The T-Room
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"Strikes Again" Book

Jennie Stallwood is still in possession of the storybook that T-Bag lived in in "T-Bag Strikes Again". The programme shows the book to contain pop-up miniatures of two of the sets used in the show - the town in episodes 1 and 10, and also the T-Room. As it exists, the book only contains the town pop-up. It is not clear whether there were two books used (one for each set), or whether the T-Room was replaced with the town after filming. The T-Room set (below left) was used at the beginning of each episode.

 
 

The book is A4 size. The front is printed (not painted) with the familiar image of the girl in the raincoat having difficulties with her umbrella (looking suspiciously like Debbie), whilst a castle floats above her in the clouds. The back cover of the book is simply red sturdy cardboard (similar to that used in clipboards).


 


 

The pop-up set is inside the front cover. Again, this is printed, just like a proper book, rather than being painted. There is a discrepancy between the miniature set and the set actually used, in that the fountain in the miniature is directly in front of the clock tower, whereas it was at the front left of the studio set. To produce this in pop-up would be difficult, however, since everything relies on the fold in the centre to pop up. Also, there are four benches around the fountain in the book, but only two in the set proper.

 


 

When the book is photographed from behind, it can be seen how the pop-up mechanism works. The row of houses at the back is all one piece folded in the middle. The fold in the middle is placed directly over the spine of the book, and this causes them to spring up when the book is opened.

The town clock, fountain and the walls at the front that act to frame the scene act in the same way. The front walls also serve another purpose. The houses that flank the scene at the sides are not on a fold, and so they are attached to the backs of the walls by a bridging piece of card. As the front walls pop up, therefore, they pull the flanking houses up also.

 
 

Unfortunately, the book had a slight mishap before filming, and the original glue gave out. Fortunately, it was very easy to repair.

The rest of the pages of the book are plain paper. Jennie has stuck in some fan mail from children who wrote to her. She has also put in some interesting set design sketches from "Strikes Again".