A fun-filled flight of fantasy
Clumsy dragon Zog is back in a new adventure on Christmas Day – one of a host of charming shows from Julia Donaldson, the author loved by children all over the world
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Julia who had two ambition sin life. One was to be an actress and the second was to meet Mick Jagger. She spent several hours in pursuit of the first and many, many weeks attempting the second by standing outside lots of stage doors.
Julia Donaldson does now get to act out her own stories to children and adults all over the world, and while she never met Mick, thanks to his many children, grandchildren and even greatgrandchildren he’s now more likely to be a fan of hers than she is of him.
He may well have been glued to the TV on Christmas Days past to enjoy the TV adaptations of Julia’ s books, which always feature the starriest of casts. This year’s fresh offering is Zog And The Flying Doctors with Lenny Henry, Rob Brydon, Hugh Skinner, Patsy Ferran and Mark Bonnar lending their voices. It’s a rare sequel to one of her stories, and follows the success of theo rig in alZogwhichw as adapted for TV two years ago.
That story told the tale of a very clumsy dragon, desperate for a gold star, who ended up hurting himself each year at dragon school exams when he was set tasks by the stern Madam Dragon. But thankfully Zog kept bumping into a girl called Pearl who would stitch him up. She even came to his rescue when his challenge was to kidnap a princess – she was a princess and he could rescue her, she said. And when a knight, Sir Gadabout, came to rescue Pearl from Zog, she decided that instead she would prefer it if she could be a doctor, with the knight and the dragon as her trusty aides.
‘The ending of Zog was almost like the start of a new story,’ says Julia. ‘I don’t often go back to stories — it’s too difficult and people often say they aren’t as good. But I had often thought about Zog, Princess Pearl and Sir Gadabout and what they were up to, what mystical creatures they might be helping. I started with the idea of a mermaid, a unicorn and a lion who all needed something from the flying doctors, rs, and the story went from there.’
In the new tale, the trio get caught in a storm and end up making a crash landing at the very castle Princess Pearl had escaped d from. Her uncle, the king, , furious at the idea that a girl l
— let alone a princess — should run away and attempt pt to be a doctor, locks her up. p.
Zog and Gadabout are then en forced to try to save her; but ut as this is a Julia Donaldson story, there are several twists along the way.
When Julia wrote it four years ago, she never imagined a time when we would appreciate the medical profession more than ever. ‘Of course, I had no idea that there was going to be this virus,’ she says. ‘There’s an echo of our celebration of the health service in the story; it’s uncanny. But while my husband Malcolm is a retired doctor, he certainly didn’t give me any tips. I don’t think we could actually make a cure for something with snail slime and cheese, although it would be lovely if we could have found a solution for coronavirus like that.’
It’s always a thrill for Julia to watch her f ilms on BBC1 on Christmas Day, but it could be a marathon this year as the channel will also be showing four of her othe other films over the festive sea season — The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, The Sna Snail And The Whale and Zog Zog. There’s also a BBC2 doc documentary, The Magical World Wo Of Julia Donaldson, which wh will include home mo movies, material from her ar archives and contributions fr from well-known admirer ers and collaborators. The Zog stor ies a re ab about a girl with an ambition. At school Julia was told that she could only be a teacher, nurse, secretary or wife, but she wouldn’t be pinned down by what was expected of girls who grew up in the 1960s. ‘After Zog came out people talked about the feminist ideas in it, but that wasn’t something I’d even considered when I wrote it,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t trying to preach — I don’t like preaching in books — but at the same time I’m a pretty strong-minded and ambitious woman so it’s not surprising that came out in the story.’
Today, of course, she’s a genuine publishing phenomenon. Last year her books made 15 million in the UK alone – a record tenth consecutive year of earning 11 million or more. One of her biggest hits, The Gruffalo, has been translated into around 100 languages, while the carpenter is a regular visitor to her home to build ever more bookshelves for her growing collection
of work. Over lockdown, when many writers admitted they struggled for inspiration, Julia wrote two books.
Brought up in London, Julia always loved singing and once won the part of a fairy understudy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream starring Judi Dench as fairy queen Titania. ‘The fairies kept getting ill so I ended up being on stage quite a lot and I fell in love with it,’ she says. ‘In some ways it set me up for what I do now, as it gave me a sense of ease with language and rhyme.’
When she was turned down by drama school, Julia was still determined to get into showbusiness. She’d started writing songs, specialising in ditties for children, when a publisher said she should turn one of them, A Squash And A Squeeze – based on an ancient Jewish folk tale – into a book. The publisher’s first two choices of illustrator turned her down, but the third, Axel Scheffler, whose name has since become synonymous with Julia’s, took up the challenge.
Since then the pair have worked on 24 more books together — with Julia saying their stories The Scarecrows’ Wedding and Stick Man are her favourites.
There’s no secret to writing a good book though, she says. ‘Some people assume that children are like this different race. They aren’t. Whether you’re writing for children or adults it’s the same thing; you need a good plot, lots of pace and there needs to be a twist.’
Nicole Lampert
Zog And The Flying Doctors, Christmas Day, 2.35pm, BBC1. The Magical World Of Julia Donaldson, Wednesday 23, 7.30pm, BBC2.
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