Balamory


Balamory is a Scottish live-action children's programme created by Brian Jameson for BBC Scotland. The show, promoted by the BBC as being the "world's first soap for pre-school children", centres on a fictional small island community off the west coast of Scotland and deals with the residents of the community and their issues.
Originally lasting for four series and 253 episodes, Balamory aired on CBeebies from 2002 until 2005. Upon its initial premiere, the series was a big ratings success for the then-newly launched channel, and by the beginning of 2004, was promoted as being the most successful in-house pre-school program produced by the BBC since Teletubbies. Following its initial cancellation in 2005, a revival series was announced by the BBC in September 2024 for a 2026 broadcast window to be produced by Lion Television Scotland.

Synopsis

The series uses a bridge-style format, with Miss Hoolie acting as the bridge-in-gap for the main portion of the episode. A creative aspect of the programme involves the characters often being "one step behind" the audience when it comes to problem-solving. This allows for young, inquisitive viewers to figure out "what the story is" in Balamory based on their interpretations. Miss Hoolie directly talks to the viewers watching, recapping for them the episode's moral and how the characters would accomplish it.
The opening credits show the town of "Balamory" with its brightly coloured houses and residents. Miss Hoolie opens the nursery school, greets the nursery children, and talks about that day's weather. On a "play day" she visits Pocket & Sweet, the village shop/cafe.
One of the other characters tells Miss Hoolie about a problem. This character then sings "Which Coloured House Are We Going To?", asking the young viewers to guess which of the Balamory characters will be most helpful in solving the problem. The main character then proceeds to visit several other characters until the problem is solved. Miss Hoolie and the main character provide a summary of the story at each point, and a final recap at the end of the episode.
For example, in one episode, Josie Jump has been asked to look after a neighbour's rabbit, but does not know what it needs. She is advised to visit PC Plum, who advises her to feed it vegetables. She then goes to the shop run by Pocket and Sweet to buy rabbit food, and finally brings the rabbit to Miss Hoolie's nursery for the children to feed and pat it.
Each episode of Balamory contains at least four songs:
  • "What's the Story in Balamory?", the theme song
  • Miss Hoolie's opening song, either "Everybody, Everyone" if the nursery school is open, or one of the two "play day" songs otherwise
  • "Which Coloured House Are We Going To?", sung by the main character after presenting their problem
  • Character-specific songs, sung by the characters visited by the main character

    Characters

There are eight central characters in Balamory. Each character wears a distinctive colour of clothing and lives in a house of the same colour.

Original characters

  • Miss Hoolie – The Balamory Nursery teacher. She is the main character and serves as both presenter and narrator for each episode. Her main colour is green and she lives in a green cottage.
  • PC Plum – The local police officer. He aspires to be a master detective, but since Balamory is a crime-free village, he mostly spends his time watching wildlife. His main colour is white and he lives in a white police station.
  • Edie McCredie – The Balamory Bus Driver. She has travelled all over the world and has a variety of photographs and souvenirs from her travels to talk about. She is also an expert driver and motor mechanic and occasionally gets exasperated with other road users. She has a video camera which has been put to use should the occasion arise, notably in "The Wedding" and "Indian Wedding". Her main colour is blue and she lives in a blue garage / house.
  • Penny Pocket and Suzie Sweet – Penny Pocket is a young woman who uses a wheelchair and has a talent for mathematics. Together, she and Suzie ran the village shop and cafè. In the original series, Penny's main colour was light blue, in the revival, her colour is now red. On 29 July 2025, Tserkezie was interviewed on Reporting Scotland during a Balamory filming break, in a red costume to honour Riggans’ memory. Suzie Sweet was the joint café and shoprunner. She was a grandmother figure who loved to tell customers about the items in her shop. Her main colour was red.
  • Archie – An inventor who would build zany creations from household objects, which were intended to be useful, but sometimes would backfire. His main colour was pink and he lived in a pink castle.
  • Spencer – An African-American painter who was responsible for making Balamory as colourful as it is and was also talented with music, especially as his painter's ladder was musical; each rung sounding a different note. His main colour was orange and he lived in an orange bungalow.
  • Josie Jump – A fitness instructor who played and coached all types of gymnastics, sports and dance and was also talented at storytelling through expressive movement and dance. Her main colour was yellow and she lived in a yellow towered house.

