This is the second of two films about the life of Beatrix Potter to have appeared in recent years. The first, "Miss Potter", dealt with the early part of her career as a writer and with her romance with her publisher, Norman Warne, a romance tragically cut short by his early death. In "Roald and Beatrix" she is now in her fifties, a successful children's writer living on a Lakeland farm with her lawyer husband William Heelis.
The "Roald" of the title is another famous children's writer, Roald Dahl, although in 1922 when the film is set he was still only a child of six years old himself. The story (apparently a true one) tells of how Dahl, grieving over the recent deaths of his father and sister and rebelling against his mother's plan to send him to boarding school, ran away from the family home in Cardiff intending to make his way to the Lake District to visit his favourite author. His mother followed him, but instead of preventing him from making the journey agreed to accompany him. The film tells the story of what happened when the two met.
Potter is played by Dawn French as a formidable if rather absent-minded old lady, surprisingly unsentimental for someone who made a living writing stories about talking bunny-rabbits; there is a thread running throughout the narrative about her attempts to kill a goose for dinner. (The story takes place over the Christmas holidays). Another plot thread deals with a young woman whom Potter's publishers have sent in order to pass on some suggestions as to how Potter might "improve" her literary style, suggestions that she treats with disdain. The full title, "Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse", refers to this emissary's suggestion that Potter should rewrite the scene in the nursery-rhyme in which the farmer's wife cuts off the tails of the three blind mice, which she claims is excessively cruel. (Did, I wonder this scene actually take place in 1922, a less sentimental period than our own, or was it the scriptwriter's joke at the expense of 21st century political correctness?)
I must admit that, although Roald Dahl was a favourite of mine, I never liked Potter's books as a child. They always struck me (and still do) as the sort of children's books that appeal to adults far more than they do to children. (Some of my friends claimed to like them, but I wondered if they were just saying that to please their parents and teachers). I think that, in my case, the problem was that Miss Potter's language is much more adult than her subject-matter. As a young child I struggled with her unfamiliar vocabulary, and when I was older and could understand her language, her tales of cutesy animals struck me as twee and babyish.
Despite this prejudice, however, I enjoyed "Miss Potter" greatly. "Roald and Beatrix" is perhaps not quite as good, but I nevertheless liked it. French makes Potter a likeably eccentric heroine, even if a did keep hearing echoes of the Vicar of Dibley, and young Harry Tayler is excellent as the young Roald. At nine he is rather older than Dahl would have been in 1922, but I don't think that matters, as it is easier to envisage a nine-year-old than a six-year-old running away from home in this manner. The period is lovingly recreated in best British "heritage cinema" style, and the visual look of the film is very attractive. This was one of British television's better offerings over this year's festive season. 7/10
