Trailer released for Magic Light’s ‘The Smeds and the Smoos’
Skwigly
Magic Light Pictures is bringing Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s story of a love which overcomes divisions, The Smeds and The Smoos, to BBC One and BBC iPlayer for Christmas 2022.
By a loobular lake on a far-off planet
There lived a young Smed, and her name was Janet.
Not far away, on a humplety hill,
There lived a young Smoo by the name of Bill.
On a faraway planet Janet (Ashna Rabheru) is a Smed who lives by the loobular lake, and Bill (Daniel Ezra) is a young Smoo who lives on the humplety hill. The Smeds and the Smoos have long standing divisions. They cannot agree on the best way to live and each family thinks their way is the right way. So, when Janet and Bill come across one another in the Wurpular Wood and make friends, their families are mortified. “Never, never play with a Smed!” exclaims Gra ndmother Smoo (Adjoa Andoh) while Janet’s Grandfather Smed (Bill Bailey) says the Smoos are “a beastly bunch!”.
When Janet and Bill realise that their families will never give up opposing their friendship, they fly away in the Smeds’ red rocket (“Grandfat her Smed had forgotten to lock it”). When the two families blame one another that the two young ones have flown away, but they soon realise that to get their loved ones back, they’re going to have to travel together. They take Grandma Smoo’s blue rocket an d all buckle up for a journey through outer space in search of “the runaway Smoo and the runaway Smed”.
The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)
From Oscar nominated producer Magic Light Pictures, The Smeds and The Smoos is a half hour special, adapted for screen and based on the best-selling picture book by creators Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. In this animated intergalactic adventure, the red Smeds and the blue Smoos must learn to overcome their differences and work together to find young Janet and Bill – who eloped to escape their families’ long standing rivalries.
The cast stars Adjoa Andoh as Grandmother Smoo, Bill Bailey as Grandfather Smed, Rob Brydon as Uncle Smoo, Daniel Ezra as Bill, Sally Hawkins as Narrator, Ashna Rabheru as Janet, and Meera Syal as Aunt Smed. The film will premiere on BBC One this Christmas and will stream on iPlayer.
The Smeds and The Smoos is being directed by Daniel Snaddon (The Snail and the Whale, Zog) and Samantha Cutler, from a script by Julia Smuts Louw. Producers are Barney Goodland and Martin Pope. The composer is René Aubry, who has written the music for the collection of Magic Light films from Donaldson & Scheffler books. Animation services are being provided by Blue Zoo Animation Studio.
The Smeds and The Smoos comes to BBC One and BBC iPlayer for Christmas 2022. Learn more about the special in our recent interview with producer Barney Goodland and executive producer Michael Rose.