Grasshopper Productions aims to adapt and devise programmes that have a timeless quality, the kind of stories that can be watched with pleasure by adults as well as children. Many have become collectors' pieces with contributions from leading stars of stage and screen.
The company was set up by Joy Whitby, the distinguished children’s television producer who originated Play School and Jackanory for the BBC. Other memorable series which she devised or masterminded include A Growing Summer and Catweazle for LWT and The Book Tower and the EBU Drama Exchange for Children for YTV. She was a member of the first Board of Channel 4, sat on the National Trust’s Advisory Panel for Youth, was on the Board of the Unicorn Theatre and the Board of the International Child Care Trust. She now works as an independent, writing and producing for Grasshopper Productions.
Alison de Vere. who died in 2001, collaborated on many of the animations in the Grasshopper Collection. She started her career working on classics like Yellow Submarine and Kubrick’s 2001 and over the years produced award-winning films of her own like her masterpiece The Black Dog. A Small Miracle was her last storyboard. The film was included in a Retrospective of her work at the Hiroshima Animation Festival, 2002.
