Enid Blyton has been so unfashionable for so long that it must be time for a revival. The Magic Faraway Tree could be the start of it. An old-fashioned imaginative kids adventure, it’s full of the sort of wholesome derring-do that turned Blyton into the most translated children’s author ever. The presence of Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy and Rebecca Ferguson won’t do it any harm either.
Though they all play second fiddle to the kids, which is how it so often is with Blyton. In series like The Famous Five, The Secret Seven or the Malory Towers books, it’s the kids who take centre stage, while their parents remain largely offstage doing adult things. The kids have the adventures; the adults stay out of the way. You can see why the books were popular.
In this case, it’s the adults who cause the problem the kids have to fix. Scatterbrain househusband dad Tim (Garfield) and efficient, caring mum Polly – Mr and Mrs Thompson to you – hit a bump in the road when she flounces out of work on a principle, forgetting that the family home is owned by the tech outfit she works for. Soon the newly homeless Thompsons are leaving the city behind and moving into the only place they can afford, a barn in the countryside, where there’s no electricity or wifi and a big tractor sits parked in what might otherwise be the living room.
The super-nice, super-positive parents put a brave face on it but the kids, Joe (Phoenix Laroche), Fran (Billie Gadsdon) and Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy), are furious. Beth in particular, who is at the age when social media is all important and can’t even get a phone signal. But then Fran sees something in the local woods, said to be enchanted. And a whole world of magic opens up, high in the branches of the Magic Faraway Tree, gateway to a realm populated by benign characters with names like Silky (Nicola Coughlan), Mr Whatzisname (Oliver Chris), Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning), Moonface (Nonso Anozie), Angry Pixie (Hiran Abeysekera) and Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns).
City cynicism is replaced by wholesome wonderment as the kids make repeated journeys and have adventures in the Land of Goodies (old-fashioned sweets!), the Land of Spells and the Land of Know-Alls. Meanwhile, down below, the parents are just glad to have the kids out of their hair. Eventually, even miseryguts Beth joins in the adventuring, though she’s too old for all this magic shenanigans – turns out that fairy dust trumps teenage hormones every time.
Two impediments to happiness exist. One down below in the shape of Polly’s horrible mother, played by Jennifer Saunders. And, in the fairytale realm up the tree, Dame Snap, all elaborate hair and evil tailoring, and played by Ferguson at full Cruella De Vil.
The adaptation is by Simon Farnaby, of Horrible Histories and Ghosts fame. Both TV shows owe something to Monty Python (look out for Michael Palin here) and so does Farnaby’s update, which is lightly absurdist and acknowledges the modern world while keeping the Blyton ethos intact. He’s not bending over backwards to be down with the kids, and the film is all the better for it.
To be temporarily horrid to this extremely well cast, energetically directed and madly imaginative bonbon, the story that eventually starts to emerge is all rather low stakes – dad Tim’s attempts at going into pasta-sauce production – the whole thing is a bit episodic, and there isn’t really enough Ferguson to justify the billing.
But the fantastical characters the kids meet are fun, the gently supportive Garfield and Foy understand that they aren’t the stars of this show and there is a happy-ever-after finish that isn’t too fanciful. All in all, it’s just a big magical.
The Magic Faraway Tree – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
