Download The Legend of the Tamworth Two movie

The Tamworth Two were a pair of pigs that escaped while being unloaded from a lorry at an abattoir in the English town of Malmesbury, Wiltshire in January 1998. The pigs (later named Butch and Sundance after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) were on the run for over a week, and the search for them caused a huge media sensation, as well as immense public interest, both in Britain and abroad.

Butch (a sow) and Sundance (a boar) were sister and brother Tamworth pigs. Both were five months old when they were taken by lorry by their owner to V & G Newman's Abattoir in Malmesbury on 8 January 1998. Just after they were unloaded from the truck, the two pigs escaped by squeezing through a fence, then swimming across the River Avon and escaping into nearby gardens.

The two pigs spent most of their week of freedom in a dense thicket near Tetbury Hill. As the story of their escape broke, media interest in the escaped pigs soared across the country, the press dubbing the pair "Butch and Sundance" after the American outlaws. The American NBC network and several Japanese media outlets were among the international media to show a great interest in the story and to send reporters to cover the tale.

The pigs were estimated to be worth between £40-50 each, and their owner, Arnoldo Dijulio, stated that he still intended to send the pair to slaughter should they be recaptured. After making this statement, Dijulio was offered large sums of money by media outlets and animal lovers to save them from the dinner table. Eventually, the Daily Mail newspaper bought the pigs from Dijulio in return for exclusive rights to their story.

Butch was eventually captured on the evening of 15 January, when she and Sundance were spotted foraging in the garden of a local couple, Harold and Mary Clarke. Sundance escaped into the thicket once again, but was flushed out the next day by two springer spaniels, and tranquilised with a dart gun. He was taken to a veterinary surgery to recover over the weekend.

The two pigs now live – courtesy of the Daily Mail – at the Rare Breeds Centre, an animal sanctuary near Ashford in Kent.

Television movie

In 2003, the BBC produced and broadcast a 60 minute TV movie called The Legend of the Tamworth Two.

by Jasmine Crockett

3 Comments »

It is reasonably amusing but is eventually just messy and not funny

January 1998. Tamworth, England. As the farmer delivers his three pigs to
the local slaughter house, a mistake is made and two of the three make a
break for freedom. Butch and Sundance evade the law and come across a
group
of hippies asleep, camping in the woods. After eating some of the
hippies’,
ahem, herbs the duo receive a question from a magical wild boar and they
set
off cross country. Once the media gets hold of it, the hunt becomes a
national obsession - bringing the pig hating Wolf onto the
scene.This was screened as an hour long BBC special on Easter Monday 2004 and I
was curious enough to give it a go. I knew that the very basic truth of
the
situation is that two pigs got away from their owners for a day or two and
then were caught. And that’s it. However it says more about our lives (or
rather what the tabloids think the public want) that the media blew it up
into a massive story. So it is not too big a leap for writer Mercurio to
take the story even further and fictionalise even more of it. Having seen
Babe and loved it, I’m not against this sort of thing but it is a problem
that this film just isn’t fun enough to do the job.What I had hoped for was a comic tale that is fanciful enough for kids but
also witty and sharp enough for adults. Sadly that didn’t happen -
instead
the film tries to open it out into more of a fantasy drama, albeit with
the
odd laugh here and there. The film occasionally embraces wild fantasy to
the point that it is really imaginative but most of the time the touches
don’t work. The drama really doesn’t work at all as, without humour, it
just comes across as silly. The film makes a few points about media and
the
hypocrisy about eating meat but yet caring for `da widdy animals’ but
these
don’t really work either simply because I couldn’t tell if it was being
sincere or not.The cast aren’t that hot either, although the script doesn’t give them
much
to work with. Boyd and Pierson are pretty bland (although the latter is
cute) but it was the pig’s I was more let down by. I was surprised how
little they used them to get laughs - the animatronics was average but
good
enough for this. The lines should have been much sharper but they
weren’t.
Lucy Davis is one of them and it gave me hope (Office, Shaun Of The Dead)
but both she and her co-pig had awful accents that put me off! Small
roles
from Langham, Sayle and Sessions. Brian Blessed is unmistakable and lends
his voice to an effect more convincing than that terrible thing in Phantom
Menace! Whately was a key character but all he does is ham it up rather
badly (sorry - I tried to write this review without a pun, but I couldn’t
do
it!). He should have been a pantomime villain who was fun to hate but he
wasn’t - he just lacked bite somehow.Overall, I wanted to really like this - it’s a Bank Holiday, it’s a kid
friendly comedy with great potential for imaginative jokes and dialogue (a
la Chicken Run) but all this did was mess things up with an unsure script
and some lacklustre performances from key players. The attempts to use
movie references are lazy, obvious and unfunny - the Jaws one is OK but
the
Fight Club bit is just useless. Lucy Davis has worked with Simon Pegg so
she knows what a great, witty and clever script looks like but she made a
mistake with this one - and so did I.

bob the moo from Birmingham, UK - 13 April 2004

Middling family drama

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal
Instead*Avoid At All CostsThis tale recounts the true story of Butch and Sundance,the two pigs who
escaped from an abottoir in the January of 1998.A massive hunt ensues for
them in which the notorious pig hunter Wolf (Kevin Whateley) is called in to
help.However,news of their escape became common knowledge and a massive
public campaign was launched,headed by the British tabloid The Daily Mail,to
‘free the Tamworth Two.’Although it’s primarily inspired by a true story,the tone of the story
borrows rather heavily from Babe,the Hollywood blockbuster which originally
featured the concept of the talking pig.Obvious care has been put in to
it,but the script somehow fails to come together properly,with some
goofy,unbelievable characters not helping matters.It’s probably a bit too
short as well,making it all the more of an underwhelming affair.Aside from
the images of the two cute little pigs,the film really just fails to be
truly charming in any way,despite being an adaptation of an endearing real
life story.**

davideo-2 from United Kingdom - 13 April 2004

Babe, but without any sense of style

There’s not much to say about this effort, other than it may well appeal
to
very young children or people with a very, very soft spot for
pigs.The problem with the Legend of the Tamworth Two is that it does not
clearly
separate fact from fiction. A simple documentary presented in an
appropriate fashion would have been a far more entertaining way of telling
the story. That said, the parody of Quint from Jaws was engaging,
briefly.If you are a big Babe fan, this may be your cup of tea. If you’re not, it
won’t be.’Nuff said.

billinge from Gloucester, UK - 12 April 2004

Leave your Impressions!