Gromit creator says we need more schmaltz

Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park has claimed that British animated films are lagging behind their Hollywood counterparts because of our nation's stiff upper lip.

The director of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the only British film to claim the Best Animated feature Oscar, told the Radio Times that filmmakers might need to up the "schmaltz" factor to earn better results. "We need to tell our own stories, rooted in our own culture, but do it with the equivalent emotion of Hollywood," he said.

"Billy Elliot did it, and The Full Monty, but I don't think we have it yet in animation. Films that get you in the gut. It can be done, but we avoid it because we don't wear our emotion on our sleeves as a nation. We avoid it because we have seen it done badly, with Hollywood schmaltziness, and triteness."

Park is working on a new movie but said it didn't feature Wallace and Gromit. The characters headline the BBC Proms on 29 July with a specially commissioned piece of music titled My Concerto in Ee, Lad.