I don’t recognise his face” instead of “don’t I recognise your face?,” thus rendering the whole thing unintelligible. Now, look, for very obvious reasons, I don’t want to start a beef with Jason Momoa, and who knows what kind of a day he’d had before some rando gave him a book and cardigan, maybe he didn’t have time to practice, maybe they only had time for one take, maybe he’s more of a Gruffalo guy? But the fact is, it could have been done better.
Funny, Smooth, Eyebrows
I often wonder how they film these – are the celebs passing through for The Graham Norton Show or something, and they make them read a bedtime story as part of a contractual agreement in a cupboard next to the green room? Do they just decamp to Broadcasting House and film all the Radio 2 presenters together in one day? The sports ones are often in actual stadia, do they just take advantage of having a camera crew there and shoot them after play? Does that mean every BBC camera operator has to pass bedtime story filming 101 in case they’re stuck in a lift with Beyoncé, or something?
However they film them, I feel like there’s a certain kind of grown-up who just understands the assignment. My friend Charles suggested Rowan Atkinson reading Nadia Shireen’s The Bumblebear, and it’s a great shout. Rowan Atkinson is just so, so funny; there’s something about his voice, his face that just works. The guy was Mr. Bean!! I also love him reading Dogs in Disguise which, for my money, is even funnier.
Have a flick through iPlayer: Celia Imrie, Annette Badland, Lenny Henry, Stephen Fry…. look, if they can recount an anecdote which involves Kenneth Branagh, they’re probably a good Bedtime Story-er. Louis Theroux is excellent as well, reading Peggy The Always Sorry Pigeon. Then there’s a kind of innate charm some people just have:
rates Nadiya Hussein over “A-list megastars” and he makes a good point.When I started writing this, I thought I’d just pick a “best” one, but then I realised there were bedtime stories I remember watching which have disappeared from iPlayer. Some of them are knocking around on odd corners of the internet (here’s Patrick Stewart in the wrong aspect ratio with Russian subtitles). I know when I started this Substack I said I wasn’t going to do journalism, but I cracked and phoned the BBC Press office, because I felt sure Alan Cumming had done one, but they assure me hasn’t.
Still, I feel I can’t make a definitive choice with only partial information, so I will simply say that the smoothest choice remains anything read (ok, sung) by Gregory Porter, the funniest is probably Steve Carrell reading the Eyebrows of Doom and I find Lora Fachie reading The Black Book of Colours incredibly moving.
A few months ago, editor Tom and I asked, why isn’t The High Life on iPlayer? Mysteriously, it appeared just recently. So I’m going to attempt to wield this strange power again and ask… when are the BBC going to put all the old bedtime stories back on iPlayer? And… when do we get to see Alan Cumming? He’d be great.
When I read your substack for the first time, and it compared the beloved Numberblocks to Primer, I just knew - somehow - that I was reading the words of the kind of person who had an appreciation of Bernard and the Genie :)
Very pleased to appear here but ALSO you are right about Jason Momoa's total lack of effort.