Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas wherever you are, if you celebrate it. Here, with my family, it has been wonderful for me – perhaps the best I can remember in recent years. We’ve been playing games, and watching the delights that are put on television especially for this handful of days surrounding the 25th of December.

One delight in particular, I think, will stick with me; one that really struck a cord, that I will remember this Christmas by, and remember it fondly. It was a little animated movie adaptation of The Gruffalo (about 30 minutes long), voiced by an all-star cast that included Helena Bonham-Carter as the narrator. It’s based on a book for children – a picture book, I beliebe – and the animation was wonderful, the characters cute, wide-eyed, and very much alive on the screen. And the voice acting was superb.

I think what was best about it was the simple beauty of the storytelling. It was not a very complicated plot: a mouse walks through the woods, and encounters dangers, and sees them off. But it used rhyme, and it used simple words, and it all came together to tremendous effect. A fantastic fable for Christmas time, with its audience huddled around a crackling fire.

It just brought home that you don’t need to use the widest vocabulary to achieve a powerful or compelling effect; you just need the right words for the right situation. You don’t need endless description; you just need the right words for the right situation. Here, with the Gruffalo, it came together perfectly, and I would recommend watching it on iPlayer if it’s possible for you to do so.