Mum's Monday: Bedknobs and Broomsticks meets Bargain Hunt

Bed knobs and Broomsticks is a musical film set in the second world war starring Angela Lansbury as Miss Price.

Children are being evacuated to the country to avoid the bombing in London including Charlie, Carrie and Paul. When all the other children have been found homes, Charlie, Carrie and Paul are left Mrs Hobday is waiting for Miss Price, she has a large house and is obligated to adopted children that have been sent from London.

Mrs Hobday leads her to meet the children where she reluctantly takes them back to her house. With the understanding that Miss Price is very busy and a better home is to be found for the children.

However, there is more than meets the eye with Miss Price. The kids soon find out that she is a witch who is looking for a spell to possibly shorten the war. Upon seeing Miss Price fly on a broomstick, she can’t simply get rid of them as they would spread the secret as far as possible. This leads to them tagging along with Miss Price’s adventures, which involves, meeting her mentor, Emelius Brown, dancing on the streets of Portobello Road, bobbing along under the deep blue sea, and visiting the Isle of Naboombu. The scenes with the cartoon characters playing football on the Isle of Naboombu – cheating, with no regard for the other team and the referee are some of the funniest scenes in the film.

After the grand adventure, when Miss Price eventually gets hold of the spell, she puts it to the test, by using Emelius’ shoes. After quickly getting out of hand, and scaring the local vicar with her nightie, the spell is put to the real test when the Germans invade. When locked inside the local museum, Miss Price takes full advantage of the displays by bringing the armour, the weapons, and the cavalry to life to fight the Germans and scare them off. This succeeds in becoming the dramatic battle at the end of the film. The visuals of seeing the armour coming over the hills on their own is both epic and mystical, and delivers a light-hearted, family-friendly climax.

The two most developed characters in the film are Emelius Brown, who went from a con artist who tricked Miss Price into believing he was in fact an actual tutor for the school of witchcraft, to being a respected member of the group, even being considered as a dad-like figure to the three children. The eldest child, Charlie, went from being big-headed and reluctant to participate with the others to being a more mellowed person with an open mind, as well as joining in with the rest of the group as the film went on. The main character, Miss Price, went from being an independent, who kept to herself to herself, to being more of an open person, who after being obligated to take the children, realised she enjoyed having company.

One of the most notable scenes in the film is when the characters visit Portobello Road. Emelius Brown comes across a person playing a piano badly, and shows him how it should be done, by singing the song, ‘Portobello Road’. This quickly escalates into an all-singing, all-dancing joyous experience, that would make you want to re-watch it over and over again.

Although it was filmed on a set, you can visit Portobello road, on which still has a thriving market. There is a mixture of antique shops and stalls, but check on the website on what days’ certain stalls are there – Saturday is the busiest day. If you want to visit, the nearest London underground station is Notting Hill Gate on the Central Line.

On occasion, the BBC TV antique show, Bargain Hunt, which began in 2000, travels to Portobello Road to explore the many shops and market stalls to try and find three bargains, which they will then auction off to see if they can make a profit. The two teams are each given £300, with the help of an expert. Then with the money that they have left, each expert goes back around the stalls to find a bonus buy. At the end, when each team has auctioned off the first three items, they have the choice of going with the bonus buy or rejecting. It is auctioned off anyway, to see what would have happened. Any profit each team gets they get to take home. The winning team is the one with most profit or the team with the least loss. If they make a profit on all 3 of the first 3 items, the team and the expert gets what is known as the Golden Gavel in the form of a lapel pin.

The show was originally hosted by David Dickinson 2000 – 2006, and then Tim Wannacott took over 2006 – 2016. He has now left so the experts are taking it in turns to host the show. My personal 2 favourite hosts are Thomas Plant and Eric Knowles as they are down to earth and gently host the show along giving it a new, fresh feel to it.

So not only can you watch the timeless film, you can go and experience a part of it for yourself, whilst singing the words of the Portobello Road song, whilst doing a bit of bargain hunting as well, if you so wish.