I'm not exaggerating when I say that the most baffling quarter-hour of television I ever watched in my life was an episode of a children's art show that aired on CBBC in the mid-1990s. If that was also your era, then I'll wager that tucked away near the back of your brain are at least a few memories of Bitsa. The program started life in 1991 and enjoyed a healthy run into 1996, yet it never attained the cult status of its CITV counterpart Art Attack - presenters Caitlin Easterby and Simon Pascoe were both on fabulous form throughout, but there was ultimately no challenging the legendary Neil Buchanan as the champion of after-school creativity. Nonetheless, I reckon Bitsa would have a much more prominent following if people were to look back and appreciate how balls to the walls weird the thing was.
The premise of Bitsa was that Caitlin and Simon would demonstrate various methods for flexing your creative muscles, guiding you the processes of making exciting knick-knacks out of sticky tape and Mr Kipling boxes. Assisting them in in their endeavours was a robotic being named Hands (a puppet operated by series co-creator Paul Goddard) who did not talk and communicated solely by humming. Episodes were made to a certain formula, where Caitlin, Simon and Hands would each get their turn in showing you how to make something, the children from a selected school would show off an art project they'd been working on, and we'd get the really manic part where Caitlin and Simon were challenged with making something within a time limit and with specified materials - although not all necessarily in that order, however. The connective tissue between each of these segments is where the series permitted itself to get truly weird, a quality that only became more pronounced the deeper it got into its lifespan. Whereas earlier installments had tended to have Caitlin and Simon assembling their creations from the confines of their studio, there was presumably enough of a budget boost in the show's later years for more filming on location. The vibe of the series felt more expansive, and with it the framing narratives seemed to get more ambitious, following an almost dream-like flow of developments - that is, if dreams were intermittently put on hold to allow room for crafting tutorials. I've likened it to Art Attack, but truthfully it was more like an arthouse version of Blue Peter.
The episode of Bitsa that stood out to me as being particularly incomprehensible aired in 1995 under the title of "Last Stop Cafe". It involved Caitlin and Simon being on location in London and having bizarre encounters (though never with one another) in various dining venues. I have distinct memories of watching it and immediately regretting that I hadn't taped it because I wanted so desperately to go back to the beginning and see there was any lick of sense to be squeezed from the entire demented affair. I settled for the next best option I had available at the time, which was to describe the events of the episode from memory to my eternally patient mum in the hopes that she would be able to explain it to me, as I so often did whenever something I'd seen on television (or advertising billboards) had left me totally disconcerted. But just you try describing the events of any Bitsa episode, not least this one, in an even vaguely coherent fashion. What chance did my mother have? My confusion was there for the long haul, with the image of Caitlin sitting in her squalid little cafe, surrounded by mannequins and indifferent waitresses, vexed by the time and by Simon's failure to show, being all set to nibble away at my brain for the ensuing three decades. Caitlin was permanently stuck in that moment, and so was I. It was only in 2025 that I found any prospect of release, with the discovery that "Last Stop Cafe" was finally up on YouTube. On getting reacquainted with it, I was surprised at just how much of the episode had stuck with me over the years. The only part that I had more or less completely forgotten was the entire sequence with Simon at the train station, but the rest of it still felt so fresh and vivid in my mind, as if I'd viewed it only a few weeks ago. Clearly it was something that the younger me had made a real effort to hang onto, in the hopes that my persistence would eventually pay off, and I would suddenly be in on the elusive joke. The punchline to that joke was always self-evident: "Three minutes to four...Simon should be here soon". It was the set-up that I couldn't make head nor tail of. The question is, am I any better equipped to do so 30+ years on, or is this rabbit hole darker and more interminable than the younger me had ever imagined?
"Last Stop Cafe" opens with Caitlin at the titular establishment, a run-down, bohemian-looking coffee bar that seems unlikely to pass its next hygiene inspection. The time is three minutes to four, and she's expecting Simon to meet up with her very soon. We find that Simon is enjoying coffee and a late lunch from quite another source, a food truck run by Hands, before becoming aware of the time and making a mad dash across London in an effort to keep the scheduled appointment with Caitlin. It initially appears as though Simon is having a much better time of it than Caitlin, who's stuck with the Last Stop's signature beverage of stale coffee (a distinctly unappetising-looking black sludge), while Simon gets an ordinary-looking espresso. I'm not so sure that the rest of the menu Hands is flogging compares so favourably to that of the Last Stop - the waitress's practice of serving spaghetti with her bare hands (and into a kidney dish at that) is wont to raise some objections, but at least it looks like actual edible spaghetti, as opposed to the pasta Hands offers Simon, which looks more like a plate of wires. More troubling still than the dubious food items on offer is the temporal mismatch between Caitlin and Simon's respective worlds. Simon takes his cues from Big Ben, which gives the time as quarter to four, and this does not align with the clock in the Last Stop Cafe, where it seems to be perpetually three minutes to four. The contrast established in these parallel narratives is one of frenzy versus inertia. Simon will spend the episode rushing from venue to venue while Caitlin never leaves the Last Stop (until the very end), and only moves from her seat to participate in the challenge segment. Caitlin looks to have settled in a place where time has ground to a complete halt, while Simon is constantly on the move.
