The Magic Pudding

For years, sailor Bill Barnacle and penguin Sam Sawnoff have guarded a very special treasure: Albert, a talking pudding with terrible manners who grows back after every bite and changes flavour on request. When young koala Bunyip Bluegum learns that he is not an orphan after all and sets out to find his long-lost parents, he joins forces with the two. But the journey through the Australian bush soon turns into a madcap chase, as two crafty pudding thieves are determined to get their paws on the marvellous pudding. Karl Zwicky has turned Norman Lindsay’s 1918 book “The Magic Pudding”, a classic of Australian children’s literature, into a colourful animated musical, with plenty of songs and a host of quirky animal characters that will delight younger viewers in particular. The Lindsay family long held on to the film rights, turning down offers from Disney and Jim Henson among others, before selling them in 1997 to the Australian studio Energee Entertainment. The original version features the voices of John Cleese, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, Sam Neill and Toni Collette. At the Australian AFI Awards, the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, among other categories. Please note: Norman Lindsay’s 1918 book is now the subject of critical debate, particularly in the English-speaking world. It draws on the racist stereotypes of its time, for example in the character of the cook Curry and Rice, contains an antisemitic insult that has been removed from newer editions, and has been criticised for its white, colonial vision of Australia. Anyone who reads the book with children after watching the film should put these passages into context.