Connery flies south to roost

Sean Connery made up for the absence of Mel Gibson - and the real chickens - at the British premiere of Chicken Run, the animated British feature that is ruling the roost at American cinemas.

A week after it opened in Hollywood with 100 chickens running amok on the red carpet, followed by takings of nearly £12 million in its opening weekend, Connery's surprise appearance, greeted by a huge roar from fans in Leicester Square, turned the lower-key West End opening into an event.

In Britain to receive his knighthood in Scotland, the 69-year-old actor and his wife Micheline arrived at the cinema as guests of friend Jake Eberts, the film's executive producer from Steven Spielberg's Dream-Works studio, who bankrolled the £30 million movie made by Nick Park's Oscar-winning team from Bristol's Aardman Studios.

Connery wore a blue suit and a tie bearing his native Scottish flag. He was reticent about how he feels about his forthcoming investiture. "I'll know when I get there," he said.

In the absence of the chickens, who caused more trouble in Los Angeles than they were worth, one flying into a cameraman at point-blank range, there were two human-sized fluffy chickens strutting outside the cinema.

Guests at the premiere included director Nick Park and producer Peter Lord, creators of Wallace and Gromit, and almost all 400 of the Aardman team who worked on the film over the past four-and-a-half years, plus most of the British-led "cast" who lent their voices to the plastic and rubber characers in what is a send-up of POW drama The Great Escape. Mel Gibson was not present but Miranda Richardson, who voices a farmer's chicken-hating wife, and Julia Sawalha, who portrays the heroine, Ginger did attend. Miss Sawalha was accompanied by her father, actor Nadim and actress sister Nadia. Julia confessed that the animal-liberation message of the film, in which the chickens try to escape before they are turned into pies, had not worn off on her. "I was a vegetarian until three months ago. The first thing I ate afterwards was chicken," she said.

Nick Park said: "It's been such a crazy four and a half years. My girlfriend Lizzie thought of an alternative title at one stage: Chicken Impossible. And that very much describes how it has been."