Chicken Run

Peter Lord and Nick Park’s 2000 animation follows hens plotting their way off Mrs Tweedy’s farm. Lord says they pitched it as The Great Escape with chickens; a chicken farm looks much like a prisoner of war camp. The shape is applied literally rather than sent up: tunnel, roll call, failed attempts and a real suspense sequence around the pie machine, in order. Contrary to the usual account, the puppets are not clay throughout. Only the chickens’ arms and heads were Plasticine; the bodies used steel armatures and moulded silicone, Plasticine being too unwieldy for a body. This was Aardman’s first feature. The crew neared two hundred at peak, production ran eighteen months, and by 1999 the most animation shot in a single day was twenty-six seconds. Aardman could not fund it alone, and co-financed with DreamWorks and Pathé, who also distributed. The sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, reached Netflix on 15 December 2023. Julia Sawalha, who voiced Ginger, said in July 2020 she was told her voice sounded too old and given no voice test; Thandiwe Newton took the part. A good fit if you want the escape-film shape carried out step by step, not mocked. Not for very small children: the BBFC ratings info reads mild threat, language, rude humour, and Mrs Tweedy is genuinely frightening.