Twenty-three years is a long time. Since the year 2000, governments have risen and fallen; an entire way of life has been washed away by the great digital sea. So when Aardman animation studio decided to make a sequel to turn-of-the-millenium favourite Chicken Run, it knew the process would be fraught. Sure enough, the long-awaited sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, has proved to be a delicate balancing act. The biggest change has been the recasting of the original’s two lead characters, Ginger and Rocky, first voiced by Julia Sawalha and Mel Gibson, now by Thandiwe Newton and Zachary Levi. A host of the supporting players have also been subbed out – Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays step in as spivvy rodents Nick and Fetcher, in lieu of Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels, while David Bradley replaces Benjamin Whitrow, who died in 2017.
But it was Sawalha’s casting, however, that proved the most contentious, with fans of the original – and Sawalha herself – suggesting that ageism was to blame. (Gibson’s offscreen disgraces, particularly the 2006 scandal that saw him recorded making antisemitic remarks to a police officer, mean that Rocky’s recasting has been accepted without quarrel.) Sawalha is 55, while Newton is 51; the Ab Fab star stated in 2020 that she was “devastated”, having been told – baselessly, she argues – that her voice was “too old” to recreate the character she originated at 30. It’s clear that her recasting could have been handled better. But it isn’t necessarily as simple as just ageism.
