Blue Peter Special Assignment
| Blue Peter Special Assignment | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Children's Documentary |
| Created by | Edward Barnes |
| Written by | Edward Barnes Dorothy Smith |
| Directed by | Edward Barnes Daniel Wolf David Brown Harry Cowdy Peter Ridsdale Scott Dorothea Brooking Sarah Hellings Hugh David David Turnbull Alex Leger David Hargreaves |
| Presented by |
Lesley Judd Peter Purves, Valerie Singleton |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 39 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Biddy Baxter |
| Producer(s) | Edward Barnes |
| Location(s) | Various |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Original release | 7 January 1973 – 7 June 1981 |
Blue Peter Special Assignment was a factual BBC TV series broadcast in the 1970s and early 1980s, the first spin-off from the long running BBC series Blue Peter. It ran regularly from 1973 until 1981, usually at weekends on BBC1, and was heavily promoted on Blue Peter itself. The concept for the series was developed after Valerie Singleton had made a successful documentary 'special' with HRH Princess Anne when she had visited Kenya in 1971. The Special Assignment series was mainly produced by Edward Barnes and presented initially by Valerie Singleton and later by Peter Purves and Lesley Judd both of whom had been presenters on Blue Peter itself.
Series One featured Valerie Singleton looking at six European Capital Cities. These included Rome, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Brussels. The first programme to be filmed was the one featuring Rome and included a personal address to the children of Britain from Pope Paul VI in The Vatican.
Series Two continued to feature Singleton looking at European Cities and included Dublin, York and Madrid. Later series looked at Islands and included The Isle of Wight, The Isle of Man, Hong Kong, Malta and Venice, even though Venice had also featured in an earlier series as a 'city'. Later the show began to look at famous houses or famous individuals and included biographies of Vivaldi, The Brontë Sisters, The Duke of Wellington, Saint Therese of Lisieux, Marie Antoinette and Rudyard Kipling and both Lesley Judd and Peter Purves began presenting the series in place of Singleton.
The series in 1977 was presented jointly by Peter Purves and Lesley Judd, with the theme of 'twin towns'.
The final series was co-presented alternately by Singleton and Peter Purves, being broadcast in 1981. The series theme was Rivers, with Singleton examining The Yukon and Niagara, while Purves reported on The Tamar, The Tweed and The Singapore Rivers.
Spin off books were published covering the first two series.
Repeated Monday, 7 June 1971 at 7:20pm and Monday, 3 April 1972 at 5:00pm on BBC1.
Valerie Singleton reports on six capital cities of Europe. Produced by Edward Barnes.
The series was repeated on BBC1 in November/December 1973 with the broadcast order changed to: Rome, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Paris, City of London, Vienna.
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