— The reason many television shows in Britain are adapted from books is that broadcasters tend to be very risk-averse. They want to know there has already been some degree of market testing before they commit any money to a project. Initially, publishers did not engage with Rastamouse because they were risk-averse too. As a result, the authors self-published the books and made them successful themselves. De Souza and Webster went around local bookshops in Notting Hill, building the popularity of the books, which eventually made their way into more mainstream stores.

For me, the Rastamouse books were distinctive and different – and if you are trying to place something in the market, you need something that stands out from the crowd. The books had all those elements, as well as an absolutely joyful energy. From a public service broadcasting point of view, what you want to do is represent as much of your audience as possible. That is your job: to represent the whole country. The BBC did not have a show that did that, and so they were very interested in Rastamouse.

When Rastamouse hit the screen, it blew up in the media. There was a huge amount of licensing activity, which is really unusual so early in a show’s lifetime. They even had Rastamouse and the Easy Crew appear at Glastonbury Festival, as well as at a CBeebies live event. Alongside all of that, Three Stones Media initiated a music education programme using Rastamouse as a vehicle, together with EMI Publishing and EMI’s music charity. In a 12-week course, four- and five-year-olds learned to play an instrument and perform Easy Crew songs.

De Souza and Webster were brilliant because they brought the books to a certain level of popularity, and there was already word of mouth around them. They were doing readings before the show was made, and they continued afterwards as well. De Souza and Webster deserve a lot of credit for building the books as far as they did under their own steam.

— In the books, the speech is written in rhyme, which evokes patois. You cannot hear the characters speak, but I’ve heard lots of people read the books to their children, and they all have a go. So, the voice of the show came directly from the books. I think the rhythm – if not always the rhyme – carried through into the series because it was part of its energy. Anybody who works in international distribution will tell you that rhyme does not always translate. That is why the series does not always retain the exact poetic rhythm of the books, but it does preserve a rhythm that carries through the show, which was an important part of the adaptation. There had not been anything like Rastamouse before in British children’s television. I think its presence on screen was something new, celebratory, and significant, particularly because the producers took care to retain the intentions and authenticity of the original material. The television series remained faithful to the books, which is unusual in many ways.

The BBC felt that the imperative of the show was very clear and that it was distinct from other programmes. However, they wanted us to think about another visual approach, even though Webster’s artwork was beautiful. It was somewhat reminiscent of Maisy Mouse, which had been adapted into a series not many years earlier. Animation director Derek Mogford, whom I knew from previous work, created a 3D stop-motion puppet of Rastamouse after engaging with the creators alongside creative consultants from Three Stones Media (Greg and Eugenio) and myself. Derek Mogford’s genius lay in combining a 3D character with a 2D world – the environments, houses, and props – which worked beautifully because it retained some of the illustrative qualities of Webster’s original artwork.

Diversity in the television and broadcasting world has never really existed, has it? It has traditionally been very middle- and upper-middle-class, white, and male-dominated. Children’s programming is slightly different because it is mostly dominated by white middle- or upper-middle-class women, with a few men involved. You rarely saw Black people either in production companies or among broadcasters. It is changing, but not very quickly, although there are now many initiatives taking place.

Finding people with an authentic voice to tell these stories was a challenge, and assembling the production crew was an even bigger one. Creative consultant Greg Boardman was instrumental in bringing people in from other writing sectors and pairing them with a couple of experienced hands who could say, “Right, this is how we do preschool television.” That way, there was a level of authenticity in the voices telling the stories.

— I think “British animation” can mean many different things to different people, can’t it? But for me, coming from a public service broadcasting background, it means telling British stories, or expressing a quirky British sense of humour, or showing something that speaks to our country. Rastamouse is set in Mouseland, which is shaped like a chunk of cheddar cheese. It could be its own fictional place, but it also resembles many real places. In my mind, Rastamouse was always set in a kind of Notting Hill-on-Sea. That was what de Souza and Webster were exploring in their books: they wanted to represent their local West London community – a part of society that is not often seen on everyday television. That matters because if programmes are not telling your stories or representing who you are, what does that say? Showing children different lives, communities, and voices helps them embrace others.

