The Highway Rat (2017)
There is a particular kind of British Christmas television that asks very little of you and gives back rather a lot. Magic Light Pictures and the BBC have been quietly building that tradition since 2009, adapting the picture books of Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler into short animated films designed to occupy the slot between the Queen's Speech and the turkey sandwiches. The Highway Rat (2017) is one of the later entries in that run, a 25-minute adaptation of Donaldson and Scheffler's 2011 book about a bullying, biscuit-obsessed rodent who demands tribute from every creature on the road, until his appetite gets the better of him. The source material is classic Donaldson: rollicking verse, a memorably unpleasant villain, and a satisfying moral arc that never feels preachy. It is the kind of children's book that parents find themselves reciting from memory long after the reading-aloud is done, which is partly why the BBC keep coming back to this particular well.
Jeroen Jaspaert, who also wrote the screenplay adaptation, directed the film for Magic Light. Jaspaert had worked on earlier entries in the Magic Light Donaldson series, so this is a house with established habits rather than a one-off commission, and that continuity shows in how settled the production feels. Magic Light's model is consistent: stay close to Scheffler's original artwork, keep the running time disciplined, and cast well. On the casting front, The Highway Rat does not disappoint. David Tennant takes the title role, bringing a theatrical relish to a character whose entire personality is appetite and self-importance (Tennant is, it should be said, very good at characters who are certain of their own greatness). Rob Brydon narrates, which is a role that carries more weight than it might appear to in this format: the Donaldson adaptations live or die on whether the narrator sounds warm without being saccharine, and Brydon finds that line reliably. Nina Sosanya, Tom Hollander and Frances de la Tour fill out the supporting voices, a notably strong ensemble for what is, by any measure, a modest production.
The look of the film sits comfortably within the Magic Light palette: soft, rounded shapes, autumnal countryside colours, and character designs that keep faith with Scheffler's pen-and-ink originals rather than nudging them toward a more generic digital style. It is a deliberate choice, and one that separates these BBC films from the shinier end of studio animation (if you want to see what happens when an animated film makes the opposite decision and chases visual scale at the expense of intimacy, our review of Brother Bear covers that territory). The score is the work of René Aubry, a French composer whose background in acoustic and ambient music gives the film a gentle, folk-adjacent texture rather than the swelling orchestral style you might expect. Robin Sales edited the piece, and at 25 minutes there is simply no room for slack: the cutting is tight without feeling hurried, which is a harder balance to strike than it sounds. Films that take the road as a structural metaphor, movement as the engine of character, have their own small tradition, and it is worth noting that the most unexpectedly affecting of those is probably The Straight Story, which could not be more different in tone and yet shares that sense of a journey revealing who someone actually is. The Highway Rat works the same idea in miniature. For a point of comparison on what spare, purposeful animation can achieve at its most ambitious, The Red Turtle and The Secret of Kells both reward a look.
My son has watched plenty of things once and forgotten them by teatime. The Highway Rat was not one of them. He came out of it obsessed, quoting the thing for weeks afterward, which is about the highest praise a half-hour film for small children can earn. It's the latest of Magic Light's Julia Donaldson adaptations, from the same run of BBC Christmas half-hours that gave us The Gruffalo and Stick Man, and Jeroen Jaspaert directs with a clear feel for what that house style is actually for.
A lot of the charm rests on the voices. David Tennant plainly relishes the title role, all swagger and menace pitched exactly right for the age group, while Rob Brydon narrates with the warmth these stories live or die on. The animation keeps faith with Axel Scheffler's picture-book illustrations rather than trying to outdo them, and that restraint is the whole point: it's soft, bright and easy for small eyes to follow, and it never strains for more than it needs. The score does its quiet work underneath, and at twenty-five minutes the film is gone before it can outstay its welcome.
There's nothing here to trouble a grown-up hunting for depth, and it isn't reaching for that; it knows precisely what it is and delivers it without a wasted minute. If Magic Light ever spin it into a returning series the way they have with the Gruffalo, I won't complain, and neither will my son. A lovely, unfussy little thing, and an easy three and a half stars.
The Highway Rat sits squarely within a tradition of polished but unshowy British children's television that earns its place by knowing exactly who it is for and not flinching from that. It will not convert anyone who arrives expecting adult pleasures, and it is not trying to. What it offers is a reliable template executed with care: good voices, faithful visuals, a tidy running time, and a story that children find genuinely funny rather than merely tolerable. In the landscape of seasonal animation, that counts for more than it might seem. The rat gets his comeuppance, the music stays out of the way, and the whole thing is over before the mince pies are cold.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2017 | Watched: 2026-08-11
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for The Highway Rat (2017) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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