My first question, on revisiting "Last Stop Cafe", had to do with whether time in the titular venue had literally stopped, or just the clock adorning its decrepit walls? After all, it seems perfectly in keeping with the broader theming of the cafe for it to put up a clock to give the appearance of broken time, with the joke being that Caitlin never quite cottons on. But then the very name, "Last Stop", feels particularly ominous in that regard. It could mean the last as in "last resort", meaning that it's right at the bottom of establishments you would consider trying. Alternatively, it may indicate the end of progression and that we have nowhere else to go from here. The distortion of time within is further hinted at via a sneaky visual gag that I certainly hope was not unintentional. Positioned on the saucer that holds Caitlin's cup of gloopy coffee is what looks to be an out of shape biscuit. The way that biscuit hangs over the side of the saucer puts me in mind of the melting clocks from Salvador Dali's 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, commonly interpreted as signifying the nebulous nature of time within human perception.
It wouldn't be any more inexplicable than what unfolds at the end of the episode, when Simon, realising that he will not keep his appointment with Caitlin, attempts to buy additional time by scaling Big Ben (or rather a mat mocked up to look like the face of the clock) and turning back the hands. In doing so, he appears to do damage to the space time continuum, for rather than simply going back in time the entire scenario resets, with the participants rearranged. Simon is now seated in the Last Stop Cafe, being served stale coffee and observing, from the clock on the wall reading three minutes to four, that Caitlin should be here soon. Caitlin, meanwhile, has been transplanted to Simon's starting point, standing at Hands' food truck and receiving a plate of wire-spaghetti - which, unlike Simon, she is discerning enough to reject. The process seems set to repeat itself with the roles reversed (a la the Twilight Zone episode "Shadow Play"), but for the fact that Caitlin still seems to be caught up on some kind of time loop at the other end, with the moment of her pushing the plate back Hands' way repeating over and over.
All of this puzzled me immensely as a child, but I suspect that "Last Stop Cafe" wouldn't have stayed with me and haunted me to the extent that it did if not for the one additional serving of discombobulation that comes in the form of our post-credits stinger. Once the names have all rolled we get a brief moment with Caitlin, who is back in the Last Stop, watching the clock and anticipating Simon's impending arrival as if the final role reversal never occurred and she never strayed from her temporal prison. That bite-sized epilogue threw pretty much everything I thought I'd fathomed about the episode (which was already on shaky enough ground) into total disarray. What are we to make of it? Should we assume that Caitlin eventually made it to the point when she was able to restart the process, as Simon did before her, causing the scenario to reset and their roles to reverse yet again? Have we gone backwards in time, to before Simon's resetting of the narrative? Or is this just a humorous bit of repetition for repetition's sake, the preceding ubiquitousness of the statement ("Three minutes to four...Simon should be here soon") having transformed it into a running gag in its own right? Nowadays I feel most inclined toward option 3, but it's still an unsettling way to close out the episode, by giving the final word to Caitlin's inertia and that state of limbo in which it's always three minutes to four and an appearance from Simon is imminent but never arrives. In 1995 it was the teasing punchline to a joke largely lost on me. On a subconscious level, I think it something in Caitlin's bemused delivery that I responded to - she never explicitly grasps her inability to progress beyond 15:57, and that she's been making the same observation about Simon ad infinitum, but at the same time she seems far from immune to the absurdity of her situation. Her tone, when referencing Simon's supposed coming, is one of wavering certainty, as if she recognises that something has gone awry but can't quite put her finger on what. Her quiet befuddlement at the end of the episode so perfectly articulated by own confusion on having sat through it. Much like her, I'd spent the last 15 minutes waiting for clarity to rear its head and it had never quite materialised. As it turns out, clarity would not be forthcoming for quite some time. After more than 30 years, I'm still not sure that I quite have a hold on it. But at least I was able to take another crack at revelling in the Last Stop Cafe and its grimy mysteries. The place is so beguiling that it's as if I never left it at all.