There was some backlash as well, because there were people who felt that others might have been more “authentic” choices for the roles, particularly in relation to Caribbean identity. But that was never the intention. Casting was about the energy the voice actors brought to being part of a community like Notting Hill-on-Sea. You can enter a very pedantic discussion about where an actor’s grandparents were born, and some commentators did go in that direction, but they missed the point. We received a great deal of positive appreciation, although there were also people who strongly objected to the show. I even had to go on the Victoria Derbyshire programme with de Souza and Webster to defend it.

There were also complaints that the characters were “not speaking proper English”. I received many letters about that. People’s concerns are always real, so you have to respond respectfully. We worked closely with child speech and language therapists, and the biggest influence on a child’s speech is always their parents and family environment. I would say we were always sincere in trying to represent a particular joyful West London community. We were being authentic to the source material, and the source material was authentic to that community. Everybody involved was trying to do the right thing. Bizarrely, concerns about the depiction of Rastafarianism were never something we received complaints about. There were also questions around the stereotyping of Black men, and even whether cheese was supposed to be a metaphor for weed. It was not – it was just cheese. But language was the issue people focused on most.

At the time, the linear CBeebies channel was getting between 500,000 and 600,000 viewers per episode for Rastamouse. CBeebies audiences are perhaps a tenth of that size now. The complaints were in the hundreds rather than the thousands, and there were far more expressions of appreciation for the show from all sorts of audiences than there were complaints. I think it is the job of the BBC to represent all of us, and commissioning and supporting Rastamouse was the BBC doing exactly that.

— You can play with reality in order to make a point, and that is why I think animation is so popular with preschool audiences. It is colourful and vibrant, but it can also carry real educational, social, and emotional tensions within the storytelling. Even if there is an element of fantasy in an otherwise realistic world, that world still has its own reality and its own rules.

I think children’s brains and opinions form incredibly quickly – they are like sponges and absorb everything they see and hear. Because of that, we need to provide some guardrails around what is considered good, kind, or polite. 'Da Bagga Bard' was one of the most interesting episodes for me because it centred on the American director deciding what was and was not acceptable. Of course, Bagga T gets the role in the end, so the story resolves positively. But Cornell’s Shakespearean performance at the beginning reflects what many people traditionally expect from dramatic theatre or film: RP – Received Pronunciation – the kind of English accent associated with Shakespearean performance. It was an interesting question to pose to young children.

— I think Rastamouse was something of a trailblazer because I cannot think of another show at the time that so overtly represented the voices of a particular part of our community in the way that it did. Since then, other brilliant programmes have emerged, but Rastamouse helped people realise that their stories could be told and that their experiences mattered. In that sense, I think it was a real game changer. It made people believe that they could tell their own stories and hear voices like theirs represented on screen.
I also think it brought a new generation of people into the industry who later found success or went on to work in different areas of television. Programmes such as JoJo & Gran Gran are part of that legacy – Laura, the creator of JoJo & Gran Gran, worked on Rastamouse. The show helped people realise that they could be part of the media industry, that they could belong in television.

When Kay left, and later when I left, the people in charge at the BBC decided to stop relicensing Rastamouse. I do not really understand that decision because, in terms of celebrating and representing all audiences, I do not think that acquiring programmes like SpongeBob SquarePants, Winx Club, or Cocomelon is an adequate replacement for a show like Rastamouse on a public service broadcaster. Yet those are the kinds of programmes now shown on CBeebies instead.

When certain television programmes are no longer relicensed, they simply disappear and stop being shown anywhere. There are not many shows that could successfully resurface years later, but I do think Rastamouse has a certain timelessness. Because of the quality of the production and the sincerity of its intentions, I think it has stood the test of time better than many others. If it were up to me, I would relicense it back to the BBC immediately.