At the heart of The Gruffalo is a small mouse (voiced by Gavin and Stacey star James Corden), who encounters various predators as he takes a stroll through the deep, dark wood in which he lives. In an effort to persuade them not to gobble him up, our small hero tells tall tales of a fictional beast, The Gruffalo, who seems like every hungry forest animal’s worst nightmare. However, as the mouse continues on his journey, he learns that nightmares sometimes come true… It helps, of course, that the makers of The Gruffalo have managed to pull together a very impressive voice cast. Helena Bonham-Carter adopts a suitably fairytale tone as the motherly narrator of the piece, while John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Rob Brydon all put in brilliantly creepy (yet different) turns as the owl, the fox and the snake, all of whom would just as soon devour the mouse as look at him. But, quite rightly, the show belongs to James Corden and Robbie Coltrane; Coltrane plays the fearsome Gruffalo with all the relish you’d expect, while Corden puts in possibly the finest performance of his career, presenting a mouse you can’t help but love as his tall tales become ever taller and more audacious. The Gruffalo is an utterly charming piece of magic that truly deserved its pride of place in the Christmas Day schedules, and it’s hard not to love no matter how old or young you are. And if you didn’t find yourself shouting along at the screen (“Doesn’t he know? There’s no such thing as a Gruffalo!”) by the end of it, then I’ll eat my very festive hat.