Grandpa in My Pocket is a comedy drama series commissioned by Michael Carrington for CBeebies, the BBC's dedicated pre-school and nursery channel targeting children under the aged of 1-14 years. The programme stars James Bolam, Jay Ruckley, Josie Cable, Zara Ramm and Sam Ellis. The story centres on Grandpa (James Bolam), who owns a magical Shrinking Cap, which only his grandson Jason (Jay Ruckley) knows about. This cap enables him to shrink to about 4 or 5 inches tall and experience many magical adventures which are told via voice-over narration by Jason, including finding a hamster under the floorboards and bringing a home-made robot to life.
When miniaturized, he has enough magic power to make Jason's toy car and toy biplane and toy railway locomotive work as the real vehicles including making engine noise, and drive them. Jason has a simple toy glider made of two pieces of wood in the shape of a seagull which he calls Gordon; Grandpa, when miniaturized, can ride on this and make it fly like a real seagull.
When miniaturized, Grandpa can jump much farther in proportion than in full size, and can also "run for all he's worth", as Jason puts it.
Grandpa is never identified on-screen with a proper name, so we never learn whether he is Mr. Mason or Mrs. Mason's father – both refer to him simply as "Grandpa" in much the same way as the parents of comic strip characters – such as The Beano's Dennis the Menace, for example – call each other "Mum" and "Dad". Even Grandpa's own sister, Great Aunt Loretta, only ever calls him "Grandpa".
According to the BBC press office, "Grandpa In My Pocket explores the hugely important relationship between grandchildren and grandparents by turning it on its head".
In March 2009 it was announced that CBeebies had commissioned Adastra Creative to make a second series of Grandpa in My Pocket, ordering 26 new episodes of the show following the success of the first series. Following the success of Series 2, a 3rd Series had been commissioned to be filmed in Wales in Summer 2010. It will be broadcast first on CBeebies in 2011.
The show is set in a fictional location called "Sunnysands". The exterior scenes are filmed on location in the towns of Southwold and Aldeburgh, in Suffolk. The Masons' house is in Crabbe Street, Aldeburgh. The pier and the lighthouse are in Southwold. The bike and other shop is in Walberswick.
A similar idea was used in The Dandy comic in the 1970s comic adventure strip Peter's Pocket Grandpa, which was based on an earlier prose text story called Jimmie's Pocket Grandpa which had appeared in The Dandy in the 1940s.
Read more about Grandpa In My Pocket: Characters, The Mason Family, Award Nominations, DVD Release History
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