Museums & Galleries is set for an extra helping of sales of its latest licensing signing – A Tiger Came To Tea – as Christmas Eve sees Channel 4 debut a superb animation based on Judith Kerr’s timeless children’s book, which has sold over five million copies since it was first published in 1968.
In addition to the licence Woodmansterne has on greeting cards, Museums & Galleries has just announced that it is launching a whole collection spanning cards, notelets, gifts and gift packaging in February.
The much-anticipated film, made by Lupus Films (which made The Snowman and the Snowdog and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt) follows the tiger (voiced by David Oyelowo) as he slowly eats a family out of house and home. While David Walliams is the narrator, Mummy is voiced by Tamsin Greig, Daddy is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Whitehouse is the milkman and seven year old Sophie is played by Clara Ross.
Commenting, Eddie Clarke, licensing manager of M&G highlighted how the signing of the property sees the company “considerably deepening its strength in classic post-war British children’s literature, after the success of Paddington Bear, Guess How Much I Love You, Roald Dahl, Bagpuss and Miffy, as well as developing a strategy of creating a suite of products working in concert for each property.”
M&G’s range consists of four Tiger cards in its long-running The Illustrators range, a selection of boxed notelets and hang-pack social stationery, a writing set, journals and notebooks, a magnetic notepad, gift packaging (wrap, bags and tissue), a bamboo travel mug, an HB pencil set, and bookmarks.
In addition to the Channel 4 screening, The Tiger Who Came to Tea is currently running on stage at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Sadly Judith Kerr who wrote The Tiger Who Came to Tea died in May, aged 95.
Top: Judith Kerr’s book has never been out of print since it was first published in 1968.
