Exclusive: Magic Light on the ethos & “gift” that’s made them a festive fixture

Tabby McTat (Source: BBC/Magic Light Pictures)

Magic Light Pictures’ joint-MD’s Michael Rose and Martin Pope talk Christmas co-viewing, Helena Bonham Carter’s book recommendations and what they have learned from the past 20 years in the TV business.

Christmas is just around the corner and if you have even a passing interest in the UK festive TV schedule, then chances are you will already have set time aside for the latest Magic Light Pictures special.

Founded in 2003, the London-based indie has been a firm fixture of the British holiday season since 2009 when The Gruffalo was first broadcast on BBC One. The half-hour animated special was the first in what has become a long and fruitful partnership for the company with the British pubcaster and writing and illustration duo Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Fourteen Christmases later and Tabby McTat, Magic Light’s eleventh adaptation of a Donaldson and Scheffler picture book, will be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Monday.

Red Star Studio provides animation services for the short, which is set on the streets of London, and tells the story of a friendship between a musical cat and a busker named Fred. Jodie Whittaker (Time, Doctor Who) narrates the tale, which also features the vocal talents of Rob Brydon, Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísú, Cariad Lloyd, Joanna Scanlan and Susan Wokoma.

Michael Rose (Source: Magic Light Pictures)

Christmas is the most wonderful time… for co-viewing

Holding this place as a highlight of the BBC Christmas schedule is not something that Magic Light takes for granted and joint-MDs Michael Rose and Martin Pope tell TBI that it gives them “real focus” in the 22 months it takes to produce each 30-minute special.

“It’s a position we really enjoy having and worked very hard for,” says Rose. “When we started with The Gruffalo, we wanted to do a very high quality, very classic special that would play on BBC One on Christmas Day, which is when the whole family is still gathered together, even now, many years later, as viewing habits have changed, because Christmas Day is still about co-viewing.”

Tabby McTat joins a long list of animated Donaldson & Scheffler adaptations from Magic Light, including The Highway Rat, Stick Man, Zog and the International Emmy-winning The Smeds And The Smoos, which have sold around the world, securing almost a decade-and-a-half of co-viewing popularity.

“I think that there is a massive appetite for co-viewing,” says Pope. “I think parents and families do want to watch together and children up until their tweens want to watch with their parents – and actually, there isn’t enough on the mainstream channels.

“Because of Julia and Axel’s beautiful work, the titles are known, and we’re on Christmas Day, usually; that’s a great day for getting viewers together.”

Attracting a multigenerational audience has worked not insignificant wonders for the BBC’s viewing figures. The Gruffalo was watched by 9.8 million people back in 2009, while last year’s special, The Smeds And The Smoos, was still pulling in huge numbers, with an audience of 8.1 million tuning in over the festive period.

The secret ingredient, if such a thing exists, could lie with the source material as much as Magic Light’s vision. Rose describes Donaldson and Scheffler’s books as “a gift that keeps on giving.”

“I think we’re very fortunate; Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are the leading picture book author team in the UK. They produce magical books together; wonderful stories, beautifully illustrated and it’s a joy bringing them to the screen.”

It’s a partnership that Rose tells TBI they hope will continue, with the Magic Light team frequently reading those books yet to be adapted “to find the right approach to bring them to screen”.

The Velveteen Rabbit (Source: Magic Light Pictures)

Engaging with children’s lives

Tabby McTat is not the only Christmas-themed special that Magic Light has released this year, with the company also producing a live-action/animated hybrid adaptation of the century-old children’s tale The Velveteen Rabbit for Apple TV+.

The 45-minute special launched on the streamer in late November, with the primarily live action production a step away from the animated output that Magic Light is usually known for around Christmas, but still firmly in the wheelhouse of beloved children’s stories.

The voice cast includes noted English actor Helena Bonham Carter, and Pope reveals it was the Harry Potter and The Crown star, who also lent her voice to Magic Light’s The Gruffalo and its sequel The Gruffalo’s Child, who first suggested tackling the story.

“Back in 2008, we were doing a recording with Helena Bonham Carter, who I had done films with before. She gave us a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit and said we should think about it. We did, but we couldn’t quite work out how to do it.”

Fast forward more than a decade and the prospect of adapting the story was raised again, with writer Tom Bidwell subsequently attached.

Pope says that during the intervening years, technology had caught up to the point where he felt they could tackle the story in way it deserved to be adapted – chiefly the depiction of rabbits both real and in toy form.

The Velveteen Rabbit tells the story of a young boy with few friends, who finds companionship in a toy rabbit he receives for Christmas, while the toy, in turn, longs to be real. The book features a famously fiery conclusion for the toy, while introducing youngsters to concepts of death and renewal.

It’s not an ending that Magic Light sought to sweeten for TV audiences, with the biggest changes from Bidwell being to flesh out the character of the young boy and give the other toys in the story “a richer backstory”.

“Many really great stories do have a little sadness in them,” observes Pope. “There is a sort of view that children’s entertainment should all be happy-clappy, and that’s not really our approach. Our stories need to engage with all of children’s lives and explore any moments which might be sad, but also explore it in the right way.”

Martin Pope (Source: Magic Light Pictures)

Ask ‘why’ rather than ‘how’

This year has marked two decades in business for Magic Light, which Rose describes as a “wonderful milestone” for the company.

Aside from its Christmas specials, the past 12 months have witnessed the launch of Pip And Posy: Let’s Learn, a spin-off from their existing show – again, based on books by Scheffler – as well as continued growth on the licensing side of the business and an OBE for Rose, in recognition of his services to animation.

“We started with a plan written on a napkin, which we sort of stuck to quite faithfully and doggedly and have grown from just Martin and I and assistants in an office to now 35-plus people and a whole body of work of which we’re immensely proud,” says Rose.

During the past 20 years, Magic Light has weathered “some ups and downs in the landscape,” though Rose says the company has largely escaped the worst of times “by pursuing our own model and approach to focus on doing very high-end productions and bring them to the audience in a way in which we control licensing, distribution, merchandising and production as well.”

He adds: “We’re also not an animation studio; we do everything apart from the actual physical animation, which we work with third-party animation studios to deliver what we’re trying to create. But we’re very hands on as creative producers, so we’ve managed to make choices based on the project rather than having to keep a studio going unfilled.”

Indeed, Magic Light has co-produced many of its Donaldson & Scheffler festive adaptations with South Africa’s Triggerfish – the firm behind Disney+ anthology Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire – and, closer to home, London-based Alphablocks and Numberblocks producer Blue Zoo.

Pope, meanwhile, tells TBI that the greatest lesson he has learned from the past 20 years is: “To ask why you’re doing things, rather than talk about how you are going to make it and what you are gonna make. We spend a lot of time thinking about why are we doing it. When we know the answer to that, then we feel happy; even if we make a mistake, we know why we did it.”