If you spend a lot of time on the internet, you’ve probably seen him lurking in the corner of your eye. A thin, sullen-looking Claymation penguin with beady little eyes that radiate malice. This is Feathers McGraw, the iconic villain of the even more iconic British series Wallace & Gromit, and he’s back, baby!
A new Wallace & Gromit movie is on its way from Aardman Animations, titled Vengeance Most Fowl. The last outing for the inventor and his loyal dog was all the way back in 2008 with A Matter of Loaf and Death (Aardman Animations love their puns) so this is a moment fans of Claymation have awaited for a long time. And the return of Feathers makes this a movie not to miss.
Feathers made his first appearance in 1993, in the film The Wrong Trousers, disguised as a chicken with a red rubber glove on his head. He was Wallace’s lodger, but there was something suspicious about him, and only the much smarter Gromit worked it out. Feathers was a criminal mastermind!
The end of the movie saw the wayward penguin imprisoned in a jail cell (well, a zoo) and nothing more was heard of Feathers beyond a video game role and a tiny cameo in the second Chicken Run movie. But the short teaser trailer for Vengeance Most Fowl showed him in all his dead-eyed glory.
Feathers is going to feature heavily in the plot for Vengeance Most Fowl, which involves Wallace inventing a “smart gnome” that disrupts his cozy life with Gromit when he becomes too dependent on it. (Ooh, is this going to be a story about the rise of AI and technology addiction?) The movie stars Ben Whitehead as Wallace—the original Wallace, Peter Sallis, passed away in 2017—along with Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Reece Shearsmith, Adjoa Andoh, Diane Morgan, and Sir Lenny Henry. And as you may already know, no one at all plays the animal characters, they express themselves entirely through movement!
Vengeance Most Fowl debuts on the BBC (for UK viewers) and Netflix (for international viewers) come winter 2024.
Published: Jun 7, 2024 12:15 pm