Quentin Blake’s Clown, review: Channel 4’s happy nostalgia trip does justice to its genius illustrator

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a charming children’s animation. In previous years, Channel 4 has given us Judith Kerr’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, as well as the totemic The Snowman. It has come up with the goods again this year, in the form of a 20-minute adaptation of Quentin Blake’s Clown, narrated in soothing tones by Helena Bonham Carter. It tells the story of a toy clown, a kind of Pierrot in high-top trainers, who is discarded by his old owners and ends up on a wild adventure. The dog-eared doll is briefly saved by a girl, only to be discovered by her snobbish mother. He’s fought over by birds, chased by dogs and hurled from a window before he finds refuge at last.  

The Snowman, a film that has become part of the iconography of British Christmas, looms over these productions. More unluckily for Blake & Co, Clown’s storyline also has at least a passing resemblance to another children’s entertainment juggernaut, Toy Story. Entirely unfair, given that Blake’s book came out in 1980, and any influence flowed the other way. Besides, none of this detracts from Clown, which is delightfully rendered in a style that’s faithful to Blake’s unmistakeable hand-drawn illustrations.  

Your appreciation for the film may depend on whether Blake’s drawings were part of your childhood. He’s done more than 300 books, so you’d have to have been living in a bin yourself not to have come across them. Personally, his scratchy illustrations for the Roald Dahl books are etched into my brain, so Clown was a happy nostalgia trip. Blake’s genius is to convey character with a single line, or the tiniest shift in expression, and the film brings this out, leaving in the imprecisions rather than trying to smooth things over or fill in the backgrounds. It’s admirable. Given what can be done with computers, it must take an iron will to remember that less is more, and that the viewer’s imagination will do more than any CGI. It’s cheaper, too.  

On All 4, there is a 10-minute behind-the-scenes look at how they made the film. It’s worth a look, if only to see Bonham Carter clowning around, an interview with Blake himself, and some adorable Italian animators who work in a 16th-century palace in Genoa’s medieval old town. They go to great lengths to explain that they were working in a Covid-secure environment, and that no undue risks were taken in bringing you your festive entertainment. If Quentin Blake’s Clown has a moral, it’s sometimes the best presents are the ones other people have thrown away. A thrifty message for anyone feeling the coronavirus pinch. “Given the way 2020 has panned out, we’re desperate for happy endings,” says Bonham Carter. No joking.