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The Flumps voices & songs
Gay Soaper

Gay Soper, a multi-talented actress and singer who is a doyenne of the musical theatre. Gay is perhaps best known for her performance in the musical Godspell in 1971, as well as Mme. Thenardier on the Complete Symphonic Recording of Les Misérables. She also performed all the voices for The Flumps, famous children's TV series, and has voiced many commercials, childrens stories, and poetry.

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Gay trained at LAMDA ( from 1963-65, alongside Brian Cox, Martin Shaw and Maureen Lipman), and made her professional debut at 19 playing Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, a major UK tour, with the legendary Zena Dare as Mrs Higgins.  

2024 marks 59 years in Showbiz! Gay is currently playing Mrs Boyle in The Mousetrap at St Martins Theatre,

West St, in London's West End, until May 25th 2024.  

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The Flumps Music Composer
Paul Geoffrey Reade

Paul Reade composer

Paul Reade (1943-1997) was born in Liverpool, UK. From 1962-65 he studied piano with Alan Richardson at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He went on to the London Opera Centre before becoming répétiteur with the English National Opera. Meanwhile he also had his own compositions performed, including in 1965 his first orchestral piece, Overture to a City, by the Academy Orchestra under Maurice Handford. His grounding in opera and experience with musical theatre proved immensely valuable when he moved on, as a freelance composer, to BBC television. He was able to write music for specific purposes, achieving full expression in a short timescale, taking in account practicalities such as deadlines and limitations of resources.

 

For the BBC children’s programme Playschool he was not only pianist and songwriter, he also wrote its famous signature tune. Much more music for children’s television followed: Crystal Tipps and Alistair, Ludwig,

The Flumps, Mortimer and Arabel and Alphabet Castle. Other works for children included The Midas Touch, Cinderella and Aesop’s Fables, all for narrator and orchestra, and his children’s opera David and Goliath

 

Paul also wrote musical scores for classic TV drama series such as A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations and Jane Eyre. Other television scores include the popular signature tune for Antiques Roadshow, Tom’s Midnight Children and the music for The Victorian Kitchen Garden for which he won the Ivor Novello Award 1991.

Paul Reade died in 1997, he was 54.

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The Flumps

The Flumps Theme Tune
George Chisholm OBE

George Chisholm OBE (29 March 1915 – 6 December 1997) was a Scottish jazz trombonist and vocalist.

In the late 1930s he moved to London, where he played in dance bands led by Bert Ambrose and Teddy Joyce. He later recorded with jazz musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, Fats Waller and Benny Carter during their visits to the UK.

 

He followed this with freelance work and a five-year stint with the BBC Showband (a forerunner of the BBC Radio Orchestra) and as a core member of Wally Stott's orchestra on BBC Radio's The Goon Show, for which he made several minor acting appearances, for example as 'Chisholm MacChisholm the Steaming Celt' in the 1956 episode 'The Macreekie Rising of '74'.

 

Chisholm had roles in the films The Mouse on the Moon (1963), The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965) and Superman III (1983). He was also part of the house band for the children's programmes Play School and Play Away. He notably played the theme tune to The Flumps childrens TV show. He also sang and was a storyteller on Play School.

 

During the 1980s Chisholm continued to play, despite undergoing heart surgery; working with his own band the Gentlemen of Jazz and Keith Smith's Hefty Jazz among others, and playing live with touring artists. He was appointed an OBE in 1984.

 

In the mid-1990s, Chisholm retired from public life suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He died in December 1997, aged 82.

George Chisholm OBE superman 3
Superman 3 logo

Production
David Yates

David Yates was born in 1943 in the UK. He is a producer and director, known for:

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  • Bod TV Series 1975 -  producer

  • The Flumps TV Series 1976 – Producer © David Yates

  • Pigeon Street TV series 1982 – Producer

  • The Dreamstone TV Series 1990 – Executive Producer

  • Rod 'n' Emu TV series 1991 – Executive Producer

  • Huxley Pig TV series 1991 - Executive Producer

  • Rod 'n' Emu TV series 1991 - Executive Producer

  • Brown Bears Wedding 1991 TV Movie - Executive Producer

  • Astro Farm TV Series 1992 - Executive Producer

  • White Bear's Secret TV Movie 1992 - Executive Producer

Pigeon Street kids show,
ASTRO FARM David Yates
all of the flumps

BBC1

1974-1981, ‘Mirror Globe’. ‘

Modified form of the Symbol ‘C’,

designed by Sid Sutton.

bbc globe 1970s
Here comes Huxley Pig
Rod n Emu show

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© David Yates

Created & Written by:
Julie Holder

The Flumps, Julie Holder

When Julie Holder's youngest child took one of his mum's Flump stories along to read at school it greatly impressed his teacher; as luck would have it, the teacher's husband was a BBC producer.

What then followed was a stop-motion series from the BBC about the goings-on of a family of fluffy, furry balls in woolly hats who appeared to reside at the bottom of a forgotten and rather grimly forlorn garden and ramshackle house.

 

The first episode of The Flumps, "Secrets" premiered on BBC1, 14th February 1977 at 1.45pm. The series played for thirteen weeks straight, in the same lunchtime slot and concluded 9th May 1977. Repeats from Spring 1978 in the Sunday morning slot opened up The Flumps to a far wider audience than would have seen the original lunchtime broadcasts, cementing its popularity.

the flumps annual 1979

Full Credits:

Narrated and Sung by Gay Soper

Created and written by Julie Holder

Music by Paul Reade

Dubbing by Lou Hanks

Graphics by Alan Rogers

Decor by Ruth Collier

Animation and Puppets by David Kellehar

Production by David Yates

The Flumps© Copyright David Yates Ltd. 1976

The Flumps® Trademark Retake Media 

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