Residents of Sesame Tree Unveiled Today!

The new residents of Northern Ireland’s version of Sesame Street are ready to move in. The two Muppets of ‘Sesame Tree’ were announced today as rehearsals begin in Belfast.

The new characters were developed by the local Sesame Tree production company Sixteen South, part of the Inferno Group, who are producing the series in association with Sesame Workshop, the non profit organization behind Sesame Street. The actual Muppets were created by the Jim Henson Company in New York.

The Muppets of Sesame Tree will be Potto, a furry character who is gentle, bookish and a brilliant inventor. He will be joined in the Tree by Hilda the Irish hare who is younger and very energetic - everything is new and fresh to her and she races around at great speeds to Potto’s amazement.

Potto and Hilda are joined by supporting characters who include: the Bookworms, two helpful and friendly worm-Muppets who live among Potto’s books; Claribelle, a bright bird and loveable, eccentric auntie character who occasionally visits the tree, and the three Weatherberries – Muppet fruit - that hang together in a bunch on a vine inside the Sesame Tree. 

Potto and Hilda will answer the questions which children from around Northern Ireland have discovered they can ask the Sesame Tree. Potto uses his library and monster web inside the tree and Hilda sets off with her mobile phone and her special pink ‘guddies’ to ‘locations’ around Northern Ireland, to see what she can find out and who she can meet. This will introduce the local live action films which are being shot to show the diversity of Northern Ireland from a child’s perspective. Potto will occasionally contact his ‘family’ in the US, allowing local viewers to see their own characters talk to global Sesame Street friends such as Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster and Elmo.

Colin Williams, Executive Producer for Sesame Tree comments, “It was fabulous to meet the Muppets in the flesh or should I say fur, for the first time. It has been a real privilege to work on Sesame Tree and we are really looking forward to starting filming their scenes in the next few weeks. And of course, our specially created Northern Ireland Muppets have an important job too in the education of young people. Sesame Tree has been developed to support the new NI curriculum, specifically the Foundation and Pre-School stages.”

Sesame Tree will be broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland in Spring 2008.