How to entertain kids in quarantine? Try Blue Gum Farm TV

Imagine The Weekly Times to song and dance. Add a viewing audience roughly from the ages of six months to six years of age, and you have Blue Gum Farm TV.

Cilla Pershouse, Blue Gum Farm TV, Queensland

IMAGINE The Weekly Times to song and dance.

Add a viewing audience roughly from the ages of six months to six years of age, and you have Blue Gum Farm TV.

The show — available online, DVD or CD — is the brainchild of the multi-talented Cilla Pershouse, who grew up on a cattle station in Queensland. She was working in live theatre in the big smoke where she says the idea “popped into my head”.

“My parent’s generation had connections to the land, but I could see that was missing in my generation,” Cilla says.

“So I had the idea to start with kids, show them what’s going on in agriculture. It’s like Play School, but on a farm, with a wider age range.

“Each episode features a different industry, animals, and different fruits and vegetables. We get a product, return to the homestead and make a simple recipe, but all mixed in with songs and dance.”

So, Cilla returned to the family farm, recording the first episode of Blue Gum Farm TV on the 28,300ha beef property in 2015. She made 10 episodes in total, with additional filming on neighbouring farms including citrus, pigs, dairy, peanuts and sugar cane.

Ag life: Cilla Pershouse created Blue Gum Farm TV to teach kids about farm life.

So popular was the first series of the show, streamed online, that Cilla’s all-dancing, all-singing performance was then requested in live concerts. Each year since she has toured Queensland, performing about 50 shows of her original work.

“This year all the concerts have been postponed because of coronavirus, but I’m hoping parents who have to take their children out of child care and school will instead download the show at home,” she says.

On the back of this success, Cilla filmed the second Blue Gum Farm TV series in 2017, and the third was released at the end of last year.

These were both filmed on the Ban Ban Springs beef property, where she lives with her husband, Scott, and her 18-month-old daughter Greta.

Cilla has also released a two-volume CD featuring about 30 of her original songs, all of which celebrate farming and can keep kids entertained in the car on long drives.

Given she is due to give birth to baby No. 2 in September, the fourth TV series is expected in 2021.

So dedicated is the 35-year-old to the project, she has self-financed it, estimating each season costs about $25,000, including videography and production.

“My thinking was to make it broadcast-ready, in the hope it could be acquired by a TV network, like ABC For Kids, so they could run it from the beginning,” Cilla says.

“I’m optimistic it will fund itself. Until then we sell a few cows to finance it, and up until to becoming a stay-at-home mum, I worked on the family farm.”

Cilla describes her farm childhood as “idyllic”. She was home-schooled and when she showed an interest in dance, then piano, acting and singing, her dedicated mum drove her 2½ hours to undertake lessons.

“My mum is a go-getter, a real country advocate, and was incredible at opening up opportunities for me, even instigating professional productions coming to Gayndah, which is a tiny town,” Cilla says.

“She worked hard to allow me to indulge my passions.”

Cilla went on to study music theatre at Mackay’s Conservatorium of Music, and after she had a colourful career from cabaret show Dracula’s, to a lead role in the Australian Outback Spectacular and performing the national anthem at major sporting events.

Family ties: Cilla, Greta and Scott.

It was while commuting on a Sydney bus that the idea for Blue Gum Farm TV came to her.

Having never been a songwriter before, she wrote the theme song and the first two songs of the show.

“There’s a real freedom in writing for children because it can be fun, silly, and joyous. There’s no pressure, unlike a ballad,” she says.

With a nagging sense of homesickness, Cilla returned to the farm and filmed the pilot in 2014.

“It took a year to get right because growing up in the country, I had to convey what was in my head to a film crew who had never been on a farm. The pilot has never seen the light of day,” she laughs.

She says while each episode is about seven minutes long, it takes weeks to film and finish.

Every episode is suitable for both country and city kids.

“Rural people love it, because it’s a celebration of their lives and they identify with it,” Cilla says.

“For city kids, it’s an education.”

Daughter Greta is one of her greatest fans.

“She loves the tap-dancing song, which I call the Outback Shuffle. She just goes off. It has got four million views, which is way more than Blue Gum Farm TV,” says Cilla, who in the Shuffle episode is captured tap dancing on the back of a ute with Kelpies.

“I suppose because she’s been listening to it since she was in utero, it comes naturally.”

Cilla says even though she had early hopes of being “the next Liza Minnelli”, she’s a country girl at heart and says she is the “happiest I’ve ever been in life”.

“I found the city really hard,” Cilla says. “ But here I feel so supported by the community. I’m putting my heart, soul and resources into this because I believe it’s making a difference and there’s a need for it.”

● bluegumfarmtv.com.au

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