A problem facing Thames Television design Philip Blowers, working on the current Ace of Wands series, was how to make dolls look like actors, and some actors look like dolls.
"Everything about the story is a bit unreal," he says. "For scenes where actors are supposed to have turned into dolls, we had to build the studio set completely out of proportion."
To create the dolls' house atmosphere, furniture in the studio was made larger than usual. Chairs were especially big so that the actors could just dangle their feet over the edges of the seats, instead of touching the floor with their toes.
Wallpaper on the set walls had the pattern on it enlarged to five times the normal size. "Then, to add to the confusion, one wall was covered in mirros so that you could never work out from which direction any of the actors were entering the room."
The plot of Ace of Wands is as strange as ever. It involved Blowers in tracking down more than 200 dolls – just some of the more unusual items on the properties list.
"We needed all kinds of dolls, modern ones, old ones, costume dolls and some that we could dress up in our own costumes to make them look like people."
Several dolls were hired and some were bought in toy shops, but, as you can imagine, 200 different dolls are a lot to find. The dolls which were dressed as people were fairly valuable antique dolls, having wooden-joined limbs and painted faces. Costumes were all designed by Patti Rogers, who is a sculptress, but is used to making all sorts of props which involve more sewing and sticking than sculpting for the Ace of Wands series.
Two scottish costmes were needed, one John Bull outfit, one Uncle Sam costume, a gipsy dress and a costume for Britannia. The dolls were about 15in. high, so Patti didn't have to make everything very tiny. "But," she explained, "one of the most difficult things was making garments fit across the shoulders, which tended to be rather large."
The kilts had to be made from authentic tartans – but the hats for the John Bull and Uncle Sam dolls were created from toilet roll holders covered in black felt."
Felt is ideal for making dolls' costumes it is easy to glue pieces togather and it cuts withot fraying. The dolls' boots were made from bits of leather. "But you can always use remnants of imitation leather which you can buy at most fabric shops," said Patti. Another idea is to make use of an old suede jacket when it is no longer wearable. The suede bits make beautiful shoes.
In dressing dolls, all you need is some imagination and patience. Making people look like dolls is much more difficult.
The article was accompanied by a photograph of Mama Doc's dolls' hospital, captioned: The place of transformation – where human beings are turned in to dolls.