What was the casting process like for Esio Trot? She gave me a photocopy of one of Blake’s drawings with the words ‘You’re fired’ written underneath it the next day!ĭustin Hoffman and Judi Dench as Mr Hoppy and Mrs Silver While we were making the film, I said to Judi I thought she looked like the woman in Blake’s illustrations. She took terrible umbrage to this she thought the illustrations of Mrs Silver had a pointy nose and stupid hair. But the moment I started to write the script and give the characters a background and a voice, they started to disappear from my mind. Quentin Blake’s illustrations are brilliant and very distinctive. With Quentin Blake’s memorable illustrations, how easy was it to develop the look of the film? We knew we had to make it funny to honour Dahl’s humour, so we would challenge each other by leaving the note ‘CBF’ (could be funnier) in the margin for each other. In the same way that Dahl’s stories haven’t aged, we were careful to make this adaptation modern but timeless. We had previously worked together on The Vicar Of Dibley, which was similar in a way to Road Dahl’s Esio Trot, as it was a comedy with affectionate warmth. The moment I came up with the idea to adapt Esio Trot, I knew I should write it with Paul he is the most delightful, hardworking man in the world. When did you decide to write Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot with Paul Mayhew-Archer? They loved each other since they were in their twenties and were very happy, but it made me wonder about the people who didn’t find love until a lot later in life. In a funny way, Esio Trot is the film I always wanted to write about my parents. So I put on the Hello Dolly soundtrack and immediately knew that was the mood and atmosphere I wanted. Louis Armstrong’s music came to me in that exact moment, who is a great favourite of my dad’s. Not only that, it was about an older generation which I had been interested in writing about for a long time. It never occurred to me that I might one day adapt a Roald Dahl story, but after reading it to my youngest son, it struck me that this was a perfect romantic comedy.

Where did the journey of adapting Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot begin for you? There is something completely extraordinary and unique about him as a writer. In my opinion, Dahl is this generation’s version of Charles Dickens. RC: Roald Dahl is one of the most read-out-loud authors in my house the family love Boy: Tales of Childhood and I’ve read The Witches numerous times to my children. What do you get when you combine a tale by the world’s number one storyteller, the scriptwriter of Notting Hill, and lots and lots of tortoises? Esio Trot! For the first time this Christmas, Roald Dahl’s story is being brought to life, and screenwriter Richard Curtis tells us how he and the team went about adapting the story of Mr Hoppy and Mrs Silver for the big screen.

Tortoise esio trot