Got the message?

To cut to the chase, my ten-year-old daughter really liked Beauty and the Beast. And given you’re probably going to be watching this as a child’s plus-one, I’d say hers is the view that matters. Her favourite character was Le Fou, the baddie’s gay sidekick, though I’m not sure she realised. But then the gay scene that Disney’s been making such a fuss about, in which the adorably camp and chubby Josh Gad gives Luke Evans — the fabulous Gaston — a bit of a shoulder massage when they’re relaxing at the inn, honestly isn’t such a big deal. Sorry.

This would be a digression, except that there’s been so much baggage piled on to B and the B that the ideology is what you end up looking out for. To the question, why bother making a real version of a movie that Disney did brilliantly in the 1991 animated version with Angela Lansbury as the teapot, there’s not much of an answer, except that this has got more of a message and notional emotional depth.