We love Charlie and Lola everso much. And U.K.-based executive producer Claudia Lloyd is awfully charming, too. Sit down with some biscuits and juice and read our email interview with her after the jump. 

How do you come up with ideas for each ep of Charlie and Lola? 

We had between five and seven writers at any given point on each Charlie and Lola series. [Creator] Lauren Child, Kitty Taylor (the director) and I would organise creative meetings with the writers that would last all day and we would brainstorm the story ideas, very often reliving childhood ‘moments’ such as  hating your squeaky new shoes, or always wanting to be the Virgin Mary in the Nativity play and always ending up being third shepherd on the left!   By the end of one day, we would probably have six to ten story ideas that would move on to storyline phase, and the writing would begin.  Roughly four drafts and two months later, these scripts would be pretty much final and Lauren would have one last look at them and tweak the dialogue to make sure that the characters sounded the way they should – but by story number 78, the writers knew how Charlie or Lola would sound. 

 Who’s responsible for the hilarious way Lola speaks?

Lola’s unique vocabulary was defined right at the start of developing the TV show, and is absolutely completely Lauren’s creation. However, the child actors were mostly too young to read the scripts, so the recording process involved copying and ad libbing. The voice director, Kitty or I would read out the script in a specific way and the child would imitate us – or do a variation of our intonation that would make it into the final recording of the show. Given their ages, this process was slow, and would involve a lot of playing games and general messing about which all added to the natural feeling of the dialogue. If Charlie needed to sound puffed out, we would run round the studio, if Lola had to sound as though she had her mouth full, the actor was given a biscuit. We got through a lot of biscuits and juice! We would keep every giggle, cough and non sequitur, and plenty made it into the shows.

How involved is Lauren Child with the show? 

 Lauren was incredibly involved in the show, especially at the outset. We spend a lot of time together and discussed every single everso detail. It was a fantastic collaboration.

How did you find the kids who do the voices of Charlie and Lola? What do their real-life personalities bring to the roles?

The children that voiced our characters were all really young, so that the innocence in their voices was real and not faked. We were always clear that the voices should be real children’s and not actors.  We found the kids through an exhaustive auditioning period, going to schools, and taping friends and family. For each series, we cast new Charlie’s and new Lola’s because, we discovered, children keep growing up!  The kids all had great personalities, and were a huge influence on the writing and the animation.  Lotta pretty much invented herself.

Were you ever asked to change phrases or mannerisms for the U.S. version of the show?

Disney loved the show just as it was produced.  They loved the British eccentricity, though we would occasionally use ‘Americanisms’ where there was a risk of real confusion; ’stabilisers’ became ‘training wheels’, but on the whole U.S. kids embraced Charlie and Lola’s language as just part of their personalities. 

What’s next on the horizon for Charlie and Lola? 

There are more and more books, toys and other merchandise rolling out all the time, worldwide and in the U.S. We spend hours and as much detail on all the toys, games and clothes… we’re particularly proud of a rather adorable, but dopey Sizzles toy dog.

 Catch Charlie and Lola weekdays on Playhouse Disney. We just tell our TiVo to record it, but if you don’t have a DVR and need to watch it the old school way, click here to find the exact days/times it airs.

Filed under Show and Tell, Six and Under

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