Hannah Waddingham will narrate the BBC’s flagship Christmas Day animation.
Hannah Waddingham will narrate the BBC’s flagship Christmas Day animation
The ‘Ted Lasso’ actress, 50, famed for playing Rebecca Welton in the comedy show, has inked a deal to voice a festive adaptation of the ‘Tiddler’ rhyming picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, which tells of a tiny grey fish who loses its bearings in the ocean.
Hannah said: “Voicing the narrator for this Christmas special has been a real joy to record.
“‘Tiddler’ is the tale of the storyteller in all of us, and helps children understand what it's like to be a small fish in a very big pond.
“I have loved reading the books by Julia and Axel to my daughter over the years and it’s so lovely to get to bring one of them to screen.”
Other characters in the film will be voiced by ‘Gavin and Stacey’ actor Rob Brydon, 59, comic Jayde Adams, 39, and 33-year-old ‘Ghosts’ actress Lolly Adefope.
Hannah is also set to star in a third ‘Hocus Pocus’ film, said to be still in its story development phase.
Disney confirmed in June 2023 another installment in the witch series was in development and screenwriter Jen D’Angelo, 36, has confirmed the plot is still being worked out.
She told Entertainment Weekly: “We’re still in the story phase – we’re still working on it.
“We’ve been working on some ideas. It’s been fun to dive back into that world and we have so many directions in which to go and so many new characters to explore.
“We’ve only scratched the surface of Hannah Waddingham’s mother witch.”
Emmy-winning Hannah made her ‘Hocus Pocus’ debut in the second installment of the film franchise, released in 2022 on Disney+, in which she played Mother Witch, responsible for gifting a spell book to the series’ young Sanderson sisters.
It’s expected Bette Midler, 78, Sarah Jessica Parker, 59, and Kathy Najimy, 67, will also be approached to feature in ‘Hocus Pocus 3’.
Tagged in Bette Midler Sarah Jessica Parker Rob Brydon