The T-Room
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The Series


The Tallulah Years

 

Tallulah Bag was played by Elizabeth Estensen. Click on the series title to access a really detailed episode guide that I have written.

1. Wonders in Letterland (Directed by Leon Thau) - A young girl (Debbie) stumbles across the curiosity shop, and in it she finds "Wonders in Letterland" - a boardgame. The anchor character living in this game is the Gardener, who tells Debbie that nobody in the boardgame can read because the old T-Bag wants to keep everyone in ignorance. There is a chest in the garden with an ancient legend written on it in gold letters, but many of the letters are missing. Needless to say the chest is locked and T-Bag wants to keep it that way.

Debbie goes off to find the letters to complete the legend.

This series had a far more educational feel to it than the following series, as was intended by the writers (see the interview page), as the importance of reading and letters, etc., were continuously stressed throughout. Also, Debbie quite often had to solve many word puzzles in order to get some of the letters (for example, changing ink into oil in the clock tower in episode 8, and solving the ladder puzzle in episode 4). Even though this was the case, and even though most of the minor roles were played by the same, extremely versatile actor thoughout the series, it is still just as entertaining as the others.

2. T-Bag Strikes Again (Directed by Leon Thau) - T Bag takes up residence in a storybook and creates a T-Room in a magical garden at the end of the book where she finds a more powerful T-Plant (a fine specimen of Maximus brewuppacuppa). She stops time in the book by stealing the silver numbers from the clock in the first story so that none of the stories will ever end. This series starred Roy Barraclough as Hickory Dickory-Dock (the Town Crier who was also the anchor character for this series). Debbie returned for this series which, incidentally, won an award.

3. T-Bag Bounces Back (Directed by Leon Thau) - T-Bag now resides in a musical box and kicks Major Happy (played by Tony Haygarth - the anchor character for this series) out of his home and tranforms it into her T-Room. She also steals the golden bells from his magical Glockenspiel (because he starts to play a melody that could destroy her). It is revealed that she has regained her powers by finding a more powerful T-Plant still - a "High T-Plant". Debbie returns for her last series.

4. Turn on to T-Bag (Directed by Leon Thau) - Thomas discovers an old TV set in the shop, only to find that T-Bag has made her T-Room in the back of it. Once captured, he finds out that T-Bag is broadening her horizons and intends to set up a TV station so that she can hypnotise people across the world into doing her bidding with the help of her evil T-Plant and a load of electronics. The setup explodes because her power supply is too weak, so she attempts to con a character from a television show called Professor Sparks (played by Ken Jones - the anchor for this series) to build her a booster device. He tries to destroy her with a jamming device consisting of an array of crystals, which, you've guessed it, she steals and scatters throughout the upcoming television programmes. T-Shirt enlists the help of a childrens TV presenter called Holly (Diana Barrand) and she sets off to find the crystals.

4a. T-Bag's Christmas Cracker (Directed by Leon Thau) - T-Bag hatches a diabolical plot to take over the world at Christmas time by switching Santa's presents with special evil presents of her own. Because T-Shirt is helping her, it naturally goes wrong, so she must take drastic action to get her plans back on track.

5. T Bag and the Revenge of the T-Set (Directed by Leon Thau) - The series begins with T-Bag being summoned before the High T Lady (the head of the T-Set played by Jan Holden, also the anchor of this series). She removes T-Bags magic, destroys her T-Plant and makes her a T-Caddy. Whilst her back is turned, T-Bag discovers that there is still one leaf of the T-Plant remaining, so she eats it and her powers instantly return. She then proceeds to take over the temple (which, incidentally, is on top of a Teapot in Thomas's shop) and create her T-Room. She defeats the T-Lady and takes the title of "High-T". All this is being watched by a girl named Sally (Kelly Bright) who hears strange noises from inside the tea pot. She is discovered by T-Bag who kidnaps her to lure Thomas to the rescue. She makes Thomas her T-Caddy.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it is almost time for the great T-Ceremony in which the powers of the universe are bestowed upon the High T-Lady to "Rejuvenate the T-Set in the name of all that is good". This ceremony requires 8 enchanted silver spoons which attract the power and focus it on an altar in the centre of the stone circle outside the temple. Whoever is on the altar at the time receives the power. T-Bag steals the spoons in an attempt to get the power for herself so she can be "Empress of all that is evil". T Shirt saves the day and magics the spoons away. It then falls to Sally to go and collect them all before T Bag can. At the end of this series, we see the final destruction of Tallulah Bag, as she falls for the old "Bounce the death ray off the gong back to the person who fired it" trick.

5a. T-Bag's Christmas Carol (Directed by Leon Thau) - T-Bag sets out to ruin Sally's Christmas by turning her into a street urchin, but interfering do-gooders intervene. T-Bag has to do her worst to rectify the situation.
The Tabatha Years

Tabatha Bag was the sister of Tallulah, and she was played by Georgina Hale.

