So, much to the delight of BBC executives, Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death, captured the top slot in the Christmas Day ratings with an astonishing 14.4 million viewers, easily topping the 11.7 million tuning in for Doctor Who. Even the 4.30pm showing of the Wallace and Gromit movie, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, managed to make it into the top 10 with an audience of 7.2 million. It seems Britain’s love affair with the plasticine duo is as strong as ever.
Packed with the usual blink-and-you’ll-miss-it puns (posters for Citizen Kanine and Cheesy Jet airlines, Furry Liquid dish detergent, records by the Beagles, McFlea and of course Puppy Love by Doggy Osmond), A Matter of Loaf and Death sees Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his canine chum open the Top Bun bakery as their latest money-spinning venture. Business improves daily as one by one, their fellow bakers in the town are done in by a mysterious “cereal” killer.
Who Ate All The Pies?
Following a rather suspicious bicycle mishap, Wallace is delighted to meet the lady of his dreams, former Bake-O-Lite Girl Piella Bakewell (Sally Lindsay), and a whirlwind courtship ensues. After a romantic cruise down the canals of Wigan on Larry’s Love Barge, plus a spot-on recreation of the famous pottery-making scene from the movie Ghost, Piella has her petite feet well and truly under the table. Could this interfering, not-quite-size-zero ex-model mean the end of a beautiful partnership?
There’s no denying the quality of Aardman Animation’s work – the 30-minute show took seven months to film, and the detail in every scene is truly amazing. The bakery itself is a marvel of technology, and Gromit has devised yet another excellent way of getting reluctant riser Wallace out of bed and down to work. Gromit still has that magically expressive face; one raised eyebrow is worth half a dozen lines of dialogue. The downfall of the villainous Piella keeps the tension racked up right to the end, but it’s a safe bet that Wallace will live to bake another day.
Is The Rough Stuff Really Necessary?
And therein lies the one problem with A Matter of Loaf and Death – Piella really is just too nasty. Unlike the more cartoonish baddies such as Feathers McGraw in The Wrong Trousers or Victor Quartermaine in Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Piella appears rotten to the core. She thinks nothing of giving her dog Fluffles a few well-aimed kicks, and in one scene actually hits her – hardly appropriate in a family-friendly institution such as Wallace and Gromit. Perhaps if Nick Park had spent more time coming up with ingenious ways to bump off the bakers and less on animal cruelty (Gromit with a muzzle? How could Wallace believe he would actually bite somebody?) Piella could have been a gentler pantomime-type villain the audience loves to boo but never wins in the end.
Aside from that one slightly jarring note, however, A Matter of Loaf and Death provides a welcome return to the days of classic Christmas fare when networks turned out shows guaranteed to have the whole family gathered round the box. If the BBC (and Nick Park) can produce a Wallace and Gromit every Christmas, it will at last have a worthy successor to Morecombe and Wise or Only Fools and Horses.
