#EdFringe 2023 Interview: Nikky Smedley talks “Confessions of a Teletubby”

I used to come to Edinburgh regularly, back in the day when I had a dance company. I visited as a punter last year for the first time in decades and it inspired me to bring a completely new show to the Fringe, 30-odd years on.

For the last twelve months or so I have been touring a one woman show – “Nikipedia: Confessions of a Former Teletubby” – that deals a little with my time as LaaLaa, but is a much broader storytelling and story sharing event. It’s a full evening’s worth, with two halves of 45 minutes and a 20 minute interval – this plus the need for cabaret-style seating means it’s not a great fit for Fringe. So I chatted with a few venues and some helpful producers and decided to make an entirely new, hour-long show that focuses entirely on the Teletubby thing and fits into the Fringe model. So that’s what I’ve done, and that’s “Confessions of a Teletubby”!

It’s almost all wrapped up and ready to go – I’m nearly there! In Edinburgh, you know, you’ve got to be really nimble in and out of the theatre and bang on with your timings. So, if anything, the struggle has been cutting material down enough to fit in with the traditional one hour Fringe slot.

It is a very good way of putting it. Yes. There’s a big heap of darlings whimpering gently in the back-yard. When you’re thinking about the Fringe and what you’re going to do, how you’re going to structure the show, you need to keep an eye on your watch-words. For me those are things like honesty, punchy, pacy, snappy, to-the-point, and above all… entertaining.

My producer voiced it best for me when she suggested I divided my material into chunks – or in the case of this show, specific Confessions. She looked at the Festival line-up, the whole thing, and saw lots of chunks. I think that’s the mentality you’ve got to get into: Bite-sized – it’s the audience expectation apart from anything else. Also there’s something personal and more intimate about Fringe. It’s not the sort of situation where you just stand up and perform at The space, you’ve got to be authentically human and form a proper connection with the people who are sitting really rather close to you!

I don’t worry about it, but I do respect it. Part of the reason I wanted to make “Confessions…” is because people feel so warmly towards our show. We had a bumpy beginning but ended up creating a very special place in people’s hearts. That’s a huge, lovely thing to have in your life.

I also understand that our audience aren’t kids anymore – they are more aware of the realities of making a TV programme. They know now there were grown people in the costumes, they understand we weren’t actually magical space babies! I’m hoping our original audience will be intrigued to find out what it was like to be one of us. 

Absolutely. Absolutely. My time on Teletubbies still has all kinds of repercussions in my life. For example, a fortnight ago I had a drink with one of the sparks (electricians), the storyboard artist, and a member of the art department. A couple of dressers were supposed to be there, but sadly couldn’t make it. So, you know, the show is still massively present in the everyday run of my life, and it’s great.

When I was writing my memoir, “Over The Hills and Far Away: My Life As a Teletubby” – on which the show is based – I got in touch with as many cast and crew as I could to check they didn’t mind being mentioned or if there was anything they didn’t want me to say. Virtually everyone I spoke to said, “It’s 25 years on, and it’s still the most fun I’ve ever had at work!”

Mostly, it’s a joy to know we brought so much positive delight to a generation of toddlers.

Sadly Simon is no longer with us. John Simmit who played Dipsy remains my Citrus Posse pal and we’re in regular contact with each other. Pui not so much, but for no real reason, that’s just how life goes sometimes.

We were involved from very early on in proceedings, so we developed our characters with the creators. Naturally they shared their thinking, but we had real, genuine input. We had no say about the practical things like your character colour, or the shape of your aerial, or what your favourite thing was going to be, but we worked a lot on the physical markers, voices and characterisation. 

It was important to define how children could relate to the differences between us, apart from size. For example, if children were going to play ‘Teletubbies’ what would they do if they were being Dipsy, or LaaLaa? We needed to supply them with clear pointers to enable them to emulate each character. Everything was done with a view as to how the child would interpret what was going on.

Of course. Because like you say, it does have a special place in people’s hearts and I have to respect that. I want to keep that little bit of magic, while creating an atmosphere of ‘letting them in behind the scenes’. It’s like being in the magic circle and learning how the tricks work! That’s the mood I’m going for.

Yes, but not completely! Mostly just, “You’ll never guess how we did this…” and a lot of sweating in the costumes!

The tricky part was editing down all that material. Having already written my book, I had gone through, picked the best stories and already edited to a certain degree. But I needed to more harshly pick and choose to find a flow of the elements I thought people would be interested in: elements that you wouldn’t immediately think of, for example the silly games that we played on set and things like that. I wanted to give a real human touch – and I called the show “Confessions of a Teletubby” so I had to confess!

Any audience would be good – all are welcome! But… I suppose I’m hoping for people who grew up with that first round of Teletubbies who are now in their late twenties/early thirties – and maybe their older siblings, parents and carers. It would also be fun to see some of the people who were students at the time and who really got off on the programme! I guess, across the board, it’s people who have an understanding, who have a certain knowledge about what Teletubbies was, and who know what it meant to them. Those are the people I hope will enjoy finding out those magic circle secrets.

Oh I really hope so! And maybe I do expect it, because that’s what happens with people who have interviewed me, like this, and also with people who’ve read the book. They tell me they rushed out to watch a Teletubbies episode to check something I’ve said and guess what? It’s true!

Well, let’s hope so. I hope so. I’m not doing many shows this time round but if it goes super well, who knows? I might come back and do more in 2024. I’m just dipping my toe in this year to see how scary the water is!

I mean we had the rebooted Teletubbies in 2014, but let’s face it – the original is still the best!

But you’ve jogged my memory – back when we were filming, the aforementioned storyboard artist made a set of drawings for us in an idle moment on set and depicted Po and Tinky Winky as pensioners!

But that really would ruin the magic!

I do hope so – because my book is out there (I’m signing copies after the shows by the way) and I’ll be touring “Confessions of a Teletubby” and “Nikipedia” into 2024 so a surge of interest would be much appreciated.

That’s the aim – I just hope people enjoy the show and that it reminds them of the time they spent as children visiting the lovely, silly, safe world of Teletubbies.

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