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Shy Nick Park got to the top in 83 minutes

Helena Bonham Carter curls up with Wallace and Gromit figures. PHOTO: AP

It is hard to imagine Britain without Wallace and Gromit. The nerdish human, prone to technological mayhem and a love of flat caps and Wensleydale cheese, together with his mute canine pal, loyal and intelligent, seem to have been a perpetual part of national life. We have Wallace and Gromit fridge magnets, cuff-links, mugs, and T- shirts to prove the point. Their films and catch-phrases trip off the tongue.

It is startling, therefore, to discover it is now a decade since the pair last appeared in a new story and that their entire film adventures account for no more than 83 minutes of lovingly animated celluloid. The prospects therefore for the next few weeks could scarcely be more exciting. With their new 84-minute adventure, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, these national icons are set to double their screen lives.

That their creator, Nick Park, has achieved such expectation on such a slender output is a testament to his remarkable creativity. At 46, Park may have produced only a handful of films but he is rightly hailed as a cinematic genius -- and a genuine British eccentric for good measure.

For his part, Park -- who remains single and childless -- describes himself merely as "an observer, quiet and contemplative", a view shared by most colleagues. "Nick is certainly not stand-offish but he is not the one who is going to get rolling drunk when we relax after a hard day's work," says Arthur Sheriff, who is accompanying Park on his current tour of Canada. Similarly, friend and fellow animator Richard Goleszowski described Park as "shy but spiritual".

Certainly, for a man with three Oscars, Park's life is strikingly modest. He lives in a small, two-bedroom cottage near Bristol in south-west England, drives an old Peugeot, and spent his summer holiday this year in Scotland where he shared a house with relatives while indulging in his favorite hobby, watching wildlife.

These two influences, family and animals, encapsulate his world and his work completely. His films are filled with deranged sheep, psychopathic penguins, mournful pumas and neurotic chickens while flat-capped, waist-coated Wallace, the most famous product of his imagination, is simply an animated version of his father, Roger, who died three years ago.

He and Bob Baker (writer of The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave) sat in a pub one day and came up with The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, partly as a homage to those loopy werewolf films starring Oliver Reed as the accursed monster.

Instead of preying on humans, however, their beast would devour garden produce. "It's about people locking up their vegetables rather than their children," he says.

Thus Park claims to have created a new film genre, "vegetarian Hammer Horror", though most critics say it is more like an Ealing comedy made in Plasticene.

After The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the future is unclear. Park admits to having absolutely no ideas and no projects on his books. His artpads remain covered in Wallace and Gromit doodles, however, and it is hard to imagine we have seen the last of Plasticine's answer to Laurel and Hardy.
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