Wombles director ditches Madame Cholet’s French accent ‘because they’re from Wimbledon’
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A new adaptation of The Wombles will not include Madame Cholet’s signature French accent because the characters are “all from Wimbledon”, the director Johnny Vegas has said.
Marking 50 years since the beloved stories first appeared on the BBC, a number of the books have been adapted for radio, with actor Richard E Grant serving as a narrator.
Comedian Vegas, who directed the adaptations that will air on Christmas Day, promised that no substantial changes have been made to the tales following the lives of the fictional Wimbledon Common inhabitants.
However, he admitted the character of Madame Cholet, known for her affected French accent despite hailing from the leafy London suburb, will not sound as audiences remembered her.
“We changed the accent of Madame Cholet from French. They were all essentially born in Wimbledon and they were all more or less of that region,” Mr Vegas told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Describing the exaggerated accent she was known for, he added: “We just thought – we know that ‘French people do not talk like that no more [in thick accent]’ and… why set her apart with a French accent just because she had a French name?”
Madame Cholet’s character is known as the as the chef of the Wimbledon burrow who “affects a French accent”, though she is not French.
The radio adaptations will follow her and Great Uncle Bulgaria Coburg, Tobermory, Orinoco, Bungo, Tomsk, Wellington, Alderney as they go overground and underground around Wimbledon Common.
Created by Elisabeth Beresford in the late 1960s, the pointy-nosed characters appeared in children’s novels that were later brought to life in an animation children’s TV show in the mid-70s.
Their motto is to “Make Good Use of Bad Rubbish,” which was a message of conservation reflecting the growing environmental movement of the time.
The characters all live in burrows in Wimbledon Common, away from real people, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways.
Mr Vegas said: “Everybody has a fondness of it and I didn’t realise quite how ahead of its time it was, the message that was contained within the story-telling… it was tidying and it was recycling.
“It’s a wonderfully engaging story, Richard did a beautiful job when he came in and read and I think with a lot of books that we’ve transferred to Radio, this could have been written [now]...[rather than] 50 years ago.”
Citing the topics of the books, such as about the build-up of traffic in London and an energy crisis, he added: “You would think that somebody has sat down and thought, can we do this now in a way that children will understand, but they were written 50 years ago.”
Tribute to Cribbins
Vegas also paid tribute to Bernard Cribbins, who narrated the original Wombles audiobook and provided the character’s voices for the animated BBC series in the 70s.
“Bernard Cribbins, who made such a wonderful job with the original, sadly left us last year,” he said.
He insisted that his instalment does not deviate from the original books, adding that the charm of the characters and the series is that “we didn’t need to change them”.
The new release, part of which is being played on Christmas Day, marks 50 years since The Wombles first appeared on the BBC as the stop-motion animation.
It is billed by the broadcaster as “full of fun and warmth, with an underpinning environmental message - this is novelty and nostalgia combined and a gift of Christmas comfort-listening for all to enjoy.”
There are 16 episodes in total, available on BBC Sounds, and all narrated by Grant, who is best known for films including Withnail And I and Can you Ever Forgive Me.
Grant said: “I’d never met Johnny before, and I’d never read the books until recording the audiobooks, so I come to it completely like a virgin.”
On choosing Grant to read the audiobooks, Vegas explained: “With Richard, he’s somebody I’ve grown up watching and listening to and that voice just lends itself perfectly to storytelling… and I ask him to do things in very different accents, it’s not required, it’s just for kicks.”
Grant added: “He’s been a very precise and very compassionate director and he knows exactly what to say and what notes to give.”
It comes as a news television series of The Wombles, produced by the Altitude Media Group and written by Will Davies, is set to be released as “a modern remake of the beloved animated British family series”.
The Wombles will be debuting on BBC Radio 4 on Dec 25 from 6.15pm, and the entire box set of 16 episodes are available on BBC Sounds now.
