Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Dawn French, Harry Tayler, Nina Sosanya, John Hannah, Jessica Hynes, Alison Steadman, Bill Bailey, Nick Mohammed, Rob Brydon, Mollie Holder, Reegan Davies, Rhys Parry Jones, Kevin Bishop, Kimberley Nixon.

It doesn’t matter when it happens, or perhaps even how, but to meet the one person outside of your family to whom your life from that moment is shaped by even the barest, smallest conversation, is a tale to which to inspire others.

The phenomenon of the handshake through time, one famous person inspiring another upon first meeting to leave their mark on the world is perhaps not that much an appreciated sense of portent or physical human singularity, but as with the handshake between President John F. Kennedy and a young impressionable Bill Clinton captured by camera, such moments do happen: one famous person inspiring another to greatness.

It might not matter when it happens, but when it happens to a child, to a person to whom the formative speculation of their future is still up in the air and in the hands of destiny alone, it can be portentous, a foreshadowing of what is to come, like a fading candle to which is more wax than wick being able to pass on its flame to another, a new means of illumination ready to light the world with ideas.

Expanded from what was the merest of meetings of minds, Roald And Beatrix: The Tale Of The Curious Mouse is a beautifully told story of how Beatrix Potter, long since regarded as the leading writer of children’s books and the young Roald Dahl, suffering from the recent loss of his father and sister, met at Ms. Potter’s home in the Lake District and in their briefest of interactions, so the sense of eternity was created, the handshake through time persisting, continuing its seeming miracle of human aspiration.

Whilst the meeting itself is lost to time with both writers now having passed, the mythology of the tale is enough to inspire beyond the grave, and in a heart-warming story envisioned by Abigail Wilson, it shows just how precious the act of passing on the flame can be, especially in the fertile mind of the young.

It is in the interaction between the three main players, Roald Dahl, Beatrix Potter and Roald’s beloved mother, Sofie, that the drama revolves, and in the exceptional Dawn French as the creator of Peter Rabbit and the other creatures that spawned a series of books, and the introduction of Harry Taylor as the inquisitive young Roald, history is revealed to be more miraculous than we would believe.

What was once said in private between two people is lost to the air and time, but in this edifying piece of visual art, the mind and the heart are both enthralled by the enormity of two incredible minds having shared the same space in time together; like J.F.K. and Bill Clinton being caught by camera shaking hands, illumination is passed on by the briefest of encounters. It is a lesson perhaps that we must begin to renew our appreciation of how we influence the young, the children who look to us for guidance and courage, that we must do our absolute best to ensure they take our teachings forward so that they to might perform the handshake through time,

Ian D. Hall