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Whatsapp Hosts Benita Collings and John Waters record Play School in the 1970s

As Jemima, Humpty Dumpty, and Teds both Big and Little navigate their golden jubilee, former host Benita Collings reflects on how Play School has changed over the decades—and how it hasn't. RN Breakfast looks through the square window.

The thing people don't realise about being a presenter on a nationally-revered children's program, says former Play School host Benita Collings, is that it's actually quite hard.

'It's difficult,' Collings says with a laugh. 'Ask any actor who's doing the same thing. Because you're not acting, you're being yourself.'

People come up to me and say, 'I learned English watching Play School.' How gorgeous.

Working on Play School, she says, is not like most acting jobs. There's nothing to hide behind. 'When you're stripped of a character, it can be a bit daunting.'

'However, I enjoyed it so much, I let fly.'

And generations of children have enjoyed it, too. This year, Play School turns 50—and there's an exhibition at the National Museum to celebrate.

Collings—who, after hosting the show for 30 years, will forever be 'Benita from Play School' to much of Australia—is enjoying the party.

'I just think it's so delicious, that a program that's been going for 50 years—and still works—is being celebrated.'

Changing with the times

While some elements of the program have been there since the beginning—Big and Little Ted have stuck around since the '60s, the rocket clock from the early '70s—Play School has by no means been a static program.

'Play School moved with the times,' Collings says. 'When computers came in, we had a computer and showed how it worked.'

In many ways, Collings says, Play School was ahead of its time—a pioneer. Especially when it came to gender politics and feminism.

'Women would do the hammering of the wood, the hammering of the nail, and the male presenter would bathe the toy and put the nappy on.

'They were really breaking those awful stereotypes,' she says.

Was that a conscious choice? 'Yes,' Collings says proudly. 'It was.'

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Whatsapp Australian actress Noni Hazlehurst with Humpty Dumpty from ABC TV's Play School.

Being recognised as 'Benita from Play School'

Being the public face of such an institution is a strange role for an actor. It's not quite like being typecast—you are, after all, playing yourself.

If anything, Collings says, the recognition has ramped up as the show approaches its half-century.

'It's weird, because it seems more and more I'm being accosted—that's a terrible word to use—but people coming up to me and saying, "Oh, I grew up with you!"

'And of course—given when I started—those people are mums and dads!'

Collings also acknowledges that for children in many of Australia's post-war migrant families, Play School was more than just a source of entertainment.

'That's something else that people come up to me and say: "I learned English watching Play School."'

She pauses: 'How gorgeous.'

The next generation

When the subject of Play School's future comes up, Collings is optimistic. Will it survive another 50 years?

'I think it will,' Collings says.

Play School speaks to a fundamental truth about children, she says. When the show began in the '60s, its premise was to make children imagine, learn, wonder and feel.

And that, Collings reckons, will forever be relevant.

'Kids love to make things. I know we've got computers and iPads and all the rest of it ... however, to get stuck in and make something with what's around is still part of that childhood growing.

'I don't think it'll ever leave.'

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