T-Bag

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This article is about the children's TV character. For the Prison Break character, see Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell.
T-Bag
Genre Children's drama
Starring Elizabeth Estensen
Georgina Hale
John Hasler
Kellie Bright
Country of origin Flag of United Kingdom United Kingdom
No. of episodes 94
Broadcast
Original channel ITV
Original run 1985 – 1992

T-Bag was a witch-like character who appeared in a number of series of television programmes which ran from the mid-80s to early 90s on Children's ITV. Written by Grant Cathro and Lee Pressman, each series had a different title and featured a single story told over several episodes.

The series titles and broadcast dates are given below:

Title Year of broadcast Series on IMDb
Wonders in Letterland (1985) [1]
T-Bag Strikes Again (1986) [2]
T-Bag Bounces Back (1987) [3]
Turn on to T-Bag (1988) [4]
T-Bag's Christmas Cracker (1988) [5]
T-Bag and the Revenge of the T-Set (1989) [6]
T-Bag's Christmas Carol (1989) [7]
T-Bag and the Pearls of Wisdom (1990) [8]
T-Bag's Christmas Ding Dong (1990) [9]
T-Bag and the Rings of Olympus (1991) [10]
T-Bag's Christmas Turkey (1991) [11]
T-Bag and the Sunstones of Montezuma (1992) [12]
Take Off with T-Bag (1992) [13]

From 1985 to 1989, T-Bag was Tallulah Bag, played by Elizabeth Estensen. In 1990, Tallulah was destroyed attempting to kill T-Shirt and Sally Simpkins with a spell which they reflected back onto her. She was subsequently replaced by her sister, Tabitha Bag, played by Georgina Hale. Coincidentally both actresses now have roles on the ITV soap Emmerdale. Tabitha obtained T-Bag's powers by drinking tea made from a High T-Plant. Both T-Bags were accompanied by a young boy, T-Shirt, played by John Hasler in every series. Hasler began the role at a rather young age, but was towering above Georgina Hale by the time the final series ended in 1992.

Tallulah and Tabitha Bag are witches whose magical powers derive from drinking tea made from a high tea plant. T-Shirt was a normal boy (Thomas Shirt) who worked in a toy shop who would be kidnapped at the beginning of each series by T-Bag to act as a "tea caddy", that is, to brew the magic tea. (In later series, however, the toy shop, and references to T-shirt's supposed normal human life between series, were dropped, and T-Shirt was presented as T-Bag's constant companion, part harassed surrogate son, part household servant). Only T-shirt, it seems, could brew it properly; on the occasions when he abandons T-Bag, the tea she attempts to brew herself is "muck" and her powers wane. In return for his assistance, T-Bag shared her magical powers with T-Shirt and he served as her sidekick, although T-shirt's attitude to his mistress varied from loyal and enthusiastic to begrudging, cynical and wisecracking.

T-Bag and T-Shirt's magical powers were somewhat limited: they were capable of making any objects they required appear out of thin air, disappear to somewhere else, move out of the way, and so on, and were also capable of transporting themsleves across time and space instantaneously. T-Bag did this by clicking her fingers and/or pointing at the object or space, while T-Shirt would blink in its general direction.

The premise of each series of the show involved various items hidden throughout the world across time and space, which either were needed by T-Bag in order to carry out some evil plan to take over the world, or which were needed by the heroine in order to defeat T-Bag. In general, these items were scattered across time and space in the first episode of each series, to prevent T-Bag from acquiring them. Then, a young girl would be sent on a quest to retrieve them before T-Bag got hold of them. Each episode of the rest of each series, up until the final episode, would consist of the contest between T-Bag and T-shirt on one side, and the girl on the other, to acquire one of the magical items. Each episode had a different setting in which the magic item was to be found, usually historical periods (e.g. ancient Egypt or Rome, Renaissance Italy, or the Caribbean of the pirates) or settings from folklore or literature (e.g. Tom Sawyer's American South, Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest, a French Foreign Legion station in North Africa which owes something to Beau Geste, etc.), and sometimes featured characters like Napoleon or Leonardo da Vinci, although these settings and charcters were always treated lightly rather than with great accuracy. Thus, there was an educational element to the show, although it was always lightly handled and subjected to an entertaining plot. In almost all episodes the girl was ultimately successful in gaining the magic object. The final episode of each series featured a return to the setting of the first episode, a last minute struggle over the possession of the collected magic items, often with T-Bag gaining possession them through trickery after the girl had successfully collected them throughout the series, but ended with the girl getting them back and defeating T-Bag, often with the aid of T-Shirt, who tended to switch sides at the end of the series and help the girl.

Debbie, played by Jennie Stallwood was the heroine of the first three series, Diana Barrand took over for series 4 as Holly Anna Jones. Kellie Bright, who would go on to appear in The Upper Hand and The Archers, played Sally Simpkins in the following two series and a Christmas special. In the T-bag and the Rings of Olympus, Polyzena, or Polly, was played by Natalie Wood (not Natalie Wood from West Side Story). In the T-bag and the Sunstones of Montezuma, Penny Hunt was played by Evelyn Sweeney. Typically, each episode would also feature two non-regular cast members to progress the story.

In the first series, Wonders in Letterland, the items to be recovered were letters of the alphabet. In later series, these items ranged from numbers to spoons, and for most of the final series, the items featured in the title of the show, e.g. pearls of wisdom, rings of Olympus, etc.

The emphasis of the show changed slightly for Take Off with T-Bag, in which T-Bag receives a golden envelope just before her 1000th birthday. The envelope contains co-ordinates, and so she, T-Shirt, and T-Shirt's young cousin Tow Ling, played by Bea Julakasiun, follow the co-ordinates, locating new golden envelopes each time, believing at the end of the trail there will be a birthday surprise for T-Bag. There was no young girl attempting to find the envelopes first. Any sinister element of T-Bag's charcter was removed; she became a purely comic character, and the vague good vs. evil tensions were absent.

While the show is loosely based upon good vs. evil, the distinction was never very clear, making the T-Bag series quite suitable for very young children. The viewer always supports the girl in her quest. T-Shirt, while he helps T-Bag, never comes across as a bad character; he often helps the girl in the latter episodes of each series where T-Bag kicks him out (short lived evictions, as T-Bag is incapable of making tea, the source of her magic powers, and needs T-Shirt to do it for her). Furthermore, T-Bag is often played as more comically incompetent than sinister, especially in the later series as portrayed by Georgina Hale, who often played her as ridiculously vain, self-deluded charcter whose sinister ambitions could not be taken seriously, and who got an amusing comeuppence at the end of each episode. In the final episode of each series, however, the comic aspects were usually dropped and T-Bag became a much more sinister character as she seemed on the point of achieving her dreams of world domination. While the girl would always retrieve all of the items, T-Bag would always find a way of stealing them in the final episode, only to be thwarted at the last minute on the point of activating their magic power to take over the world.

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