In one of the most touching tributes to celebrate the life of children’s TV presenter Tony Hart, over 200 fans gathered outside London’s Tate Modern at the weekend. In recognition of Tony’s much-loved sidekick, the animated character Morph, a flash-mob of plasticene Morphs were displayed on the Southbank, drawing in large crowds throughout the day.

Hart’s legacy touched generations of children who were encouraged to paint and draw over a TV career that spanned 50 years, before his death, at the age of 83, earlier this year.

‘Morph Mob’ was a compliment to Tony’s unflappable “you can do it” approach to art and creativity. Morph was certainly capable of extraordinary feats of metamorphosis and spoke an unintelligible language that only he and Hart seemingly could understand. None of this mattered on Sunday. The event, organised on social networking website Facebook, involved members of the Hart family with Tony’s daughter, Carolyn Williams, invited to judge Best Morph in Show.

Fantastic; flash mobbing at it’s best and in true Tony Hart spirit; the doyen of DIY art.

PS. I’d love to say that Tony Hart inspired me to draw brilliantly from a young age but I have always been a rather hopeless artist and never quite made it into The (infamous) Gallery. I think I tried at least once, as did 6,000 other kids a week apparently. I had no chance.

PPS. One question and I do hope Tony will forgive me. Was Morph a man or a woman? Very difficult to tell on closer inspection…

By Stephanie Branston on March 3rd, 2009

Tags: Facebook, Flash mobbing, Television, The Arts