Actually, a more morbid interpretation did cross my mind upon revisiting the experience, having noted that Simon falls from Big Ben while attempting to turn back its hands. Is it possible that he's dead, and that the Last Stop Cafe is really some bizarre metaphor for mortality? It all goes back to what I said about the name of the cafe being particularly ominous. It is specifically the last stop, cobbled together to a theme of inertia, decay and expiration. Time never moves, the coffee is stagnant, a proportion of the occupants are motionless mannequins, and in one sequence we assume the perspective of a fly buzzing around the tables. What arguably belies this interpretation is that Simon, on falling from Big Ben, is not reunited with Caitlin on the other side. Instead, she's apparently been restored to the land of the living, signifying the renewal of the cycle. Crucially, Simon and Caitlin are always where the other party isn't. Their scheduled meet-up never occurs; even during the challenge portion of the episode, where each creates a makeshift telephone using the materials available, they are unable to make that all-important connection, as if blocked by a fundamental incompatibility between their respective environs. But even through that aggressive contrast between frenetic motion and uncanny stillness, there are obvious echoes between the two realms. Each protagonist finds themselves up against the tyranny of a clock; Caitlin is held captive by a stopped clock that keeps her confined in a single moment, while Simon has Big Ben looming over him throughout his journey, an omnipresent reminder that his time is in short supply. Would it be so outlandish to propose that I see something in their parallel predicaments of the tensions between living and death? Each is in search of some deeper meaning or understanding that is expected to make itself known via the anticipated union with the other. Caitlin, who has already reached the end of the line, has taken the more passive position, hoping (much like Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot) that everything will finally become clear when Simon waltzes through that cafe door. Simon, meanwhile, is in pursuit of an unfulfilled purpose that persistently eludes him. He cannot keep his appointment with Caitlin, in part because the world he has to navigate is too overwhelming, but also because he lacks the discipline to prevent himself from being sidetracked. "I've got to meet Caitlin", he tells himself, shortly before wandering into a burger bar for a bite to eat. He's well aware that the clock is ticking, but still convinces himself that he can put things off for just a little longer. Sure, who can't relate to that?
Fundamentally, Bitsa is a show about artistic endeavour, and amidst the existential insanity we get demonstrations on how to make neat items out of household junk. Caitlin shows you how to make a fashion wheel that changes the clothing on pictures of mannequins as it rotates. Simon makes a snapping monster out of the discarded straws and sweet boxes he finds at the station. Hands blesses a two dimensional figure with three dimensional arms that move when a string is pulled. There's the aforementioned challenge segment, where Simon and Caitlin each create phones in an unsuccessful effort to contact one another. The most curious demonstration comes with no explanatory narration, and is the contribution from our featured school (identified in the credits as Grange Primary School, London). It is the creation of the Last Stop Cafe itself- in a temporal trick reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, we apparently go back in time, to the point where the pupils from Grange Primary were dressing those dummies, arranging bottles and misshapen baguettes in an offbeat manner and affixing tiger patterning to the side of the counter, before seguing to the junction in the narrative where Caitlin has entered in and is wondering what's keeping Simon. I suppose this is the episode's great paradox - the Last Stop Cafe might signify stagnation, but it is itself a work of beautifully vibrant expression. The dubiousness of the menu aside, it doesn't seem like a deadening place to hang; the eccentricity of the establishment is simply too charming.
Also striking is the omnipresence of those uncanny mannequins all throughout the episode. They pop up not just in the cafe itself, but at various points on Simon's journey. In one scene he finds himself in a queue of naked mannequins (clearly nobody felt there was anything too risqué in having so many bare mannequin bossoms paraded around in a children's timeslot). When he heads into the burger bar, he finds a mannequins at the counter, enabling him to make the inevitable "don't be a dummy" joke, and later a pun about the (then relatively novel) frustrations that come with using mobile phones, which he figures the static mannequin must love. Within the Last Stop Cafe they complement the general aura of immobility, but elsewhere it's tempting to see them as alluding to a broader theme of consumerism and the erosion of individuality in a fast-paced environment (one that is ultimately no less stifling than the one that Caitlin is currently mired in). The consumerist theme is further echoed in the wastefulness of the commuters, who litter the station grounds with the vast amounts of rubbish that Simon finds a playful use for. My takeaway from the Last Stop Cafe is that artistic expression is the greatest power we have in a world that's liable to bombard and overwhelm. It seems wonderfully befitting a series such as Bitsa. All of those sessions in fashioning funky gadgets from items otherwise destined for the nearest tip weren't mere distractions to fill up empty time outside of school hours. They were active rebellions in preventing detritus, both literal and figurative, from getting on top of us, by turning them into the tools of our own artistry. The clock is ticking, and that's precisely why we should allow our idle hands to get up to a little mischief.