Everyone at Saffron Cherry and sister company Grandpa Productions would like to extend a massive
THANKYOU to everyone who helped make The Word According to Grandpa an award-winning series.
On Thursday 11th February our “charming, inventive and inclusive” show won “Best Pre-School Programme” at the Broadcast Awards 2022 held at the prestigious JW Marriott Grosvenor House in London. The category was very strong with the ever-popular Numberblocks (the only nominee that wasn’t on Channel 5’s Milkshake!). We were also up against gorgeous animation in the form of Milo, Pip and Posy and Odo plus great ecological edutainment with Go Green with the Grimwades also making us all bite our nails until the very last minute. Everyone a worthy contender.
We genuinely had no idea we would win this prestigious National award and certainly as we found our places right at the back of the room next to the toilets in table 414 of 415, we didn’t think our chances were high! Little did we know that the beautiful silver B trophy has been engraved and the winners’ booklet had already been printed. If you believe in omens, you would be pretty sure it wasn’t our night; Director Alex Jacob and Producer Rima Sen handed their coats in and grabbed a drink at the wrong awards ceremony, at the wrong hotel about a ten minute walk away before stomping across London on an unusually freezing night! The voice of Halifax, Sally Lindsay had been stuck in a lift in the event hotel for twenty minutes, and the star of our show Don Warrington, was also booked on to The Death in Paradise table – juggling courses between his two shows. Long story short, everyone eventually made it, and we were all in total disbelief when the winner was announced. It was a really special moment as we walked up to the stage when Alex Horne got his house band to play the theme tune to The World According to Grandpa getting the whole room to sing along to non-existent lyrics – though it has given us a very nice idea for a brand refresh!
"“Every part of the format is designed with diversity in mind, all delivered with a light touch”"
The team couldn’t be more pleased with this write up. It’s exactly what we set out to do with the show: educate, entertain, represent and normalise for young audiences. And none of this progress would be possible without the support of the Young Audiences Content Fund which has supported four of the six worthy nominees in our category. It has been recently announced that the fund has been closed, so all of these shows, ours included, will have to find other funding partners.
We got this news the week before the Broadcast Awards, and everyone involved in Kids’ TV has been feeling downbeat as a result. Maybe that’s why we didn’t think we would win. However, with these lovely comments under our belt, all the fantastic messages from tv chums, and series two on the way, our only mission is to make it as brilliant as always so that children, caregivers, parents, grandparents and broadcasters are inspired all over again!
So once again thanks to all our crew, cast, the amazing team at Flix Facilities for their animation, everyone in accounts, production, pre-production, post production and our partners at Channel 5, S4C, Boom Cymru and the BFI, everyone on and off the credits. And special thanks to the show’s creator and writer, its beating heart Chris Heath. It wouldn’t be the best pre-school programme 2022 without you all. If we could do a Mean Girls and break the award into pieces to share with you all we would, but it’s really, really heavy …. so you can look at these lovely photos here….
Rima Sen, Series Producer
The World According to Grandpa