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BEATRIX AND THE BOY ROALD
A REAL-LIFE MEETING BETWEEN THE TWO CHILDREN’ S AUTHORS HAS INSPIRED A NEW CHRISTMAS DRAMA THAT IMAGINE SHOW YOU N GR OALDD REAMED UP HIS CHARACTERS
Although they were born 50 years apart, children’s authors Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl have much in common. So when it was discovered they had briefly met in real life, when Roald was a child and Beatrix nearing retirement age, it was the obvious springboard for a heartwarming Christmas drama that imagines how that meeting might have gone.
Roald & Beatrix: The Tail Of The Curious Mouse – a blend of live action, animation and puppetry – stars Dawn French as Beatrix and Harry Tayler as Roald, and boasts a stellar supporting cast including Rob Brydon, Alison Steadman, Bill Bailey and Jessica Hynes, with narration by John Hannah.
The story begins with six-yearold Roald grieving for his father and sister Astri, who died within weeks of each other. Devastated and anxious about being sent away to boarding school, Roald tries to run away from home, but his mother Sofie (Jessica Hynes) stops him and encourages him to visit his heroine Beatrix Potter’s home in the Lake District to cheer him up.
Beatrix, meanwhile, is dealing with her own problems. Her eyesight is failing and her publishers are hounding her for her next book, but she feels they’re using her as a cash cow to churn out ‘fluffy rabbit books’. Her only comforts are her husband William (Rob Brydon), her Cumbrian farm and her flock of Herdwick sheep.
On their journey, Sofie and Roald meet a succession of people who bear an uncanny resemblance to the characters Roald created in his books, including The Twits, Aunts Sponge and Spiker from James And The Giant Peach and the BFG. ‘There’s a lot of warmth and sadness,’ Jessica Hynes says. ‘There’s quite a Quentin Blake-esque visual aspect to it and Bill Bailey, who plays a sort of version of the BFG, actually looks like a Quentin Blake drawing.’
There’s plenty of humour too, as you might expect from a cast that includes some of the country’s best comic talents. Beatrix deals with a menagerie on her farm, including a flatulent pig and a duck that doesn’t want to be eaten for Christmas dinner. ‘I was supposed to film a scene with the pig but unfortunately that day the pig was behaving in a most pig-like manner, so we had to improvise,’ recalls Nina Sosanya, who plays Beatrix’s publisher Anne Landy.
There are of course similarities between the
olate Factory’s Charlie Bucket, nobody wants to be any of the other kids. It forces you into a moral space in a way stories rarely do. And Beatrix’s books are truthful. They’re filled with casual cruelty; animals die. Having stories about the rigours of real life, within the framework of a magical story, is exciting. The writer of this film was so clever to draw a parallel between these two children’s writers and intertwine their stories.’
For Rob, the appeal of the role came from reading Roald Dahl to his children. ‘Roald’s books just fly off the page,’ he says. ‘When you read them to your children you can do lots of voices and bring them to life. I haven’t read as many Beatrix Potter books, but there’s a reason why she and Roald are the biggest children’s authors. They’ve survived all sorts of fashions and fads.’
The show will be the jewel in Sky One’s festive programming, a fact that is not lost on Rob, who had huge success last year with the
Gavin And Stacey
C hristmas Special. ‘For the last few years I’ve ended up on TV at Christmas,’ he says. ‘I find that quite reassuring in a career sense – if you have a presence at the end of the year perhaps that’ll carry you through the next year!
‘Last year was Gavin And Stacey, and I do the voices for the animations of the Julia Donaldson adaptations. I do like being part of something that can be enjoyed by the whole family at this time of year. And in these unprecedented times it becomes even more appealing to do something like this to try to restore some normality.’