Robbie Coltrane will voice the Gruffalo, which is at the heart of BBC1's Christmas schedule Photograph: BBC/MAGIC LIGHT COMPANY/BBC
As anyone who's ever had the pleasure of reading it will tell you, there's no such thing as a Gruffalo… And yet, in the 10 years since it was published in 1999, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's 700-word story has become something of a national institution. It's been translated around the world, turned into an audio book with Imelda Staunton and a stage play; earlier this month it even beat established classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Winnie The Pooh and Where the Wild Things Are in Jeremy Vine's quest on Radio 2 to find the nation's favourite bedtime story.
It's been brought to life in a mixture of stop motion and CGI animation by Magic Light, whose producer Michael Rose worked on Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run while at Aardman Animation. Aardman's Wallace And Gromit's A Matter Of Loaf And Death was a proper family Christmas treat on BBC1 last year, and while the Gruffalo is aimed at a slightly younger audience, it's still looking like another toasty 30 minutes of festive fun/quiet.
When you hear that a book like this has been made into a half-hour cartoon, there's one obvious question that springs to mind. If it takes around five minutes to read (depending on how, er, "interactive" your audience is being), what's going to be in the remaining 25? Some extra predators for the mouse to fend off? A back-story for the Gruffalo? More acorns for the mouse to eat?
Fans will be relieved that the makers have taken a much more elegant route, framing the mouse's search for an acorn as a story being told by a squirrel (Helena Bonham Carter) to her two babies – and then simply allowing the story to unfold at a relaxed pace. We watch the mouse stroll through a wood that's both deep and dark, populated by some brilliantly detailed creatures – a butterfly gently floating across his path, a troop of ants crawling up a tree to certain doom and a bunch of frogs sitting in a pond who could get their own series. At times, it's almost like you're watching a cartoon version of one of David Attenborough's documentaries.
Like Gruffalos, there's no such thing as a guaranteed hit on TV – but it's hard to think there's going to be anything better to watch with your family this Christmas. If the BBC have any sense, they'll get to work on The Gruffalo's Child in time for Christmas 2010 right now.
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