{"id":796258,"date":"2026-10-08T19:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796258\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T19:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:50:09","slug":"first-look-at-the-baddies-a-delightfully-mischievous-christmas-special-starring-sheridan-smith-rob-brydon-and-alison-steadman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796258\/","title":{"rendered":"First look at The Baddies, a delightfully mischievous Christmas special starring Sheridan Smith, Rob Brydon and Alison Steadman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC and Magic Light Pictures have unveiled a first look at The Baddies, a laugh-out-loud festive special about triumphing over the worst baddies around.<\/p>\n<p>In this fairytale comedy, a Troll, a Witch and a Ghost proclaim themselves the baddest of them all, delighting in tormenting everyone they meet. But when they\u2019re challenged to steal the girl\u2019s blue spotty hanky, they discover they may have met their match.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Adapted for BBC iPlayer and BBC One from the picture book written by Dame Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, The Baddies marks Magic Light Pictures\u2019 14th animated adaptation of their work.<\/p>\n<p>Sheridan Smith (Cilla, The Cage) narrates the half-hour special, joined by a voice cast including Alison Steadman (Gavin &amp; Stacey, Pride and Prejudice) as Witch, Hammed Animashaun (Black Ops, SNL UK) as Troll, Robyn Cara (Bodkin) as Girl, Francesca Mills (Harlots) as Mouse, and Rob Brydon (The Trip, Would I Lie to You?) returning for his 14th Donaldson and Scheffler adaptation as the boastful Ghost.<\/p>\n<p>Sheridan Smith, Narrator, says: &#8220;Being bad has never been so much fun! The Baddies is deliciously spooky, ridiculously funny, and packed with heart. It\u2019s a riot of a fairytale that celebrates courage, kindness, and outsmarting the big bullies &#8211; families are going to love the hilarity and chaos this Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Alison Steadman, voicing Witch, says: &#8220;What I loved about the story is how it flips traditional fairytales on their head. You have these three boastful villains plotting wicked tricks, only to be completely outsmarted by a brave little girl and a mouse. It\u2019s such a satisfying, funny tale about kindness quietly beating big bullies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s adaptation, The Scarecrows\u2019 Wedding, watched by 8.7 million viewers across the festive period (28-day BARB), becoming Christmas week\u2019s most-watched programme in the UK and achieving Magic Light\u2019s highest-ever audience share of 48.2%.<\/p>\n<p>The Baddies is directed by Andy Martin and Sarah-Jane Knox, and produced by Barney Goodland and Martin Pope of Magic Light Pictures. The film is overseen for the BBC by Nawfal Faizullah, BBC Drama Commissioning Editor, with animation services provided by Triggerfish Animation.<\/p>\n<p>Magic Light\u2019s previous adaptations of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler\u2019s works are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.<\/p>\n<p>TB<\/p>\n<p>Follow for more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BBC and Magic Light Pictures have unveiled a first look at The Baddies, a laugh-out-loud festive special&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-796258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}