This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2017) |
It's a Mystery | |
---|---|
Also known as | Mystery (2002) |
Written by | Nic Ayling (Series 1–5) Mark Sidaway (Series 1) Matt Porter (Series 1) Amy Bingham (Series 2) Alistair Merrifield (Series 3–4) Leo Morgan (Series 3–4) Helena Stylianou (Series 3) Zoe Symonds (Series 3–5) Tim Edmunds (Series 5) Jo Clark (Series 5) |
Directed by | Paul Walker (Series 1&2) Ian Bolt (Series 3) Simon Pearce (Series 4&5) |
Starring | Neil Buchanan (1996–2000) Gail Porter (1997–1999) Sophie Aldred (1996) Tristan Bancks (1997–1999) Ben Jones (2000) Shelley Blond (2000) Steve Wilson (2002) Shiarra Juthan (2002) |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 5 |
No. of episodes | 44 |
Production | |
Producers | Neil Buchanan Tim Edmunds Helen Dawson Driana Jones Nic Ayling |
Running time | 20 minutes |
Production company | The Media Merchants Television Company Ltd for Meridian Broadcasting Ltd |
Original release | |
Network | ITV (Children's ITV) |
Release | 12 September 1996 – 9 May 2002 |
It's a Mystery is a networked Children's ITV programme which ran for five series from 12 September 1996 to 9 May 2002. It was produced by The Media Merchants Television Company Ltd for Meridian Broadcasting Ltd. In Series five, the show was retitled as Mystery and featured different presenters. It was a magazine show featuring unusual stories including about UFOs, ghosts and other difficult to explain happenings, some of which were solved while others remained unexplained.
Neil Buchanan, best known for his regular arts show Art Attack , hosted the first series with Doctor Who actor Sophie Aldred. For the second and third series, Neil was joined by Gail Porter (1997–1999) from magazine show How 2 along with Tristan Bancks. In 2000, Gail and Tristan were replaced by Ben Jones and Shelley Blond. Following Neil's departure, Steve Wilson and Shiarra Juthan presented the final series in 2002. [1]
It was a programme that educated children by challenging them to solve a mystery. Usually this would involve people telling stories of mysterious occurrences that have happened to them, such as a Man in a Van driving up to a roundabout and seeing his exact duplicate across the roundabout, driving the same vehicle. Other times, the presenter would show unexplained phenomena such as ghosts in the Tower of London or the Loch Ness Monster. The production is Tim Edmunds. The presenter would then offer up possible explanations as to what might have been behind the mystery or if there is even an explanation to give. After each story, it would be given a solved or unsolved designation. At the end of each episode, a riddle would be asked for the audience to solve until the next episode (where the answer would be given).
Forty-four episodes were made, and the series regularly made the Children's Top Ten.
The programme was originally presented by Neil Buchanan and Sophie Aldred (Series One); Neil Buchanan, Gail Porter, and Tristan Bancks (Series Two and Three); Neil Buchanan, Ben Jones and Shelley Blond (Series Four); Steve Wilson and Shiarra Juthan (Series Five).
The series used many actors over the years. These included; Jo-Anne Good ( Crossroads , BBC London 94.9), Russell Hookey ( Channel Report , Lookaround , ITV News Anglia, ITN News), Barry Rose (Crossroads), Mike Dyer-Ball ( Casualty ), and Hal Dyer ( Rentaghost , On the Buses , George and Mildred ).
Sophie Aldred is an English actress and television presenter. She has worked extensively in children's television as a presenter and voice artist. She played the Seventh Doctor's companion, Ace, in the television series Doctor Who during the late 1980s, becoming the final companion in the series' first run.
Remembrance of the Daleks is the first serial of the 25th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The serial was first broadcast in four weekly episodes from 5 to 26 October 1988. It was written by Ben Aaronovitch and directed by Andrew Morgan.
Treasure Hunt is a UK game show, based on the format of the French show La Chasse au Trésor, created by Jacques Antoine. It appeared on Channel 4 between 28 December 1982 and 18 May 1989 and was revived by BBC Two between 16 December 2002 and 2 August 2003.
Gail Porter is a Scottish television personality, former model and actress. She started her television career in children's TV, before branching out into modelling and presenting mainstream TV. In the 1990s, she famously posed nude for FHM, which was projected on to the Houses of Parliament. Later in her career, Porter has been affected by alopecia, a condition which causes hair loss.
Holly & Stephen's Saturday Showdown was a British children's entertainment programme, which was broadcast on ITV from 10 January 2004 to 1 July 2006.
Pluckley is a village and civil parish in the Ashford district of Kent, England. The civil parish includes the adjacent hamlet of Pluckley Thorne.
Art Attack is a British children's television programme revolving around art, originally hosted by Neil Buchanan on CITV from 1990 to 2007, and subsequently hosted by Lloyd Warbey on Disney Junior from 2012 to 2015.
Neil Buchanan is an English artist, photographer, and musician, best known for his work on British children's television. During his tenure as a children's television presenter, he hosted the CITV programme Art Attack, a television program that he co-created, during its original run from 1990 to 2007, as well as Finders Keepers and It's a Mystery, while he also produced and starred in CITV's ZZZap!.
Sally Jane Lindsay is an English actress and television presenter. She rose to fame playing Shelley Unwin in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street (2001–2006). Her other roles include Lisa Johnson in the Sky One comedy-drama Mount Pleasant (2011–2017), Alison Bailey in the ITV police procedural Scott & Bailey (2011–2016), and Kath Agnew in the BBC sitcom Still Open All Hours (2013–2019). Since 2021, she has starred as Jean White in Channel 5's The Madame Blanc Mysteries (2021–present), which she co-created and produces.
The Xtra Factor is a companion show to the British television music competition The X Factor. It was broadcast on ITV2 and on TV3 in the Republic of Ireland, on Saturday and Sunday nights after the main ITV show from 4 September 2004 to 11 December 2016. It featured behind-the-scenes footage of The X Factor and shows the emotional responses of the contestants after the judges comment on their performances.
Motormouth was a Saturday morning children's entertainment series that was produced by TVS and broadcast across the ITV network for four series, running between 3 September 1988 and 4 April 1992. Each series generally ran from the autumn of one year to the spring of the next, as was common among many 'main' Saturday morning series.
This is a list of British television related events from 2001.
This is a list of British television related events from 1979.
This is a list of British television related events from 1972.
This is a list of British television related events from 1962.
This is a list of British television related events from 1961.
WOW! is a children's entertainment magazine programme, broadcast in 1996 on the UK's ITV television network. It aired for 16 weeks from 31 August to 14 December 1996, preceded by the Summer 1996 run of Scratchy & Co. and followed by the spring 1997 run of the same show.
Tristan Bancks is an Australian children's and teen's author, with a background in filmmaking and acting. As an actor, he is known for his role as Tug O'Neale on Home and Away between 1992 and 1994.
Tiny and Crew is a British pre-school series which aired on Tiny TCC. Tiny TCC was replaced in 1997 by Living TV's time slot Tiny Living where the show continued. This show is a sister of the British pre-school television "Jibba Jabba" and uses Dog, which is the narrator of Jibba Jabba, as a character of the crew.