Wallace and Gromit cook up Christmas comeback

Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park unveiled the duo’s latest adventure, 'A Matter Of Loaf And Death', today.

The 30-minute film will be at the heart of BBC1’s Christmas programming, along with other highlights including a re-working of 'The 39 Steps' starring Rupert Penry-Jones.

The Aardman Animations film, in the tradition of “master of suspense” Alfred Hitchcock, sees Wallace and Gromit running a new bakery, named Top Bun.

Business is booming, not least because a deadly “cereal killer” is targeting bakers in the area.

The pair are also set for romance as Wallace falls in love with Piella Bakewell, voiced by 'Coronation Street' star Sally Lindsay.

Gromit is left to run the bakery on his own, but he would rather be getting to know Piella’s pet poodle Fluffles.

Before long Gromit makes a shocking discovery about the killer.

Wallace and Gromit were first introduced to BBC2 viewers in 1993 in 'The Wrong Trousers', which won an Academy Award.

Speaking at a screening of the new film in London about returning to the 30-minute format, Park said: “I have done two feature films back to back.

“Each one has taken at least four years to do.

“In a way it was like a homecoming really. It was nice to be back with the BBC.

“I felt I wanted to get ideas out quicker and a half hour format seemed a lot more humane to me.”

He said the first Wallace and Gromit film, 'A Grand Day Out', which was largely single-handed, took seven years to make “and this one took seven months”.

Park said the new film had missed Oscar nominations for this year, but there were hopes to put it in next year.

Speaking about a previous trip to the Oscars, Park told how he went to the toilet just before his section of the awards was due to be announced and he and voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis, got locked out.

Park said: “They wouldn’t let us back in... Peter was having a good old chat with Mickey Rooney who was also locked out.”

Park said it was hard to always trace where his ideas came from but said he had wanted to do a dual romance.

He said he originally had the idea that Wallace might go to a dating agency.

Sallis said when he was first asked to play the part he had for some years been a Yorkshireman in 'Last of the Summer Wine'.

“I knew that Nick was from Preston which is not in Yorkshire, so I thought maybe I’d try to do a Lancashire accent,” he said.

“So I did a Lancashire accent and it sounds exactly like Yorkshire.”

Park said the way Sallis said words like “cheese” influenced Wallace’s mouth opening wide.

He said the original title for the new film was 'Trouble At T’Mill' but it was felt this would not translate globally.

Giving an idea of how long it took to shoot the sequences, Park said that there were 13 or 14 different film sets, with each animator making one and-a-half to three seconds of footage a day.

Park said: “I love Hitchcock films,” adding that Wallace was a force of chaos whereas Gromit is ordered and everything is seen from his perspective.

He said he was now planning to take a break “just to give my brain a rest”.

Park said the last 18 months had been “incredible... but very stressful”.

He said Aardman had a new series of 'Shaun the Sheep' kicking off soon.

Park said he did have feature film ideas but he did not want to rush into making another one.

Sallis, 87, also ruled out any retirement plans, saying: “I think I would do voice-overs in bed.”