Tuesday, 2nd May 2006.

"Which coloured house are we going to?"

When Geoffrey Hayes left / was fired from Rainbow, he found it impossible to get work. This is chiefly because he'd spent so long living in a multicoloured semi-detached with minimalist decor and strange company (a strange dysfunctional alien frog, a gay hippo and a bear that walked around the house naked before putting on pyjamas at bedtime) that no one really thought he could do anything else. It was a shame for the poor chap, but he earns so many royalties he arguably doesn't need to work anyway. Apparently he did a stint in Tesco as a shelf-filler, although it's never been clear whether he needed the money or because his wife simply wanted him out from under her feet.

I was ruminating on this at the weekend while going through my Rainbow DVDs, and this got me thinking about Balamory - another programme bearing a strong link with the colour spectrum. The show has more or less finished now, having had a highly successful run over the past few years, but while there are no new episodes the old ones are nonetheless being repeated on Cbeebies on an almost daily basis. One of my favourite things on a Saturday morning is to sit in the lounge with Joshua, bouncing along to the jaunty theme music, as we wonder who we'll be visiting today. (This heightened sense of anticipation is frequently deflated once the opening titles have finished rolling and you realise it's an episode you've already seen twice, but never mind.)

Given that the production team don't record episodes these days and that the stage tour has come to an end, I started to wonder what had happened to the actors. And I realised that even despite the show's relatively limited airing (it's on Cbeebies daily but it doesn't really get to terrestrial TV as much as it deserves to) the actors are going to find it very difficult to be taken seriously in other roles. Part of it, I'm sure, is an association with a certain type of acting: the exaggerated theatrics that are seen as necessary in order to win appeal from young people. The children's performer, after all, is never going to win a Bafta for their complicated, multi-layered portrayal of an impulsive and sometimes violent anti-hero who may or may not be bisexual. (It'd make for great TV, but they'd never get it past the pilot.)

This got me thinking - not about what the Balamory actors will do now the show's over, but what they would have done if it had never existed in the first place. I eventually came to the conclusion that they portray their characters so well they'd probably wind up in roles that were not unlike the ones they bring to life on that fictional Scottish island (nursery scenes filmed in Glasgow). In a lot of parallel universe scenarios you generate humour / dramatic irony by having your characters behave in a totally different manner, but I'm of the opinion that the Balamory ensemble would be a little more set in their ways than that. Anyway, this morning Emily and I came up with a list.

Julie Wilson Nimmo (Miss Hoolie)
Joined the cast of Neighbours in 2001 as Vivian, Melanie's eccentric younger sister. Became an unexpected pin-up icon, despite only ever being seen in one outfit. Her haircut spawned a thousand imitations, and a whole generation of students going to salons and asking for a 'Julie'.

Andrew Agnew (PC Plum)
Last seen in Midsomer Murders, playing Barnaby's new sidekick. (A perfect choice for the role, on the grounds that Barnaby should always have a sidekick that's even more stupid than he is.)

Kasia Haddad (Josie Jump)
Mid-nineties spots as a fitness coach on TVAM were fun for a while but left Kasia unsatisfied with her lot. Eventually she got her own talk show and has never looked back. Author of several self-help books, including the million-selling "Aerobic Therapy", but famously bummed out of celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on the £200 question.

Juliet Cadzow (Edie McCredie)
Played paramedic Stacey Ward in Casualty for an extremely successful five-year run. Became affectionately known as 'Stacey the Spanner' because she could fix the ambulance when it broke down. That's what they told her it meant, anyway.

Rodd Christensen (Spencer)
Finally managed to live that Broadway dream and took typically flamboyant roles in Godspell, Five Guys Named Moe and Chicago. Was last seen in a two-man revue at the Hackney Empire, co-starring John Barrowman.

Miles Jupp (Archie)
Moved to the Highlands and became the new Monarch of the Glen. Alienated everyone on the estate with his excessive dependence on yoghurt pots, as well as the repressed homosexuality and quite offensive kilt: the Cambridge graduate pretending to be a Scot. Was eventually found dead in the wreckage of his home, along with Nobby the robot, after an inventing experiment drastically backfired.

Mary Riggans (Susie Sweet)
Starred alongside Geraldine McEwan in the new Miss Marple, playing vicious serial killer Aggie Brentwood. (Susie Sweet's one of those people you could imagine being a cold-blooded killer underneath that bumbling exterior - her physical resemblance to Ma Fratelli from The Goonies doesn't help things.) First seen hustling around a kitchen providing stodgy cakes and relatively little information. Several commercial breaks and another three bodies later, the suspects have gathered in the drawing room, only for Miss Marple to announce "But the corpse wasn't discovered for another six hours...was it, Miss Brentwood?". It's always the quiet ones.

Kim Tserkezie (Penny Pocket)
A lengthy stint on Byker Grove playing a youth leader who turned out to be peddling crack. Exited from the show after a fiery finale that saw her wheelchair plummet two hundred feet off the roof of a block of council flats - while she was still sitting in it. Eventually married Brian "Phoenix Nights" Potter and lived happily ever after.