6. T-Bag and the Pearls of Wisdom (Directed by Leon Thau) - This series harked back to the original quite effectively. Tabatha Bag was just an ordinary woman who had seen her sister Tallulah's powers and wanted them for herself, so she travelled the world in search of a T-Plant. She eventually comes to a little fishing village in a board game (remember the gold letters?) where she meets captain Cockle (the anchor character for this series played by Ivan Beavis). He takes her back to his lighthouse to make her a cup of tea as she is tired from travelling. It just so happens that he has a high T-Plant which he has brought back from his many travels. When Tabitha sees it, she falls into a trance, so captain Cockle goes to fetch a doctor. When he returns, Tabatha has locked him out of the lighthouse.

She soon accidentally summons T-Shirt by stroking the T-Plant (loads of sparks and cheesy special effects) and tricks him into making a cup of tea for her. As soon as she drinks it, she becomes empowered.

Captain Cockle summons Sally Simpkins for her second series. Sally tells him about Tallulah and how evil she was and how she is concerned about Tabatha. Captain Cockle then decides that it is time to cleanse the world of evil by bringing out the Pearls of Wisdom and placing them on the magical compass so that the light of wisdom could shine out from the points of the compass over the whole world, destroying evil in its wake. T-Bag appears and steals the Pearls, scattering them throughout the squares on the boardgame, and it is up to Sally to find them.

6a. T-Bag's Christmas Ding-Dong (Directed by Glyn Edwards) - T-Shirt decides to treat T-Bag to a night at the opera, but T-Bag is not interested until she finds out that her cousin Vanity Bag is in the lead. Jealousy takes over and there is an all out battle as Primadonna temperaments bristle.

7. T-Bag and the Rings of Olympus (Directed by Glyn Edwards) - T-Bag sets up a T-Room atop Mount Olympus and summons T-Shirt to do her bidding. By this time, T-Shirt is about 6 feet tall and has a baritone voice! "Hmm, you've grown since last we met!" says T-Bag.

Anyway, T-Bag is expelled from Mount Olympus by the Goddess Athena (Helen Lindsay), who gets her power from the 10 Rings of Olympus. T-Bag goes to steal the rings, but her plan is foiled by a girl called Polizena (Polly, played by Natalie Wood)) and in the ensuing struggle, the necklace (which the rings were part of) is broken and the rings fall on the floor. Athena then arrives and scatters the rings through time and space so T-Bag can't get them. Without the rings, Athena is powerless, so T-Bag banishes her.

Polly then goes to collect the rings to restore them to Olympus and restore Athena.

7a. T-Bag's Christmas Turkey - T-Bag takes T-Shirt home to her mother for the Christmas break, only to find out that her mother is going away on a skiing holiday. Of course, T-Bag knew this all along and uses the opportunity to turn the area into a Christmas free zone. When Mumsy comes home early after a St. Bernard related fractured foot to find no decorations, she is not best pleased to say the least, especially when she learns that she has to lay on a no-expense-spared Christmas extravaganza for Good King Wenceslas who decides to pay a visit!

8. T-Bag and the Sunstones of Montezuma (Directed by Glyn Edwards) - T-Bag and T-Shirt have now gained possession of a large, flying cup and saucer which hovers in space above the Earth. Whilst reading an account of her cousin, Kit Bags final adventure into some peruvian jungly type place (Kit Bag was a famous explorer), she finds out about the lengendary sunstones of Montezuma and how they can grant the power of the sun to whoever lays them on an altar in an Aztec temple in the jungle (all this sounds quite familiar!). She sets off to find them, but is foiled by an archaeologist (Diggory, the anchor (Christopher Bramwell)) and his daughter Penny (Evelyn Sweeney) who scatter the sunstones as T-Bag is claiming the power of the sun.

Penny then has to go and collect them up again.

9. Take off with T-Bag (Directed by Neville Green) - This was the last series and it was also the most unusual. It is T-Bags birthday, and everyone seems to have forgotten about it, but suddenly a golden envelope arrives at T-Bags castle (where did she get a castle from?) containing space-time coordinates (whatever they are). Enter T-Shirts Chinese cousin, Tow-ling Shirt (Bea Julakasiun), who just happens to be able to decode these coordinates. T-Bag, T-Shirt and Tow-ling take off in the flying cup and saucer to get to the coordinates, only to find that at each stop, there is another golden envelope. At the end of the series, it turns out that the whole golden envelope thing was a ruse thought up by Granny Bag (Denise Coffey) to get them out of the castle whilst she prepared a surprise party for Tabitha.

This series broke the mold set by the others, but in my opinion, it wasn't the best of the bunch.

Other deviations from the norm included the use of extra actors in the final episode.

This series was based on the T-Bag book that was released during the time when Tallulah held the throne.

 

T-Bag Retro Sketch (Not Filmed) - This was a sketch written by Lee Pressman for his student group to be filmed as a project towards their qualifications. Just when Thomas Shirt thought he was out of T-Bag's grasp, guess who's coming for dinner?