Aardman bosses on the future of Wallace & Gromit and Feathers McGraw's surprising origins

Such is the giant shadow Wallace and Gromit cast on Britain's national culture, it's slightly surprising to encounter the cheese-loving inventor and his much put-upon hound as toy-sized models. And there are more where these came from. "We have a store with 40 Gromit figures in it," says Aardman's creative director Merlin Crossingham, who joined the animation studio as a graduate and is now Park's right-hand man. "Standing Gromits, sitting Gromits, walking Gromits; all the Gromits you can imagine."

The two figures are the stars of the new Wallace & Gromit film Vengeance Most Fowl, and, to both men's excitement, cover stars of this magazine. "It's quite a thing to be on the Radio Times cover at Christmas," says Crossingham.

A joint production with Netflix, the stop-motion feature will be available worldwide on the streaming platform from 3rd January, but will be broadcast on BBC One on Christmas Day. "There's something very special about everyone watching at the same time," says Crossingham. "As a nation we don't do that so much any more because of streaming and other reasons. But it would be a marvellous thing to achieve if we could bring people to a live broadcast and have that feeling of togetherness."

The new, possibly nation-uniting, film is the sixth in a series that began with 1989’s A Grand Day Out. "It's not been overnight. Reaching this kind of British treasure status has come over years," notes Park, who’s now 66. Featuring the voices of Adjoa Andoh, Lenny Henry, Peter Kay, Reece Shearsmith, Diane Morgan and with Ben Whitehead returning as Wallace (having taken over the role from the late Peter Sallis), it's perhaps the duo's most dangerous adventure yet, featuring, as it does, the reappearance of an implacable and ruthless enemy.

Penguin-come-criminal genius Feathers McGraw was jailed at the end of 1993's The Wrong Trousers, thanks mainly to Gromit's dogged efforts. Incarcerated and unforgiving, the beady-eyed McGraw has been planning his revenge ever since. "The idea of Feathers goes back to when I was a student at the National Film School and needed money," says Park.

"I thought of Wallace and Gromit as characters for a children's book in which a group of penguins went to their house and got up to high jinks with the domestic appliances. They weren’t sinister at all.

"Later, in 1991 after A Grand Day Out, I was about to pitch the penguins idea to the BBC and [Aardman co-founder] Pete Lord said, 'Wouldn't it be cheaper with one penguin?' Then we thought, 'And what if the penguin was evil and came to stay…'"

That idea became The Wrong Trousers, where Wallace, an indefatigable inventor but poor judge of character, welcomed McGraw into his house in Wigan as Gromit looked on, wordless and aghast. "I think people relate to Gromit because he’s silent and, at some point, everyone feels misunderstood or put out but can’t express it," says Park. "But Wallace isn’t evil, he’s just flawed. That's why people like him, isn't it?"

The domestic interloper in Vengeance Most Fowl is Wallace's latest invention, Norbot, a particularly unnerving robotic garden gnome. “Gnomes have always been a part of Wallace & Gromit’s world,” says Park. "They take me back to my childhood when I visited a friend’s house. I had to pass one that was sat in a rocking chair inside an outhouse. I was five years old and too terrified to walk by as it was grinning, looking at me."

However, the really terrifying thing about Norbot is that he’s a "smart gnome" and represents, albeit comically, a very contemporary fear – AI technology being taken over by those that would do us harm. "The film is actually very pro-technology," says Crossingham. "But it's also asking where technology originates from, who controls it and what’s it for? It’s light-hearted but also a conversation about the dichotomy between the positivity of it all and, on the other hand, thinking, 'Wait a minute, this is getting out of hand. What is AI doing to our lives?’ It’s also partly so Wallace can say, 'Ay aye, lad.'"

Park nods at this. "To be honest," he says, "the joke's the biggest reason."

Not everyone gets the Preston-born Park’s particular Lancastrian humour. Between 1999 and 2007, Aardman was in a partnership with Hollywood animation giant DreamWorks. Their executives, says Crossingham, would occasionally ask questions: "With The Curse of the Were-Rabbit we had the line, 'Buckle my trunnions? What's a trunnion?'" Are there similar issues with Netflix? "Peter Kay came up with, 'Flippin' Nora' and they asked us, 'Who is Nora?'" says Park, adopting an American accent.

Quiet, borderline-eccentric and absolutely devoted to his craft, Park doesn't feel like the type that executives have natural empathy with. "I have actually pitched an idea where the executives fell asleep," he says. "It was a Wallace & Gromit idea as well." Did that kill the idea? "It did get made and won an Oscar."

For British audiences, a large part of the appeal of Wallace & Gromit and other Aardman productions like Chicken Run is the comforting malleability of plasticine, something we all know from our youth. But holding them in my hand, I find Wallace and Gromit are not quite as malleable as I might have thought.

“The idea that they’re all modelling clay has never really been true,” says Crossingham. “Morph is the only character at Aardman that has been completely clay. Wallace’s tank top was always resin. His legs were clay to start with, but then went to foam latex. And as material technology has improved, we’ve embraced all that.”

“Since we branched into feature films we’ve had to industrialise,” says Park. “It’s like a big Disney film in the way they have millions of people working on different aspects all the time, but yet, at the same time, keep that voice in it, that signature style.”

Park and Crossingham's signature style, a deliberately quaint version of northern England peopled with occasionally delinquent animal characters, is equally entertaining to old and young audiences. "Wallace & Gromit isn't made for any particular demographic," says Crossingham. "It brings people together, adults and children can all laugh at the same thing." This works, says Park, "because there are little bits of quirky, edgy humour, but nothing offensive."

Does Park police their output, looking for rude bits? "Oh, yes. But most of the humour is to do with puns and slapstick, lots and lots of physical humour, and the looks from Gromit."

Nonetheless there is a scene in Vengeance Most Fowl where a naked Wallace uses a Perspex tube to get downstairs for breakfast. "We have done some commercials in the past where Wallace was completely naked, but there’s always something conveniently in the way," says Crossingham. "Anyway, he's more like Action Man."

What, I suggest, smooth "down there"? Park frowns. "I don't want people to imagine Wallace naked too much," he says. "But I do wonder about hookups with other brands. Could we interject him into Barbie’s world?" Crossingham's eyebrows shoot up. "Yes, Wallace and Ken!" More bad news for Gromit.

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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will air on BBC One and iPlayer on Christmas Day at 6:10pm.

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