Wallace and Gromitt – Christmas special

This Christmas saw the triumphant return of Wallace and Gromit in a new and lovingly crafted feature-length film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

It’s the first time we’ve seen them since 2008’s short, A Matter of Loaf and Death, and nearly 20 years since they last embarked on a full-length adventure with 2005’s Oscar-winning The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

And, 35 years after creator Nick Park kicked this all off with A Grand Day Out and made Wallace and Gromit Aardman Animations’ calling card, none of the shine nor brilliance has worn off the beloved plasticine clay figures.

Following the death of Peter Sallis in 2007, Ben Whitehead makes his full Wallace debut in a remarkably seamless performance of such a distinct character voice, with all its little foibles still perfectly in place.

Part of the claymation duo’s charm is how sparingly they’re deployed. Since A Grand Day Out, they have only appeared on screen for about three hours, half of which came in the form of the feature film. So a new outing, make no mistake, is an extremely big deal.

If Vengeance Most Fowl is about anything, it’s how much we lose when we come to rely on technology. Wallace’s big invention this time is Norbot, a “smart gnome” that works as a kind of sentient Alexa, replacing the charms of simple human effort.

Wallace and Gromit are still as funny as ever, with every frame full of puns and sight gags, but the fact that the enemy here is one of Gromit’s gadgets gone wrong acts as a happy piece of self-commentary. All of Wallace’s Heath Robinson-style productivity gadgets seemed like fun decades ago, but this time there’s a slight weariness to them.

More than anything, though, Vengeance Most Fowl scores highly for bringing back Feathers McGraw, the inscrutable penguin mega-villain from The Wrong Trousers.

Arguably the best character Nick Park ever created, McGraw goes full Sideshow Bob here. Languishing in a maximum-security zoo, ripped and fixated on revenge, he is a figure of pure menace.

This would be his Cape Fear, if only he wasn’t so darn adorable. It’s also worth pointing out that the sheer expression the animators have wrought from a character who is essentially a beer bottle with flippers is astonishing. There’s a shrug McGraw performs near the end that manages to say everything you need to know about the character. It is extraordinary.

Wallace and Gromit are legendary. Even when they’re slightly off their pace, there’s nobody you’d rather spend Christmas with.

‘Vengeance Most Fowl revisits the tried-and-tested Aardman formula: affable absurdity combined with precision-tooled comic timing and a selection of deliciously silly jokes about cheese.

The madcap chaos that unfolds hits all the gleeful highs that this franchise always has, with visual gags coming thick and fast, socked over with the immaculate craft we now take for granted.