As a soothing melody plays and night time falls upon an ordinary suburban neighbourhood, Jamie is settling down to sleep for the night.
Jamie's mum stands over his bedside and calls softly to him, "Sleep well, Jamie" and the light from the lighted doorway slowly fades from view. The bedroom door shuts, the music ends, and a rocking theme tune now takes over!
The Prelude
Jamie's eyes flash with excitement and a smile beams across his face as he sits up to find his dog Wordsworth carefully hidden under his bed. Jamie turns to Wordsworth who is now ready and waiting to pass Jamie the magic torch. As Jamie gets to his feet he stands beside the bed to shine the torch onto the bedroom floor, which now flashes brightly to reveal a helter skelter slide which Jamie and Wordsworth jump onto.
As the slide sends them further and further from the house they turn downwards, still further and deeper into another land reached at the bottom of an old tree. They reach the end, Jamie and Wordsworth bounce out of the tree and catapult onto a trampoline which propels them high into the air. Now the magic really starts, as they enter a place called Cuckoo Land.
Characters in Cuckoo Land
With Jamie in his trademark yellow and red pyjamas, his trusty yellow torch grasped tightly in his hand and Wordsworth following closely behind, the two venture out to a place where everything is slightly different from the every day happenings of the ordinary world.
For a start, when anyone needs any help in Cuckoo Land, Jo-Jo the odd job man pops out of the ground, which often occurs at the most inconvenient times and especially when right in the middle of a conversation if somebody happens to mention the word, 'Help.'
Bulli Bundy is a magic rabbit magician, with a lot of energy and creative bounce who is nearly always responsible for the mischief that lands other people in trouble. But each time this happens, Jamie's magic torch can always be relied on to rescue anyone from an awkward dilemma. When Bulli Bundy makes a new magic trick which doesn't quite work out right, he jumps straight back into his magician's hat to avoid being caught by the local Cuckoo Land Constabulary Officer Gotcha, who is yet another interesting character.
Officer Gotcha is similar to many policemen even today in his haste to catch the speeding motorist whilst speeding along just as fast just to catch up with them. He drives on a motorised unicycle instead of a car which he fuels with fresh supplies of truncheons, which when eaten give his vehicle enough energy to tear along the road. This is usually in pursuit of a noisome speeding Yoo-Hoo bird who never observes the speed limit and always finds a reason to run away from him, resulting in Officer Gotcha spending most of the time asking if anyone has seen him.
Mr. Boo is a thoughtful elderly man who records all the goings on in Cuckoo Land to make sure that nothing is out of place or the wrong way round whilst traveling around on a flying submarine, with a special umbrella that pops out of the top when it is ready to leave the ground. Added to this list there are a few other characters, but these ones remain the most favoured of them all.
Plot Line
Whether a Yoo-Hoo bird that is mistaken for a Yeti, a policeman who gets stuck in his hat whilst looking for more truncheons, or a candy floss covered land which everyone gets stuck to, as soon as Jamie shines his magic torch on whatever is not found to be in its rightful place, with a flash of white light everything goes back to normal again.
Each of Jamie and Wordsworth's adventures happen at night time when no one else is awake and when it is time for the pair to leave Cuckoo Land the magic tree suddenly appears in order to whiz them both up the helter skelter slide and back to Jamie's bedroom once again.
As Jamie snuggles into bed, his mum never suspects where he has really been or where his amazing adventures have taken him in Cuckoo Land. The torch is symbolic of a security blanket and this allows Jamie to enjoy his dream-like fantasy, safe in the knowledge that when anything gets out of hand his magic torch will always bring order to the chaos all around.
Jamie and the Magic Torch Theme Tune
Produced by Cosgrove Hall
Alicia Rudd - Alicia enjoys literature which explores the connections between the romantic and the realistic, the mythicised and the ordinary. In ...
