After a decade brewing in the mind of one of Hollywood’s most idiosyncratic directors, the long-awaited adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox — with 30 sets based on the author’s own home and village — will open The Times BFI London Film Festival in the autumn.

The stop-motion animation of Dahl’s children’s book stars George Clooney, who voices the ingenious Mr Fox, and Meryl Streep as Mrs Fox. Michael Gambon supplies the voice of the malevolent farmers, and the pop singer Jarvis Cocker plays a musically inclined farmhand. It will premiere at the 53rd film festival on October 14. more…