Tigeropolis, the trio of books from R D Dikstra is now a new 10-part weekly Fun Kids radio comedy series from Belle Media. Kay Hutchison from Belle Media tells us more.

Tigeropolis (Beyond the Deep Forest, The Grand Opening and Caught in the Trap)
By R D Dikstra
Published by Belle Media

The series is adapted from our popular Tigeropolis books about a family of vegetarian tigers battling to save the planet and is narrated by award winning Indian filmmaker Ashwika Kapur.

It’s the unbelievable story of these tigers whose peaceful life, hidden away deep in the forest, is suddenly under threat when the bulldozers are set to close in. Tiger cubs Bittu and Matti and the rest of their tiger family get up to all sorts of adventures as they battle developers, outsmart poachers, and take on a quest to find missing treasure.

We wanted these books to have a strong underlying enviromental message as they are inspired by the author’s long-term involvement in conservation. Richard Dikstra has travelled to all seven continents doing this work, but his first ever experience seeing a tiger prowling through the Indian jungle as dusk began to fall has stayed with him ever since.

This is the second children’s radio series Belle Media has produced from one of their titles. Last autumn they also produced the Adventures of Captain Bobo, which was narrated by late great John Sessions.

Belle Media have a background in radio and television, and have always been interested in exploring the wider potential of our IP. In addition to print, we’ve released a number of audiobooks, working with talent such as Richard E Grant and Bill Paterson, but with our  children’s titles we knew we could do much more. They both offered up potentially rich audio worlds that could be adapted for radio with a story that would work as a series of stand-alone episodes .

We talked with Fun Kids about Tigeropolis last Spring. We also got to work to find out if some of the smaller local FM stations might be interested in collaborating as we’d already established good relationships with them following our earlier series. Happily they were positive about the proposal.  With radio stations keen to broadcast our work, we went on to win funding from the Audio Content Fund to start work. Production for the Tigeropolis series began last summer.

In writing the scripts we brought in an experienced editor with extensive credits on short form children’s animation to make sure the translation from print to radio worked well. We knew from the outset we wanted to work with Ashwika. In addition to her beautiful, clear voice, Ashwika brings a deep knowledge of the real issues facing tigers in the wild. She’s based in Kolkata, so we had to record her ‘down the line’ from a studio there, with our director in London guiding her performance. Editing and sound effects were added by Strathmore Studios and the music was commissioned from the same young composer we’d worked with on Captain Bobo. A series like this doesn’t just require a theme, it also requires a number of musical stings to convey or emphasise emotion and to provide appropriate scene breaks/time shifts.

The series was also recorded in Gaelic for transmission on local FM stations across Scotland. The translation and narration is by well-known singer and actor Gillebride Mac ‘IlleMhaoil. Gillebride who also worked with us on Captain Bobo – it was recorded at Pacific Quays, Glasgow, the day before the site was locked down for three weeks ahead of COP26.

In addition to the drama, we also wanted to emphasize the conservation themes of Tigeropolis, so we decided that we would also produce a series of real-life eco-features enabling primary school children to question experts about key environmental issues.

Experts include award-winning Scottish wildlife filmmaker, Doug Allan, talking with children from Broomhill Primary in Glasgow about climate change and his work filming polar bears. Another episode features biologist and presenter Gillian Burke talking about water management and the re-introduction of beavers and recorded on location at a site in a flooded wood in deepest Cornwall.

To fit within the requirements of a broadcast schedule these eco-features had to be edited to fit 5 min spots. However, the children were so engaged in the discussions that we decided to make sure additional full-length podcast versions would be available online. The first of the Tigeropolis eco-features, was recorded at the Wildheart Animal Sanctuary on the Isle of Wight with zoologist Megan McCubbin talking about tiger conservation.

It’s been quite the ride bringing this project to fruition. We’ve learnt that it’s more than possible to take a well-loved book series and develop it in new ways. Radio production isn’t the simple option, but there are people out there that have the expertise to help bring everything together. It’s great fun and it can help books to find a new audience.

Tigeropolis goes out on Fun Kids every Friday from 14^th Jan at 4.45, repeated the next day. The series runs through to Friday 18^th March. The eco-features go out on Wednesdays from 19^th Jan. Fun Kids is on DAB, on-line and on Smart Speaker.

The series is also being broadcast in English and Gaelic on Radio Skye, Isles FM, Nevis Radio, Two Lochs Radio, Paisley FM, Lochbroom FM, Arran Sound, Dunoon Community Radio and K107FM (Kirkcaldy) – check local listings for times.

Tigeropolis (Beyond the Deep Forest, The Grand Opening and Caught in the Trap) by R D Dikstra are published by Belle Media, priced £7.99.