“As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared!” Maybe they
shouldn’t, but those words still thrill, and not because I’m a
bargain-bagging-shop-till-you-dropper, but a 100%, card-carrying fan of the
1970s kids TV show, Mr Benn. For the uninitiated, shame on you, Mr Benn is a
be-suited gentleman, in a bowler hat, who frequents a particularly unusual
costume shop. Every episode he tries on a different costume, before heading out
of the mysterious door in the changing room that leads to adventure. Naturally,
the nature of the costume dictates the style of adventure, he tends to bring
home with him a souvenir from his travels, and somehow, the people in “Festive
Road”, where Mr Benn lives, will in some way be reflecting elements of his
adventure when he returns home.
As a child, these 13 wonderful episodes represented the
essential tool-kit for the perfect life. It all starts with dressing up,
everything should. Then Mr Benn embarks upon an adventure, of which he will
inevitably become the hero, albeit with a refreshing, affable humility.
I remember my dressing-up-box, a big wicker basket with
collected costumes and assorted props. I would assemble a suitable ensemble,
then, like Mr Benn, step out into adventure. That my door-to-the-great-unknown
would always lead to the same back garden in deepest
Dorset
mattered little. It was all about the imaginary leap I made with Mr Benn, and
the resulting hours I would spend as the unassuming protagonist, vanquishing
villains and righting wrongs. Reading the stories to my own kids now, or
forcing them to sit through the rudimentary animation that was such a part of
my childhood, takes me straight back to simpler times.
Though he travelled through time and space, Mr Benn was
careful to only influence the lives he intersected in a positive way. The
shopkeeper would often pop up, towards the end of the story, offering sage
advice to our hero. The fact that Mr Benn never bought or even rented any of
the costumes seemed not to rile the bespectacled retailer at all. It may be
that he was independently wealthy, or that the shop was purely a pet project,
funded by the proceeds of having invented a very rare type of
sandwich, it was not clear. But what was
evident was the subtle manner in which good would triumph, without the need for
American accents, or heavy-handed moralising, just a comforting predictability.
Although I’m probably old enough to know better, I still
can’t resist Mr Benn, a quintessential English gentleman, with a bowler hat
full of admirable attributes. Like all good things in life, it lasts about the
same time as a cup of tea, and is just as warm and reassuring.