    New upcoming characters

New characters who will appear in the 2026 revival include:
  • Ava Potts – A scientist and inventor.
  • Dr Ollie – A local vet who lives with his two children.
  • '''Harbour Master'''

    Guest actors

A number of episodes feature guest actors in addition to the main characters and the nursery children. Terry Wogan made a guest appearance in one episode as a television director. This episode also featured Greg Hemphill and John Altman, who plays Nick Cotton in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Celebrity chef Keith Floyd was also seen in Suzie Sweet's song "Suzie's Cookin'".

Songs

In every episode, a selection of songs are played, each depends on the character.
Beginning in Series 3, a new selection of songs was introduced, although they were still used in tandem with the original songs. Also, Penny Pocket and Suzie Sweet, who originally shared a song, were given standalone songs. Josie Jump's original song was redone with Kasia Haddad, who took over from Buki Akib as Josie; with one shot from Archie, and Suzie and Penny's original songs also being changed to accommodate this change. In addition, the Nursery song was given new verses, which were used interchangeably with the original.
All characters, except Miss Hoolie, sing the Coloured House song one at a time per episode. Penny and Suzie have sung this song both individually and together. Miss Hoolie only sang it once as a duet with Josie.
The songs were composed by Foster Paterson and Paul Wilson.
  • What's the Story in Balamory?' – Title Theme
  • Which Coloured House Are We Going To? – Transition theme
  • Everybody Everyone – Miss Hoolie's Nursery theme
  • Everyone's at Home Today – Miss Hoolie's Play Day theme
  • Strike Up the Band – Miss Hoolie's Play Day theme
  • I'm Archie, the Inventor – Archie's theme
  • Great Inventions, Groovy Solutions – Archie's theme
  • Jump Up a Little Higher – Josie Jump's theme
  • Cheer You Up – Josie Jump's theme
  • When I Honk My Horn – Edie McCredie's theme
  • Let Me Take You on a Journey – Edie McCredie's theme
  • I'm PC Plum – PC Plum's theme
  • Follow the Clue – PC Plum's theme
  • Climbing Up My Musical Ladder – Spencer's theme
  • If You Need a Little Rhythm – Spencer's theme
  • I'm Suzie Sweet, I'm Penny Pocket – Suzie and Penny's theme
  • Suzie's Cookin' – Suzie's theme
  • Sort It – Penny's theme
  • What's the Story in Balamory?' – End Credits Theme

    Episode guide

  • Series One
  • Series Two
  • Series Three
  • Series Four

    Audience

The programme is aimed at pre-schoolers although often reached an older audience. The show can also be seen in a humorous light. The characters in Balamory are somewhat naive and lighthearted. The storyline revolves around simple problems designed to challenge pre-schoolers' minds.

Production

The show was first confirmed to be in production on 20 November 2001, under the working title of Apple Cross before the title Balamory was announced in August 2002. Producers wanted a title that rhymed with Tobermory, as well as a title that rhymed with Story. An unaired test pilot named Applecross was filmed. No plotline is known, since the production was never released to the public.

Filming locations

Balamory was filmed mostly in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, with the exception of scenes at Archie's castle filmed in East Lothian, and other scenes such as the nursery and the Mainland City, which were filmed in Glasgow.
The nursery was part of North Glasgow College in Barmulloch for series 1 and 2, which was then knocked down. In series 3 and 4, the nursery was a custom-built set outside the BBC studios in Maryhill.

Cancellation

On 30 April 2005, the BBC announced that it would not order another season of the series, citing that it wanted to experiment and create more new programme ideas. The show continued to be repeated on CBeebies until 3 July 2016. By then only the first two series, series 1 and 2 respectively, continued to be repeated as the last two series, series 3 and 4, as well as the last episode of Series 2 could not be repeated due to licensing issues from 22 January 2010 onwards.
By the time the programme was cancelled, many of the cast were also keen to move on. Miles Jupp, who played Archie, stated that the fame from his role was causing problems in his comedy career, with parents taking their children to his standup routine at the Edinburgh Fringe on the presumption that it was age-appropriate. Julie Wilson Nimmo, who played Miss Hoolie, complained that she could not take her children to the local play area without being "mobbed." Mary Riggans, who played Suzie Sweet, died in 2013. Andrew Agnew, who played PC Plum, went on to work for Tattiemoon Productions and direct the children's TV show Me Too!, which shared similarities in concept with Balamory. Although set in Scotland, it is primarily set in a city rather than a coastal town.