Football is nothing without its supporters and Bishop Monkton's residents, well known for their friendliness, will, no doubt, give theirs enthusiastically when the BBC start filming at the Village Hall next month. A brand new, 10 part, CBeebies “sit-com” pre-school comedy “The Football Fantastics” will be filmed by Strike Productions, on behalf of the BBC, at the Village Hall and Playing Fields, on weekdays, for a period of nine weeks from Monday March 17th through to Friday May16th.

Bishop Monkton is proud to have been chosen to host this production, not only because of the interest that it will generate for everyone living in the village, but also because there will be a significant financial boost to Village Hall funds, the princely sum of £20k to be exact. Chairman of the Village Hall, Phil Goodier, would like to stress that “the Village Hall and Playing Fields Committee is determined to use the financial gain from the rental of the hall to improve the facilities long term for all clubs and societies”.

The interior of the hall will be redecorated by the Strike team to their required colour scheme, but will be reinstated to its current appearance at the end of filming. The Hall itself, therefore, receives a direct benefit of a decorating spruce-up as part of the deal.

There will also be other monetary benefits to the whole community in the form of accommodation bookings at the pub and local B & B's, rental of office space and no doubt meals taken at the Masons Arms.

Filming will only be taking place the day on weekdays, from 6 a.m. - 6.45 p.m. Monday-Friday, NOT at the weekend (with one exception, still to be agreed. Any affected bookings wil be notified as soon as possible). The Village Hall Committee has worked hard to ensure that disruption is kept as minimal as it can be and where disruption is necessary, that this will be as well organised as possible. It does, however, acknowledge that there will be some unavoidable impact on Village Hall users and residents.

The car park will be busy, especially during the week. Twenty parking spaces have been “ring fenced” for villagers, including users of the croquet, bowls and tennis facilities.

The production equipment will involve a number of permanent trailers in the car park and a marquee for catering which will be erected on the field. There will be a visual impact from these for which the Village Hall committee apologises.

The landlord of the Masons Arms, Gary Cross, has kindly offered the loan of a section of the pub car park for Strike employees. The Village Hall has been given assurances that no Strike employees will park on local roads and if this does inadvertently happen, please contact Phil and the matter will be dealt with.

For safeguarding reasons, access to the hall to use the toilets when the production team are on site will be controlled, but not prohibited. There will also be a temporary rented toilet placed near the croquet lawn.

It has been necessary to re-accommodate some of the clubs and societies who use the hall during the day. All of these have been kept fully informed and the relocations have previously been published on this website. Click here for those details.

Table Tennis will move to Markington Village Hall while Pilates, Keep Fit, Bridge and possibly the W.I. will take place in the Methodist Chapel or Schoolroom. The events page of this website will clearly indicate any change of venue, as will the individual web pages for each club.

Last word, for the moment, goes to Phil who simply says “Thank you to everyone for their understanding”.

And looking forward, Strike has indicated that there will be a special and free! pre-screening party for villagers, probably some time in June. Get your glad rags ready now!