POPULAR children’s TV presenter Chris Jarvis is thrilled to be returning to Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre tomorrow( Saturday) as he co-presents The Chris and Pui Show.

There will be two performances – at 11am and 2pm.

Two weeks later they are at the Ferneham Hall in Fareham on Sunday, September 13, at 2pm.

The stage show features characters, toys, comedy sketches, rhymes, catchphrases and songs from the the pair’s CBeebies tv show Show Me, Show Me but Chris – who has starred-in and directed numerous Bournemouth pantomimes, says it has has more of a panto feel than the CBeebies programme.

Stuffy, Teddington, Miss Mouse, Tom and Momo make an appearance, as do Chris and Pui in various guises – like Humpty, Lil Bo Peep, Incy and the Hey

Diddle Cow. There is an interval of 20 minutes and a total running time of 1 hour 25 minutes – a

total playing time of just over the hour – it’s a non-stop show for the CBeebies audience with their families.

Chris, who moved to Bournemouth after he fell in love with the town during his first pantomime there in 2002, revealed that he and Pui have recently finished filming the 6th sixth series of Show Me Show Me in Cheshire close to the new home for BBC Children’s TV: MediaCityUK, Salford.

He said: “ We are fortunate to have a huge outdoor set to accommodate a range of guests – in the last series we had two amazing musicians from the South – flautist Tim Cooper from

Sopley as well as Susanna Riddell from Poole, who runs the Wessex Youth Orchestra and plays for the London Philharmonic

Orchestra.

"We had more musicians in the new series – some quite unusual ones – as well as a few animals. The show is the great grandson of Play School and Playaway, encouraging children to learn through imaginative play.

"It goes out twice a day, weekdays and at odd times at the weekend. The new series starts in October.”

Chris writes some of the scripts and says: “It aims to encourage play through interaction but also imaginative play. We don’t use any commercial toys; everything is improvisation and suggestion - the opposite of what you find on a lot of commercial channels. It has comedy, sketches, rhymes and a lot of content. We have anything from a digger to a donkey and we show them the outside world - which can be quite messy! The set is massive! We’ve been filming in the grounds of a stately home and the grounds were huge. We were drinking so much tea if we needed the loo we’d have to hold it in as it took so long to walk from one place to another!”

Chris said the new outdoor locations have allowed them to capture great aerial shots too which has brought a new richness and quality to the content.

“Apart from the catch phrases and obvious style each show is very different so it’s a joy to make. It takes four to five months of my year to do 26 episodes . The BBC’s idea is to make fewer episodes but well that can compete with movies: it’s the stack of DVDs that children have that are our competition so we try to make the programme as rich as possible.”

The programme is regularly voted the number one children’s TV show but Chris says they don’t take success for granted.

“The show is always evolving and we want to match people’s expectations of a show that’s filling the Play School slot. For children it’s like watching the news.”

Meanwhile Chris revealed he is to be part of a big celebratory programme for kids TV.

To mark the 30th anniversary of live BBC Children’s Presentation links, or ‘the bits between the shows’, a live 60-minute programme will broadcast from the home of BBC Children’s in MediaCityUK on Wednesday September 9.

It will feature many of the faces who have presented the “Broom Cupboard” - which Chris explains was “ the continuity room the size of a broom cupboard”.

It all started with Philip Schofield closely followed by Andy Crane then Simon Parkin who now presents the weather for ITV Meridian. Andi Peters, Gordon the Gopher, Toby Anstis, Zoe Ball, Josie d’Arby, Dominic Wood, Ed the Duck, Otis the Aardvark, Kirsten O’Brien, Pui Fan Lee and Chris will all be on the show which he believes will go out live on CBBC between 6pm - 7pm.

“I haven’t seen some of them for years so it will be a fabulous reunion!” says Chris.

Chris started his TV career in the Broom Cupboard in 1993 leaving in 1997 to host ‘The Friday Zone’ and ‘Fully Booked’.

He returned to Children’s BBC presentation in 2002 to co-host ‘CBeebies’ - together with Pui he launched the channel in the February of that year and left in 2009 to host ‘Show Me Show Me’.

Chris Jarvis and Josie d’Arby created CBBC’s own soap opera in the 1996. ‘Wood Lane TV’ ran for over 100 episodes and attracted guests stars including Grange Hill’s Mr Bronson, aka Michael Sheard.

Chris is the only presenter to have worked across both CBBC and CBeebies. His first stint was on the CBBC links from 1993 to 1997, then he returned to front the new CBeebies channel from 2002 to 2009.

As we spoke Chris had just been told he will be doing a new series of Stargazing for CBeebies. He will also be performing in and directing the pantomime Cinderella at Richmond this Christmas alongside Hayley Mills and Matthew Kelley.