These two half-hour classics of stop-motion pack in nods to more earnest cinema but are never distracted from producing pristinely beguiling family entertainment
Nick Park’s stop-motion Wallace and Gromit animations have an amazing ability to deliver an entire action adventure feature film at just 30 minutes complete with romantic subplot and loads of great visual gags thrown in, and A Close Shave (★★★★★) from 1995 is just another example of it. The situation is that Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) is working on his latest invention in his cellar, a giant machine, like a bungalow-sized cauldron, that automatically shears sheep and knits the product into lovely woolly jumpers.
While they are waiting for this to become a success, Wallace and Gromit run a window-cleaning business, and it is in this capacity that they meet Wendolene Ramsbottom (voiced by Anne Reid) who owns a wool-selling business oddly unaffected by the wool shortage. Wallace falls for the comely Wendolene and their intensely English and shy romance forms an ironic counterpoint to the fact that Wendolene has been coerced by her sinister dog Preston into being complicit in this hateful canine’s sheep-rustling business – as a result of which a runaway sheep finds its way into Wallace and Gromit’s house.
