Episode 115 - Peppa Pig Revisited (with Sarah Ann Kennedy)

Peppa Pig (Neville Astley & Mark Baker, 2004-).

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

Episode 115 celebrates Chris and Alex’s return to Peppa Pig (Neville Astley & Mark Baker, 2004-) for a part-interview, part-reflection on this staple of contemporary British animation and culture, which (unofficially at least!) follows on from the earlier podcast instalment discussing the style and tone of the series. The guest for this special ‘revisited’ episode is voice artist Sarah Ann Kennedy, who voices both Miss Rabbit and Mummy Rabbit in the show, alongside performing as Nanny Plum in Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom (Neville Astley & Mark Baker, 2009-) and Dolly Pond in the Channel 4 adult animation series Pond Life (Candy Guard, 1996-2000). Sarah is also a writer for Peppa Pig and an animation director, creating animated soap opera Crapston Villas (1995-1998) again for Channel 4, and is also currently a lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at the University of Central Lancashire. This episode covers all things related to the labour, creative practice, and technologies of voice acting, as well as featuring turns to the scope of ‘adult’ animation as a descriptor; local dubbing practices and the movement of animated television across national boundaries; ‘condensed’ animation aesthetics and anthropomorphic character designs; and the fun and fantasy of family that structures the colourful world of Peppa Pig.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Suggested Readings

  • Bashara, Dan. 2019. Cartoon Vision: UPA Animation and Postwar Aesthetics. California, Berkeley: University of California Press.

  • Brown, Noel. 2017. British Children’s Cinema: From the Thief of Bagdad to Wallace and Gromit. London: I.B. Tauris.

  • Kitson, Clare. 2008. British Animation: The Channel 4 Factor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

  • Norris, Van. 2014. British Television Animation 1997–2010: Drawing Comic Tradition. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantTELEVISION, CHILDREN, STYLE, VOICE ACTING, BRITISHComment