Several dozen members pootle about the grounds of a country manor in the village of Ide Hill, in Kent, nibbling salmon canapés and admiring the moat.
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Today, as they have for a century, they pootle out of the company's HQ in Worcestershire, satisfying Britons who yearn for the past and foreigners fond of a certain kind of Britishness.
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Q Pootle 5 is an animated television series based on the books Q Pootle 5 and Q Pootle 5 in Space by author Nick Butterworth. It revolves around the title character Q Pootle 5 and his friends, and is set on and around the fictional planet Oki Doki.
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Ed Gaughan is an English director, comedian, actor, voice actor and jazz musician. He is best known for his starring role in the BAFTA-nominated 2010 film Skeletons and for voicing Baron von Greenback in Danger Mouse and Q Pootle 5 in Q Pootle 5.
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He has written and illustrated other children's books including Thud!, The Whisperer (dedicated to Desmond Tutu and winner of the Nestle Prize 2005) and two books about Q Pootle 5, a space-dweller whose friends include Oopsy, Planet Dave and Tiger. Butterworth is a founding partner, with his son Ben, of Snapper Productions, producers of the CBeebies animated series Q Pootle 5. He is the executive producer of the series.
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His most famous roles include Q Pootle 5 on CBeebies and Baron von Greenback in Danger Mouse on CBBC. Acting roles in movies have included Hummingbird and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.IMDB He played guitar for the album Let's Do It - Jazz Classics With a Twist with Danusia Samal.
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Author and executive producer Nick Butterworth chose Q Pootle 5 from amongst his other children's books as the character to develop into an animated series because, as an alien, he would not be culturally tied to any one location. He developed the series with his son Ben, who suggested they form their own production company. Together with Nick's wife Annette they added additional characters and locations to those already seen in the books, before producing a pilot clip with animation studio Blue-Zoo from which a series was commissioned. Music is an important element of Q Pootle 5. Producer Ben Butterworth says ″When we started to consider the music for the programme we didn’t want music to be just an accompaniment to the story, we wanted people’s experience to be enhanced by the music.
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He has had roles in a series of other television series and feature films, among them Clockwise, The Ink Thief, Red Dwarf, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Fierce Creatures and as Silas in Highlander: The Series. Ridings voices Daddy Pig in the animated children's series Peppa Pig, Father Christmas and Boss Dwarf in Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom, and Grooby in Q Pootle 5. In 2005, he took the lead role in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Clement Doesn't Live Here Anymore, playing a sexually obsessed overweight ghost alongside Steve Furst and Amanda Abbington. The second series was transmitted in May, 2007.
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