Paddington Author’s Olga da Polga Adapted for TV

The first TV adaptation of Olga da Polga, based on the books by Michael Bond (Paddington) and produced by Marakids, is set to air on CBeebies.

The 13-part series centers on the adventures of Olga the guinea pig and combines live-action, VFX talking animals and animation. BAFTA winners Greg Hemphill (Still Game) and Julie Wilson-Nimmo (Balamory) star as Olga’s owners.

The scripts were developed and adapted by Maramedia co-founders Jackie Savery and Nigel Pope alongside children’s TV writer Sara Daddy. Bond wrote the books after giving his daughter her first guinea pig, and Olga’s owners are loosely based on Bond and his first wife. Bond had previously worked as a BBC cameraman and always wanted to turn Olga da Polga into a TV series and even filmed his own pilot version.

Executive producers are Savery and Pope for Maramedia and Michael Towner for CBeebies. Emmy Award-winning composer Brollyman composed the music score and VFX and animation were provided by Doghouse in Bristol and Interference Pattern in Edinburgh. The team consulted animal welfare experts, vets and the SSPCA while making the series.

“Maramedia has really captured the characters from my father’s stories,” said Karen Jankel, Bond’s daughter. “I’m sure he would have been absolutely delighted, as live-action is exactly what he envisaged when he set out to make his pilot film.”

“After years of working in kids TV and with animals, I wondered whether it might be possible to make one of my favorite childhood books into a heartwarming series in a way which portrayed Olga’s funny and irrepressible spirit,” Savery said.

She continued, “As a wildlife production company, we wanted to approach the animal filming quite differently, filming the animals’ natural behavior over a longer period of time and then adapting this to the action we wanted them to portray. The series has been a total labor of love, bringing together so many different disciplines from drama to animation to natural history. We are very proud of the talented team that includes award winning director Michael Hines (Still Game) and series producer Uzma Mir (Molly and Mack).”