4 saturday review Saturday December 18 2021 | the times
BBC1 and the big day itself in a new
30-minute special.
The Flight Before Christmas is set in
the always nostalgic version of a rural
economy that is Mossy Bottom Farm but
features up-to-date elements such as
celebrity influencers and iPads.
Its late Christmas morning transmission
slot is good news for viewers who, safely
back from celebrating the birth of another
lamb in church, are likely to still be sober
enough to spot at least the majority of the
show’s visual gags. If the timing is less good
news for whoever is slaving over the bird,
at least — plot spoiler — neither of the
Plasticine turkeys who perilously adorn a
fence at the start of the episode was
harmed in its making.
The story’s jeopardy centres, rather, on
cousin Timmy, who, having been mistaken
for a parcel at the local Christmas market,
finds himself whisked off to the mansion
of Farmer Ben, a local celebrity turned
farmer who might just remind you of Blur’s
Alex James. Ben is all right, but a touch
materialistic and less than hands-on
with his daughter, Ella, whom child
psychologists might conclude “acts
out” in consequence.
“It’s about understanding the true
nature of Christmas,” says one of
the writers, Mark Burton,
who with Starzak
wrote and dir-
ected the first
Shaun movie.
“I think all
Christmas sto-
ries are about that in
some way, aren’t
they? This elusive
thing called Christ-
mas spirit. It’s about
family and com-There is a
Shaun the
Sheep Farm
Garden in
Japan and
Shaun the
Sheep Land
in Sweden
cover story
‘He’s cute and cool,
a victim who pulls
people’s heartstrings’
N
ick Park, Britain’s most
beloved animator, well
remembers the birth of
Shaun the Sheep (and
have no fear, this will not
read like a lambing scene
from All Creatures Great
and Small). Bob Baker, who also helped to
create Doctor Who’s canine robot K9, and
Park were at work on A Close Shave, the
third television film featuring Wallace,
Wigan’s wackiest inventor, and his more
practical companion, the beagle Gromit.
This episode was the W&G series at its
most film noir. In it Wallace fell for a
seductive wool shop owner who, it
transpired, was running a sheep rustling
racket.
“We wanted to include a lamb among
the flock, a character Wallace and Gromit
could adopt into their household,” Park
explains. “We were trying out ideas
around the knitting machine and had the
idea that a lamb could be the ‘guinea pig’.”
Thus poor Shaun, who had innocently
wandered into Wallace’s mod-con littered
house, duly emerged from Wallace’s Knit-
O-Matic, shorn of his coat.
So who thought of the moniker? “I came
up with the name one evening after a day
of brainstorming with Bob. It felt like a
really fitting name and we laughed about
it, so in it went,” Park says.
BBC2 broadcast A Close Shave on the
evening of Christmas Eve in 1995. Shaun
stole the show. Twelve years later he was
awarded his own series. Developed by
Richard Starzak, it is 170 seven-minute
episodes old. In 2009 Shaun’s young cous-
in Timmy spun off into his own CBeebies
series. Shaun the Sheep Movie was released
theatrically in 2015, the same year as a
Christmas special, Shaun the Sheep: The
Farmer’s Llamas. Four years later came a
second feature film, Farmageddon.
“Shaun is both cute and very cool,” Park
says. “He is a victim who pulls on people’s
heartstrings, a maverick character who is
part of an eclectic family and appeals to
children of all ages.”
Time passes; even Wal-
lace can’t invent a gadget to
prevent that. Five years ago
Park, the eternal bachelor,
married Mags Connolly —
an accountant, not
a sheep rustler.
Sadly, last month
Baker died aged- Shaun, how-
ever, remains the
perpetual sheep/
lamb/schoolboy
and more than
a quarter of a
century after
that first Christ-
mas Eve, he is on
With a new Shaun the Sheep adventure on
our screens on Christmas Day, the beloved
animator Nick Park reveals the genesis of
his maverick character to Andrew Billen