The Tiger Who Came to Tea, review: even Robbie Williams can't dent this beloved classic
My favourite theory about The Tiger Who Came to Tea – the tale of a girl and her mother being visited by a hungry feline – is courtesy of Mumsnet, a website for parents. There wasn’t really a tiger at all; it was just a story made up by Sophie’s mummy to hide the fact that she’d spent all day getting sloshed instead of tidying the house or cooking her husband’s supper.
That’s not the only theory about Judith Kerr’s beloved classic. Some have looked to Kerr’s own childhood – her Jewish family fled Germany in 1933 – and claimed that the tiger represents the Nazis. Emily Maitlis, on Newsnight, asked Kerr if the story was an allegory for the 1960s sexual revolution “where normal mores and suburban life became up-ended by this wild and exotic animal”. No, replied Kerr. It was just about a tiger coming to tea.
Thankfully, Channel 4’s animation of The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Christmas Eve) didn’t take any of these interpretations and run with them. It was a delight, staying absolutely true to Kerr’s story. No embellishments were needed for the illustrations, to the point where they took place on a white background just as in the pages of the book. Produced by Lupus Films, who made the similarly faithful We’re Going On a Bear Hunt for Channel 4 in 2016, it had a charmingly old-fashioned quality, as if it could have been made at any time in the past 50 years.
They kept the milkman and the grocer’s boy; they did not replace Sophie’s purple pinafore with an Extinction Rebellion T-shirt, or add a disclaimer that a meal of sausages, chips and ice cream is worryingly high in saturated fat. Some padding was needed to fill the 30-minute running time, but it was entirely in keeping with the rest.
There was, though, a hint of danger emanating from the tiger, silkily voiced by David Oyelowo. That was something I never got from the book but this was a tiger, after all, not a fluffy bunny. Sophie embraced this new visitor, with the openness of children who aren’t yet primed to look for the bad in everyone.
Child actor Clara Ross was a lovely, natural Sophie. The rest of the cast, including Tamsin Greig and Benedict Cumberbatch, were understated. Even the Robbie Williams song was pleasingly restrained. With luck, Channel 4 will repeat this every Christmas. I watched it with the target market, aged four and six, and they adored it.
