Sex! Swearing! Sweat! Custard! And… giant rabbits?
Life behind the scenes of Teletubbies wasn’t quite what you imagined. In Confessions of a Teletubby, Nikky Smedley – the original Laa-Laa – lifts the lid on one of the most surreal, beloved, and globally successful children’s TV shows of all time. And what a ride it is.
Performed at the Actors Theatre, close to Brighton Pavilion, this solo show packed out the venue with a mixed, enthusiastic crowd – including some twenty-somethings who must’ve been Teletubby babies themselves. The atmosphere was warm, open, and buzzing with nostalgia.
Smedley is a born performer. Still bendy, still bursting with energy, and full of charisma, she takes the audience on a whistle-stop tour of her six years in the yellow suit – and a whole lot more. The show opens with hilarious tales of how she got the job (including a logistically complicated audition as a bistro table), and builds into a rich tapestry of physical challenges, surreal memories, and the emotional impact of being part of such an unusual cultural phenomenon.
She’s yellow, she has a curly antenna, she loves to dance and sing – and her favourite toy is an orange rubber ball. But Laa-Laa is just one chapter in Nikky’s extraordinary life. Before Teletubbies, she was already a ground-breaking dance theatre artist, running her own company for twenty years and creating everything from shows about quantum physics to Rock, the UK’s first vertical dance performance in 1991. She also acted, modelled, sang in bands, ran cabaret clubs and comedy nights in South East London – and later, worked as a writer, director, and education consultant. She currently choreographs for the highly addictive kids TV show Cocomelon.
Smedley is open about the weirdness, the weight of the suits, and the world tours – including the time the costumes got stuck in a New York building and they had to remove the revolving doors. That kind of sums up the show’s mix of absurdity and truth – completely ridiculous, but very real.
The tone shifts beautifully at moments. In one poignant section, she sensitively recalls a difficult period and there’s a genuine sense of loss, tenderness, and humanity in how she speaks of her fellow performers and the pressures of working on such a high-profile, physically demanding show.
Teletubbies aired from 1997 to 2001 on the BBC, and quickly became a cultural juggernaut – I watched it whilst a student for something to do (in the days of only four TV channels!) Its four toddler-like characters with tummy-screens and distinctive antennae – Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po – communicated in playful gibberish and were specifically designed to appeal to the developmental needs of babies and toddlers. The show won multiple awards, and the theme song even reached Number 1 in the UK charts.
But Confessions of a Teletubby isn’t just about the legacy – it’s about the lived experience. Smedley is unafraid to swear, to laugh at herself, and to share stories that are as mad as they are moving. She offers up backstage gossip, production mishaps, and philosophical reflections in equal measure. It’s not often you see a performer blend clowning, candour, and cultural history so effortlessly.
The show is loosely based on her 2022 best-selling memoir Over the Hills and Far Away – My Life as a Teletubby, but this live version has a raw immediacy that can’t be replicated on the page. She engages directly with the audience, answers questions (yes, including the baby sun), and delivers her memories with a mix of theatrical flair and honesty that’s incredibly endearing.
What stays with you isn’t just the nostalgia – it’s the resilience, humour, and depth of someone who carved out a truly original creative path. She makes no attempt to gloss over the strange and sometimes exhausting reality of being a foam-suited icon. But she also speaks movingly about how much the show meant to children – especially those with disabilities – and how it connected with families across the globe. I found myself humming the show’s theme tune on the way home.
Confessions of a Teletubby is funny, frank, weird, and warm. Whether you grew up with the Teletubbies, raised someone who did, or just want to hear what happens when you put a dancer, some custard, and a 6-foot foam suit in a revolving door in New York – this is the show for you. Nikky Smedley’s still got it – and then some.
