What Goes Around ; the Characters From the Magic Roundabout Are About to Hit the Big Screen, with an All-Star Cast Including Bill Nighy, Robbie Willams and Kylie.

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Obviously, it's not exactly the same as our version of The Magic Roundabout 40 years ago, Dougal, Florence and Ermintrude didn't have to fight ninja skeletons,' says Cameron McCracken, executive producer of the new cinema adaptation. 'And there wasn't an evil twin of Zebedee, either.' Fans of the slow-paced Sixties television series, set in a peaceful garden inhabited by puppets, may be shocked by the new direction taken in this year's computeranimated version. Unlike the first series, which premiered in 1965 and cost less than Pounds 500 per episode, the new film has cost Pounds 12.8 million.

It has a starry cast of voiceovers, including Robbie Williams as Dougal and Kylie Minogue as Florence, and uses state-of-the-art computer animation to bring to life action sequences such as the spotty pink cow Ermintrude dancing through a network of laser- detector beams. The waltz-playing magic roundabout itself is rarely to be seen, and in America the new film will simply be called Sprung! instead of The Magic Roundabout because the series has never been shown there. But despite increasingly vocal grumblings from fans on Magic Roundabout websites, the producers are adamant they have steered clear of 'sacrilege'.

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What Goes Around ; the Characters From the Magic Roundabout Are About to Hit the Big Screen, with an All-Star Cast Including Bill Nighy, Robbie Willams and Kylie.

'Let's not forget the TV series is 40 years old and made up of whimsical five-minute TV shows,' says McCracken. 'We couldn't capture the imagination of today's kids unless those tiny stories were expanded into a thrilling, epic adventure.' With settings including ice caves, Indiana Jones-style temples and a river of lava, not to mention Dylan the rabbit doing kung fu, the new film is certainly thrilli...

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