BBC One to Air The Smeds and The Smoos Special

Magic Light Pictures’ half-hour special The Smeds and The Smoos is slated to air on BBC One at Christmas.

Based on Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s best-selling picture book, the special sees the red Smeds and the blue Smoos learn to overcome their differences and work together to find Janet and Bill, who eloped to escape their families’ long-standing rivalry.

The two families search the galaxy for the missing pair with no luck. When they return to their home planet, they end up finding Bill and Janet deep in the Wurpular Wood—and there’s a new family member: a tiny purple Smoo-Smed.

The cast stars Adjoa Andoh, Bill Bailey, Rob Brydon, Daniel Ezra, Sally Hawkins, Ashna Rabheru and Meera Syal.

“There’s just the sort of ignorant prejudice that people can harbor about each other until they come together and actually love and that survival and kinship are the things that bind all of us,” said Andoh, who voices Grandma Smoo. “Grandma Smoo, utterly capable, she can drive a rocket, she can clump about the place, she can blow her trumpet, delight in her kids and her grandkids, and she can hate with a passion as well. Grandma Smoo’s not a woman of mild tastes; everything’s fairly strong with her. So when she’s your implacable enemy, she’s implacably your enemy. But you could change her mind at any moment, and then she will love you to death.”

Bailey, who voices Grandfather Smed, said, “I think the main themes of the film are that we should just accept differences in others. I think the thing I get from it is that the older generation tend to be more resistant to change. And actually, sometimes it takes the younger generation to sort of breach that divide. Grandpa Smed, he’s the kind of patriarch of the Smed family, and he’s very much the protector of the family, and he’s in charge. And he’s quite sort of traditional, and a bit stuck in his ways. And he’s sort of a little bit of a stick in the mud, really, but he’s kind. He’s not an ogre. He’s a kindly old grandpa who cares about his family. I think that’s the best way to describe him.