Davie Oyelowo, Tamsin Grieg, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Whitehouse and David Walliams all star in a television adaptation of Judith Kerr's classic The Tiger Who Came To Tea that is to air on Christmas Eve.

The 30-minute programme, which is to go out on Channel Four, is a screen adaptation of the classic children's book, first published in 1968.

Walliams is the narrator while Cumberbatch and Grieg are the parents of the little girl Sophie whose afternoon tea is interrupted by a tiger, voiced by Oyelowo, who visits and eats everything in her house. Seven-year-old actress Clara Ross voices Sophie.

Robbie Williams has recorded an original song for the programme, Hey Tiger.

The children's author and poet Michael Rosen once suggested the story was a metaphor for the childhood of Ms Kerr, who died in June aged 95.

She and her family settled in England after fleeing Nazi Germany. When asked what the book was about, Ms Kerr once replied it was "about a Tiger who comes to tea."

The Tiger Who Came To Tea airs on Channel Four at 7.30pm on December 24