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Storybook International

WELL-MEANING EURO-BONDING co-production featuring various forgettable dramatised fairytales but blessed with a supremely non-forgettable title sequence: a camp Robin Hood cartoon minstrel with lute shambling about boasting of his international narrative prowess and insisting “Oi am the Storoytollor/And moi storois must be told…” Had a different alias for each country’s production, apparently; in England he was, disappointingly, “John”. ISLA BLAIR did the narration stuff.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. George White

    March 1, 2018 at 7:14 pm

    Also narrated by June Barrie, ex-Blue Peter presenter Anita West and Clare “Waldorf Salad” Nielson.
    Cast odd, some credited,adrian mills karen mayo-chandler David Lyn, Elizabeth Romilly, Michael Howarth, Kevin Mann. Mandy Perryment, Lisa Vanderpump, Peter Duncan, Dewi Morris, Peter Hutchinson, Iris Jones, Fiona McArthur, Donna Evans, others not – but directed by proper directors – Andrew Grieve and Hammer vet Peter Sasdy. Mysterious production, as mysterious as Ski-Boy, filmed all over the world, behind the Iron Curtain, in Udaipur, at the hotel from Octopussy, Ireland too apparently. Funded by Barry Levinson, not that one, but a British-American producer of the same name- behind the Amazing Mr. Blunden. Needs to be researched.

  2. Richard16378

    March 1, 2018 at 9:22 pm

    It was one of those shows I mostly watched the titles then got bored after a minute or so.

  3. Droogie

    June 19, 2020 at 2:01 am

    The theme tune was sung by old folker Fred “Oldest Swinger In Town” Wedlock , who was briefly inescapable on telly in the early 80’s if you had the misfortune to live in the HTV West region. ( No one remembers his flop Oldest Swinger follow-up song The Jogger. )

  4. THX 1139

    June 19, 2020 at 10:34 am

    Now revived by Shaun Keaveney on 6Music, who claims when he was a kid other kids in his school used to sing this theme tune to indicate scepticism about a tale someone else has related. Sort of “Jimmy Hill!” type thing.

  5. richardpd

    June 19, 2020 at 11:50 am

    At my school “Chinny Winston” with a stroke to the chin was the stock response to a tall tale, no idea where it came from.

    One I remember watching had someone falling asleep under s tree when they should have been doing something important. The were woken up when someone shot an arrow at their water bottle hung in the tree & the flow of water woke them up.

  6. Muslimah

    January 11, 2023 at 10:05 pm

    The storyteller’s aliases implied that he was the same person wherever he went. Ivan, Jan and Johanne were nationalised forms of ‘John’ (itself, a nationalised form of the Jewish, Yehochanan). So there’s no need to be ‘disappointed’. It suggested a universal storytelling spirit, and, as I remember, it was an enchanting concept.

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