Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl Review

Quintessentially British programming is rarely a chance for celebration. Be it some ugly, aged representation of pop music culture or a decrepit show filled with questionable characters, the service of arts is limited if you do not move past those surface-level experiences. Switch the telly off before Gavin and Stacey, but not before Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. A craft of genuine love put to screen, and perhaps the last feature-length experience of the inventor and his long-suffering pooch. It has been more than a decade since A Matter of Loaf and Death and even more time has passed since the last piece of Wallace & Gromit material worth revisiting, Curse of the Were-Rabbit. With clay supplies running low, this may be the last-gasp adventure, and may even explain the return of cult villain Feathers McGraw. 

What a welcome sight he is. What a tremendous experience Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is. It is a welcome return with a few neat additions made, reliant as they are on some supporting characters from the past and a selection of new material. Some of it remains inconclusive and showy at best, the Philomena Cunk-spun reporter, Onya Doorstep (Diane Morgan), or the back-and-forth between returning character Chief Inspector Albert Mackintosh (Peter Kay) and PC Mukherjee (Lauren Patel), are just opportunities for a break from Wallace and Gromit. At least they are good fun – mostly unnecessary to the major plot developments but still a welcome sight. Curmudgeonly viewers will want just the essentials, and it is up to Kay and Patel more than anyone to make those extra avenues work. They do. The passing of the torch between the two is a neat touch to a dynamic which rarely affects the main appeal, the draw of seeing Feathers McGraw back in action.  

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl has some exceptional tech-reliance commentaries. From Norbot (Reece Shearsmith) and the army of drones to the suggestion even the most erratic plans can come to an end with simple tricks, there is a dedication to hard work and effort in all the right places. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, above all, looks and feels charming. It has the usual wry warmth which has lasted so long for the series yet expands on it well with Ben Whitehead taking the reigns as Wallace. All those old machines have a newfound charm and the sense of urgency which sets the plot in motion is as every day as the experiences of those watching. Bills to be paid, breakfast to be made, all of it filters the day-to-day chores and choices as necessities.  

Therein lies the charm which the series has always provided. A comfortable watch with plenty of natural charm and talent. Never does directing team Merlin Crossingham and Nick Park bend backwards to make a joke work. Like the instalments preceding it, there is a timelessness within. The pair taking potshots at the ugliness of similarity found in new build homes and lifeless gardens is a neat touch given how many watching will find themselves with such a home. With influence comes uniformity and with that comes the cultural death of your abode, of your desire. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl uses those moments with Norbot as a way to shoehorn Feathers McGraw in, but what a welcome return it is, what an exciting time it makes for. Everything that works is based on risk, on managing the two ordinary characters with extraordinary adventures. That is all part of the charm and it so neatly continues with this high-energy effort.