The series eschews CGI. “We use puppetry to make the toys come alive and stop motion animation for Moon Baby. We’re trying to make a different world that doesn’t look like anything else out there. It’s a handcrafted with 500 individually-designed props and furnishings. The viewer is at eye level and sees the whole toy house.” In The Night Garden was another billion-pound hit for Davenport (BBC) Pepi Nana is the favourite doll of the child we see putting her to bed in the Toy House at the beginning of every episode. The 22-minute tales each feature Nana writing a magical letter to her friend Moon Baby, who visits the Toy House for tea and a story. Michael Towner, Commissioning Editor at CBeebies, said it was “vital” for children to experience quality UK-originated pre-school programming. Davenport already has plans for fifty more Moon and Me episodes although his shows appear about as regularly as new Kate Bush albums. “I’d love to make the next one in less than ten years time,” he admitted. “This is just the time it takes to develop a show like this. Moon and Me just felt like the right thing to do next.” Debuted in 1997 and has now seen by an estimated billion children in 120 countries. Controversy followed the four creatures with televisions on their abdomens who played each day in Teletubbyland.

Meet the new Teletubbies - Moon and Me arrives on CBeebies

The series “taps into children’s innate curiosity and desire to create through their play routines, forming their own imaginary worlds and relationships through their toys.”Moon and Me, launching as part of the newly re-vamped CBeebies Bedtime from 4 February, is a 50x22’ magical new series for pre-school, created, written, composed and produced by Andrew Davenport (Teletubbies, In the Night Garden) and told by Nina Sosanya (Good Omens, W1A, Last Tango in Halifax, Killing Eve, Love Actually). Andrew Davenport is renowned for creating premium quality television for young children, built on a special regard for play. Moon and Me’s narrative and structure has, in part, developed out of Foundling Bird’s own Toy House Play Observation Project, conducted in partnership with the University of Sheffield, which looked at the way children engage with toy houses in contemporary play. One read of the original pitch was all it took to convince us that Andrew had, once again, come up with an idea so beautifully simple yet rich and ambitious in scope that we couldn’t not have it,” he said. Ninky Nonk, Pontipines, Igglepiggle made their first appearance in 2007 and are still shown on CBeebies every evening. Pepi Nana says “tiddle toddle” because those kinds of sounds are how children learn to play with language, says Davenport, who has no children of his own but plenty of godchildren. Moon Baby, Lambkin, Mr Onion, Sleepy Dibillo, Colly Wobble, Pepi Nana, Little Nana (BBC)

Moon and Me - Get to know the Moon and Me characters - BBC

Davenport, 53, who has a BSc in speech sciences, conducted his own academic research before embarking on the project. “I was interested in the literary storm of ‘toy house’ stories in the middle of the nineteenth century which are still in print today,” Davenport told i. Inspired by well-loved tales of toys that come to life when nobody is looking, every enchanting episode of Moon and Me begins with a child gently putting a selection of favourite toys - Pepi Nana, Colly Wobble, Little Nana, Lambkin, Mr. Onion, Sleepy Dibillo and Lily Plant - to bed in their Toy House. But Pepi Nana is a very special toy - at night when the Moon shines, she comes to life, then sits down at her desk to write a letter to the Moon. Moon Baby, who lives there, receives the letter and visits the Toy House for tea. By playing magical music on his kalimba, he wakes up the other toy friends so they can all join in a new story together. With friendship at its heart, and inspired by pre-school children’s toy-house play, Moon and Me explores the special bonds between the characters, and how they demonstrate kindness, empathy and consideration to each other - and to their newest friend, Moon Baby.

Each Davenport series has its own distinct visual style. “With Teletubbies we had to build a believable scale world from a child’s point of view around adult actors in suits.”