New star Teddie’s pet just loves to hog the limelight!
Teddie- Rose Malleson-Allen has plenty to keep her occupied during the lockdown. There are her spanish, French and italian lessons; books to read; a trampoline to bounce on; Joe Wicks exercises on You Tube every morning ‘with yoga mats on the floor’; and feeding the pet pig.
‘Feed the pig!’ i exclaimed when i asked the 13-year- old (14 next week) star of sky Cinema’s Four Kids And it whether she had any pets.
‘i have a pig called Harrison. He’s massive,’ she said. ‘if i’m 5ft 3in, he’d probably be three quarters the size of me.’
The eight-year-old Kunekune domestic pig has a taste for banana peel and pig nuts, though Harrison (named after a young friend) is not very particular about what he eats.
once, when Teddie-Rose was out with her parents — the actors Tamzin Malleson (pathologist Kate Wilding in Midsomer Murders and dr Kate Brady on Always And everyone) and Keith Allen (Trainspotting and many other movies) — Harrison got into the family’s south Cotswolds farmhouse, which was being painted.
‘He’s very destructive, so he can’t come in,’ Teddie-Rose prefaced before explaining further: ‘We came back and he had a half-eaten bar of soap in his mouth.’
she joked that he might have been trying to wash his hands.
‘He was covered in acrylic paint, so he was white for a few days,’ she said.
Harrison, besides being very large, has tusks that need to be removed every now and then.
Teddie-Rose also has two cats, Toffee and Ninja — but she herself prefers to be called just Teddie. ‘No one ever calls me Teddie-Rose,’ she said, ‘unless Mum’s mad at me.’
Teddie, who also appeared in the BBC TV film Cider With Rosie and the movie of swallows And Amazons, filmed Four Kids And it, sky Cinema’s splendid film adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s best- selling book, on location in ireland, which was standing in for Cornwall.
The story, based on an original 1902 book by e. Nesbit, is about four children, played by Teddie, Billy Jenkins, Ashley Aufderheide and ellie-Mae siame, who discover a magical ‘sand-sprite’ (voiced by Michael Caine) that can grant wishes. Matthew Goode and Paula Patton play the parents of the disparate offspring, and Russell Brand is the greedy local landowner.
‘We were all very close on set,’ Teddie said of her young costars. They enjoyed spending time together when they weren’t filming, though it was disconcerting for them to be hanging out as a group one minute and the next be told: ‘oK, you need to be in a fight now — pretend to hate each other.’
The film, available on sky
Cinema from today, is an enjoyable family romp with special effects including flying children. ‘it was terrifying but really fun flying,’ Teddie told me.
one highlight during the shoot was a surprise, courtesy of the film’s baddie, Brand.
‘He brought an ice- cream truck on set,’ Teddie exclaimed. ‘He actually drove the truck himself, with jingles going very loudly. it was a hot day, so it was needed,’ she said.
What did Brand serve her? ‘A 99 cone with a flake.’
in recent days, her mother has been home-schooling her and she is wired into apps that her school has set up. ‘i pretty much end up speaking spanish to myself,’ she said.
she loves reading and admits she was ‘obsessed’ with the Harry Potter books, which she read when she was seven: ‘My mum had to lock them away so i could read other stuff.’
Next week Teddie will have her 14th birthday, celebrating remotely with her friends. ‘We can have multiple people FaceTiming so i’ll probably speak to my friends for a few hours.’
Teddie asks her mother if there will be a cake and candles in the background.
‘of course!’ Tamzin Malleson cried out gleefully.
And there’s not much clearing up after a virtual party.
Unless Harrison invites himself in, that is.