The best Christmas companions possible: Wallace & Gromit's triumphant TV return

Yesterday at 02:30 PM

Feathers McGraw is back – and more menacing than ever. Our claymation heroes' delightful attempt to face him is hilariously packed with jokes – they're just incapable of bad television

For many, the highlight of the entire Christmas schedule will have been a treat rare enough to savour: a new Wallace & Gromit. Thirty-five years after their charmingly slapdash debut, A Grand Day Out, the claymation duo are the closest thing this country has to Mickey Mouse – beloved, instantly recognisable icons that make us yearn for a golden time in our history that never actually existed.

Part of the claymation duo's charm is how sparingly they're deployed. Since A Grand Day Out, they have only appeared on screen for about three hours, half of which came in the form of the feature film (terrifyingly, nearly 20 years old) The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. So a new outing, make no mistake, is an extremely big deal.