Balamory Returns to CBeebies After 21 Years With New Series

Balamory, the BAFTA-winning pre-school series that ran to 253 episodes and became the BBC's most successful in-house children's programme since Teletubbies, will return to CBeebies and BBC iPlayer on Monday 20 April 2026 at 5pm, with all episodes available on iPlayer from the same launch day.

The original series ran from 2 September 2002 to 29 June 2005 across four series, filmed primarily in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. It won the BAFTA for Best Pre-school Live Action Series in 2004 and aired internationally across Australia, Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong, and the United States, where Discovery Communications acquired the rights and broadcast it on Discovery Kids and TLC. The BBC cancelled the show on 30 April 2005, citing ambitions to develop new programme ideas.

The revival, announced by the BBC on 17 September 2024, spans two seasons of 10 episodes each, with every episode running approximately 14 minutes. Lion Television Scotland, an All3Media subsidiary confirmed for the production role following a competitive tender in January 2025, returned the cameras to Tobermory, with studio scenes again shot in Glasgow.

Four original cast members reprise their roles. Julie Wilson Nimmo returns as Miss Hoolie, the nursery head who called the comeback "the craziest and best news ever" and described the new series as "a love letter to the original." Andrew Agnew is back as PC Plum, whose slapstick energy the BBC credits to pursuits including forming a one-man band and hunting for imaginary volcanoes. Kim Tserkezie returns as Penny Pocket, now running Balamory's shop and café alongside a string of side hustles including sports coaching and party planning. Juliet Cadzow reprises Edie McCredie, who has expanded her world to include a delivery service and her own boat, the Sea Dasher, in a role the BBC frames as a modern grandparent figure.

Not returning is Miles Jupp, who played Archie the Inventor in the original; his character's legacy is carried forward through new character Ava Potts, described as Archie's daughter. The revival also marks the permanent absence of Mary Riggans, who played Suzie Sweet alongside Penny Pocket in the original and died in 2013.

Three new characters join the island. Danielle Jam plays Ava Potts, a scientist and inventor. Carl Spencer plays Dr Ollie, a vet whose surgery houses a menagerie including Euan the elephant. William Andrews plays The Harbourmaster, whose good-natured rivalry with PC Plum is billed as one of the series' richest comic threads, frequently ending in an unexpected splash.

Kate Morton, CBeebies' Senior Head of Commissioning, said the series preserves "the spirit of curiosity, creativity and community that defined the original" while introducing new residents who bring "fresh energy, humour and heart to the island." Wilson Nimmo has spoken about the show's ambition to hold children's attention for 14 or 15 minutes without relying on heavy animation, focusing instead on "bringing them up to be kind" in a world where "everybody's a bit different, but we all get on."

The BBC has explicitly positioned the reboot as family co-viewing, aimed as much at parents who grew up with the show in the early 2000s as at the pre-schoolers discovering it for the first time. Wilson Nimmo noted that nostalgia is "at the forefront" of the current cultural moment, a calculation that shapes everything from the casting choices to the 14-minute episode length, designed to sit comfortably within modern screen-time guidance without abandoning the warmth that made the original resonate across 21 licensees and five continents.