The World According to Grandpa From Grandpa’s sofa to TV’s Milkshake

Local FROM GRANDPA’S SOFA TO TV’S MILKSHAKE From Grandpa’s sofa to TV’s Milkshake

A local man’s storybooks based on his Grandpa’s tales have recently become a series of episodes on Channel 5’s ‘Milkshake’.

Chris Heath was born in Peterborough and raised in Stilton. He has had a 20-year career as a Producer and Comedy Writer, starting out on Channel 4’s Big Breakfast, producing silly games on Outside Broadcasts and writing items for Zig & Zag and then Roland Rat.

After producing Johnny Vaughan’s chat show for the BBC, Chris moved into TV Development and has created entertainment shows for the likes of BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and CBBC, including ‘Holiday of my Lifetime’ with Len Goodman and ‘The TV That Made Me’ with Brian Conley.

Chris also wrote two series of a Radio 4 sitcom called ‘Clement Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ (with Marc Haynes) and have written for shows like ‘The Big Breakfast’, ‘Johnny Vaughan Tonight’, ‘Big Brother’s Little Brother’ and for comics like Lenny Henry, Marcus Brigstocke, Rufus Hound, John Bishop, Brian Conley and Paddy McGuinness.

His latest venture however, involves a children’s story. Chris said “I wrote the first ‘World According To Grandpa’ story back in 2009 and a few books were published, but in the back of my mind, I knew I always wanted it to end up as a Telly show. They became a series of books for a short time but now we’re in the process of rebooting the book series the stories with a new publisher.” Chris’ Grandad, Arturo Garcia, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico

The World According To Grandpa is a unique blend of live action storytelling and delightful animation as Grandpa (Don “We drove down to London and pitched Warrington) takes his grandchildren on fantastic journeys through colourful new worlds, all from the comfort of his sofa! the show to the people at Milkshake about

Every episode begins with one grandchild asking Grandpa a year ago and luckily they loved it.” a question (e.g. What are stars?). From here, Grandpa spins a Chris Heath nonsensical tale of outer-space bumblebees, piggy rock bands, rhubarb-loving monsters, cloud pilots, naughty wizards and fire- “We drove down to London and pitched the show to the people at breathing hamsters! Thankfully, also on the sofa is Halifax the Milkshake about a year ago and luckily they loved it, so we’ve spent rabbit (voiced by Sally Lindsay). After Grandpa has finished his tale, the last year making the show up in Manchester in full COVID safety she’ll always give us the real answer to the question, delivered in an measures.” said Chris. entertaining, easy-to-understand way. “The great thing about writing a load of silly stories is you can name The World According to Grandpa characters after all your family. In one episode, I named a tea-drinking first began as a concept for a series little old lady ‘Brenda’ after my Nan (who was married for 40 years to of books, based on the tall tales the Grandpa it’s all based on). She was over the moon and has been of Chris’ own Grandad, Arturo phoning all her friends at Stilton Over-60’s and telling them they have Garcia, who was born and raised to watch! She’s a 92-yr-old, one-woman publicity machine!!” in Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean. Chris is now working on a couple of scripts for Netflix and the When he moved to the UK in the BBC and watching Milkshake every weekend! sixties, he would hold court on his doorstep with all the kids from the local estate and tell them outlandish lies about his fictional banana plantations and ‘land borne’ sharks that could walk around on the land and steal from the mango tree in

Chris’ Nan your back garden.