Roald Dahl

Esio Trot review

This adaptation of Roald Dahl's book about a love affair, starring Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman and 100 tortoises, is a thing of wonder.

This year has only just got out of the starting blocks, but it is already shaping up to be quite a special one for James Corden.

He was awarded an OBE in the New Year's Honours list, and in March he will be off to the US to host The Late Late Show on CBS five nights a week.

And after his perfect sitcom The Wrong Mans ended 2014 on a high, the actor is back on our screens tonight in this Roald Dahl short story.

In this adaptation by Richard Curtis, Corden plays the on-screen narrator.

He stars alongside Dame Judi Dench and, incredibly, Dustin Hoffman, who play Mrs Silver and her love-struck neighbour Mr Hoppy, who lives in the apartment above hers.

It's hardly a stretch for either of their talents, but it's rather sweet to see them both doing something so playful, and to hear Dame Judi reciting Dahl's nonsense dialogue: "Worg Pu! Ffuts Pu! Thoos Pu!"

The story is charming, but so slight, that to reveal even one detail would probably ruin it completely for any viewers who don't know it already.

But after Victoria Wood's That Day We Sang, and the return of Last Tango In Halifax, it's heartening to see that TV no longer views love as the sole preserve of the young.

Curtis has also provided Mr Hoppy with a love rival, but it's a tortoise called Alfie who will provide him with the greatest challenge.

Radio Times review

Esio Trot (it's "tortoise" backwards) is a drama of the type that broadcasters save up for Christmas and New year, when we are all feeling a bit soppy, mellow and disinclined to be too critical.

It's the slightest of stories, a tale as thin as a fairy's wings, which isn't to say it's not heart-warming and rather sweet. There's just not much to it. Still, with Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench as leads, and James Corden as a cheerful (onscreen) narrator, Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer's adaptation of the Roald Dahl book is a starry confection.

Hoffman is lonely, diffident Mr Hoppy, who has long nurtured a secret love for lively, glamorous, rather brassy neighbour Mrs Silver (Dench). The pair exchange polite pleasantries on their balconies and Mr Hoppy thinks he's in with a chance, if only he were bold. Then Mrs Silver buys a tortoise called Alfie, who becomes the object of all of her affections.

Roald Dahl's Esio Trot: 'a magical start to 2015'

The last time tortoises had a starring TV role was on the opening credits of One Foot In The Grave. Tonight, though, they were central to another tale of retiree romance. Roald Dahl's Esio Trot (BBC One) was a warm, witty and whimsical adaptation of the author's 1990 novel which would have melted even Victor Meldrew's heart. Do believe it.

Roald Dahl's Esio Trot review

Much criticism has been levelled at Peter Jackson over his decision to turn The Hobbit into three movies, with the final film running at around two minutes per page of the book. However, the book on which the 90-minute Esio Trot is based contains just 45 pages of text - only one of which doesn't contain any of Quentin Blake's marvellous illustrations. Consequently, it would probably be fairer to call the film Richard Curtis's Esio Trot, such is the amount of material that's been added for this adaptation.

Dustin Hoffman (shy) and Judi Dench (not shy) fluff around in Richard Curtis's soft-as-sponge adaptation of Roald Dahl's twilight romance as two neighbours bonding over a tiny tortoise. James Corden pops in and out to narrate, although to be honest, you'd have to have had a pretty heavy NYE the night before to get lost here.

If they could only write faster, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith could have a golden age all to themselves. After Psychoville, they have knocked out Inside No. 9, a series of short stories each set in a different No 9 and steeped in their trademark dark humour.

The third No 9 is a flat occupied by Shearsmith's Tom, a primary-school teacher, and Gerri, an actress played by the actress Gemma Arterton. Once you've got over the idea that someone as tall as Gerri would go out with someone as short as Tim, it's all perfectly plausible.

A tramp returns a wallet to Tom, Tom lets the tramp come in for a drink and the tramp takes over his life. Gerri movies out. Tom becomes a tramp. The tramp becomes Tom. Like the best of Roald Dahl, we've been lead, incrementally, plausibly, from a normal state of affairs to the unbelievably bizarre. I won't' tell you how it ends because it's till on iPlayer. Binge away.

Inside No. 9 full of entertaining weirdness

The obvious inspiration was Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected and it's no mean compliment to say that Inside No. 9 held its own against Dahl's bizarre short stories.

Is David Walliams the new Roald Dahl?

Unbeknownst to adults, the Little Britain star has reinvented himself as one of the UK's most successful - and richest - children's authors. So what's his secret?

Amongst the programmes over Christmas this week included a dramatisation of David Walliams' children's novel, Mr. Stink.

The story follows a young girl, Chloe (Nell Tiger Free), the eldest daughter of a vile right-wing mother (Sheridan Smith) who wants to become an MP, and whose main policy is getting the homeless off the streets in any way possible. Chloe encounters a tramp, who goes by the name of Mr. Stink (Hugh Bonneville), so called because of his terrible odour.

Mr. Stink's only companion is his dog the Duchess (Pudsey, the winner of Britain's Got Talent), and so Chloe becomes friends with him and eventually persuades him to move into her shed - all while trying to avoid the wrath of her mother.

It's no surprise that this and indeed all of Walliams's children's books have a heavy influence from Roald Dahl. Much of the humour in Mr. Stink's visual, which for a pre-watershed children's comedy isn't a surprise, but it was good. It ranges from Chloe's younger sister Annabelle (Isabella Blake-Thomas) taking part in a historical re-enactment society dressed in full medieval armour, to both of them giving Mr. Stink a full makeover. There are also the throwaway comments in the show, such as Stink claiming that he is "lice free, but no stranger to worms."

In terms of a children's comedy, this seems to tick all of my boxes. It's inoffensive, it's witty, and it's not too childish so adults can watch it without feeling embarrassed. No doubt that more Walliams novels will be adapted for future Christmases.