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Hickory Dickory Dock
by Stephanie Secomb
There's a bear in there, and a chair as well. There are people with games, and stories to tell. Open wide, come inside. It's Play School …
Generations of Australians will recognise this as the theme song to an iconic ABC children's television program. Play School clocks up 40 years on television next year and it is being featured in a travelling exhibition from the National Museum of Australia , Hickory Dickory Dock.
Tracing the history of Play School , Hickory Dickory Dock was developed and launched in 2002 with the assistance of the ABC, and features props donated to the Museum after a set redesign of the program in 1999. The former Play School windows and clocks are now part of the Museum's National Historical Collection.
Located in Canberra , the National Museum is devoted to the stories of Australia and Australians. For many of us Play School —like backyard cricket and Vegemite—has a fundamental association with our childhood and is woven into the fabric of our cultural identity.
To ensure that Australians outside Canberra also have the chance to see this exhibition, the Australian Government's Visions of Australia program is supporting a tour of Hickory Dickory Dock , allowing people right around the nation to also delight in this special presentation of Play School .
Visitors can look forward to nostalgic encounters with Humpty, Jemima and the rest of the toys, as well as archival footage of the ‘people with games'—presenters including John Waters, Jay Laga'aia and Deborah Mailman.
‘Hickory Dickory Dock was extremely popular with visitors when it first went on show at the National Museum because Play School 's appeal is multi-generational,' said National Museum curator Sophie Jensen.
‘I'm sure many more visitors will be taken back to their childhood, or that of their children and grandchildren, when they see Big Ted, the rocket and flower clocks, and their favourite presenters.'
Getting into the spirit of Play School , venues throughout the national tour are complementing the exhibition with children's activities including face painting, storytelling and craft.
The tour of Hickory Dickory Dock will take in the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, the Albury Regional Museum, Riddoch Art Gallery in Mount Gambier, the Goldfields Arts Centre in Kalgoorlie, and the Global Arts Link in Ipswich. The exhibition is expected to end its run at the ABC in Ultimo late next year.
For more information visit www.nma.gov.au or phone 02 6208 5338.