That is boring. No, it isn't. It's very, very interesting. The Timekeepers of the Millennium are new cartoon characters who operate a machine down below the Old Observatory at Greenwich that makes time. Even more thrillingly, they've got a 13-part ITV series starting in October.
That's very exciting indeed. Do tell me more. When the machine breaks down, the show's stars, Coggsley and Sprinx, have to travel through time to recover lost pieces of the machine to fix it. They have lots of inter-temporal adventures.
I'm on the point of spotting where this story falls apart. How so?
If the time-making machine breaks down, how can they travel through time? There isn't any time to travel through. So their adventures are impossible. Look, pal, this is a cutesy, cuddly, educative cartoon with a Millennium Experience tie-in interactive doo-dah. The Timekeepers have their own zone at the Dome, for crying out loud. So cut the smartypants, neo-Hegelian analysis, if you don't mind.
What will I and my big collection of small children do in this zone dedicated to timekeepery? 'There will be lots of things for children to shove, push and throw around, as well as slides, gantries and pipes they can shoot balls out of,' says the cartoon's producer, Ben Turner of Cosgrove Hall, the people who gave us Dangermouse, Count Duckula and Noddy. There will also be a play area filled with children, actors and fist-fighting philosophers hotly debating the reality of time.
Fantastic. Should I set my video, then? If you don't mind. It features cartoons, puppets and live children.
Appearance: Coggsley has an orange bobble hat and a purple nose. Sprinx has a green face and a stripy hat. They're not quite human and rather ugly, so they should be on the Labour front bench some time soon.
