He travelled to a restaurant on another planet, he helped out King Neptune and his pet sea monster, but it seems that Britain’s unlikeliest hero, Mr Benn, is about to face his biggest challenge yet — a magical leap on to the big screen. Decades since anyone last saw the bowler-hatted animated favourite of 1970s children’s TV, a live-action film is in the works, with I Swear’s Kirk Jones set to direct.
Mr Benn, many will fondly recall, was the business-suited resident of 52 Festive Road who enjoyed being transported off to weird and wonderful adventures determined by whichever costume he tried on (knight’s armour, pirate gear and so on) at his local fancy dress store. He would need little encouragement from the fez-wearing shopkeeper, who would also pop up within each flight of fantasy to return his best customer to mundane reality.
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The suburban setting was inspired by the street where the creator David McKee lived in Putney, the store based on a bric-a-brac shop in Plymouth, where he’d been an art student. And as with several other totemic children’s TV shows of its era, the series ran for fewer episodes than you’d think — just 13 were shown in the BBC’s Watch with Mother lunchtime slot between 1971 and 1972. That’s the same number as Bagpuss, another beloved children’s series bound for a cinematic reboot (expected in 2027). Again, the question here is why they would even try to resurrect such an old series as a big-screen experience.
David McKee created Mr Benn in the 1960sMagali Delporte for The Times
Jones has said: “I adored Mr Benn as a child and immediately saw the importance of introducing him to a new generation… Mr Benn finds a unique way to travel through time and space, visiting historical and futuristic worlds to solve apparently monumental problems with kindness, compassion and common sense.”
However, this isn’t the first time Mr Benn has been mooted for big-screen glory. In 1999 there were reports of a film starring John Hannah, and in 2017 there were plans for a film written by Simon Farnaby, who co-wrote two of the Paddington films. Even more mad online rumours have, in the past, linked Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp to the role but it surely wouldn’t work with them any more than it would with Timothée Chalamet or Vin Diesel. Because despite being inspired visually by René Magritte’s faceless man, Mr Benn needs to be a quintessentially English everyman.
So who will play Benn? Tom Hiddleston is certainly English enough, with a suave twinkle that could perhaps work. But he wouldn’t look right in a bowler hat — his head’s too narrow — and his pleasantly smooth tones would be better suited to those of Ray Brooks, who famously narrated the series. Conversely, Matthew Macfadyen would wear a bowler hat well but he’d look all kinds of wrong in pirate or astronaut gear.
Matthew Macfadyen: a future Benn? Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images
Benn is equable towards others — oddly unflappable given that one moment he’s in an ordinary shop, the next he’s in a magical land wearing red armour and advising a depressed dragon. (Worth mentioning here that in 2005 McKee admitted that Mr Benn was created during a time in his life when he would indulge in cannabis cookies.) Kit Harington has form with dragons but he tends to have a tortured air about his performances. Ditto David Morrissey.
Perhaps Andrew Garfield, then, but his hair feels a bit big — Benn’s is tidily side-parted — and paradoxically he might feel just a bit too safe a choice after his cosy role in The Magic Faraway Tree.
It also depends, of course, on what kind of spin they want to give the film: if they go for the full comedy approach, Jack Whitehall or Peter Serafinowicz might work. But Benn was more conventional than he was absurdist or ironic. Ben Whishaw is already the voice of Paddington. Matt Smith? A bit on the edgy side after House of the Dragon and The Death of Bunny Munro. Taron Egerton, maybe?
So, to take a punt: how about Martin Freeman? Yes, possibly a touch too far into middle age, but some Grecian 2000 could swiftly sort that, and how old was Benn supposed to be anyway? Freeman has the right shape of head, he can be both modest in manner and quietly heroic in faraway lands (see his Bilbo Baggins), and you can imagine him solving problems with that kindness, compassion and common sense.
All of which only proves that trying to imagine an actor based on the old line-drawn figure is as much a fool’s errand as guessing the next James Bond.
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