Eh-oh! The new incarnation of children’s TV favourite the Teletubbies has been revealed – complete with touch screens on their stomachs to cater for the digital generation.



Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po will be back on the BBC later this year nearly 20 years after they first emerged from the Teletubbies house.

The colourful quartet still have antennas on their heads but the familiar TV screens have been replaced by “21st century touch screen tummies” in the first image from the new series unveiled on Wednesday.

The show will return with an all-star cast of voices including Harry Potter star Jim Broadbent and former Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton, with Jane Horrocks voicing a mobile-style phone.

Producers said the Teletubbies had been “subtly updated to cater for today’s pre-schoolers” and had retained their “loveable, huggable distinctive features”.

The original show, which began in 1997, was seen by an estimated 1 billion children in more than 100 countries.

It is one of a number of old children’s shows to return in a new incarnation, including Thunderbirds, the Clangers, Paddington and the Wombles.

But one person who won’t be watching is its co-creator Anne Wood, the doyen of children’s TV who is not involved in its return having sold off the rights to the show.

“It’s a no-brainer to do more Teletubbies because it’s got such a big international profile. You can’t blame them for doing it, you can just withdraw into your shell,” she said earlier this year.

“But how could I watch it? All my programmes are like my children. It’s like seeing a child remade in somebody else’s image. So good luck to them. They bought it and I can’t do anything about that.”

Like the original, the screens on the Teletubbies’ tummies will be used to broadcast live-action films shot from a child’s perspective.

The four will still be played by actors wearing costumes and much of their world will be real. However, newly-added computer generated elements will include flowers that grow and bloom throughout an episode.

Stand-up comedian and Eric and Ernie actor Daniel Rigby will narrate the new series, while Sunshine on Leith actor Antonia Thomas will lend her voice to the opening and closing lines.

Rights owner DHX Media said the show, which is being made by independent producer Darrall Macqueen, had been “reinvigorated for a modern audience” with a landscape that had been “visually enriched to give a more natural feel and create an extended and enhanced environment”.

It said the new Teletubbyland will feature “intricate details such as stunning flowers that viewers will see grow from buds into fully fledged blooms, throughout the show, as well as a new windmill, crafted from natural materials, that adds a further element to this lush environment”.