For more than 50 years Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock have delighted "human beans" of all ages with their small-scale adventures under the floorboards – and this Christmas they look to enchant a new audience, as The Borrowers return to television.

With a cast that includes Stephen Fry and Victoria Wood, the new 90-minute adaptation of Mary Norton's Carnegie Medal-winning children's novels will be broadcast on BBC1 over the festive season.

Christopher Eccleston and Sharon Horgan will star as Pod and Homily Clock, determined to protect their rebellious teenage daughter Arrietty from humans. Unsurprisingly, Arrietty has other ideas – befriending the boy who lives above the Clock family, and landing them in serious trouble.

Fry and Wood will revel in their roles as adults on the hunt for the little people – Fry as scientist Professor Mildeye desperate to capture a Borrower, and Wood as Grandma Driver, determined to banish them from her house – while excitable teenagers will be thrilled to see Misfit's Robert Sheehan further reinforce his tearaway status as the leather-jacketed Borrower Spiller. The show will be written by Ben Vanstone.

"I couldn't be more thrilled with Ben's take on this classic Christmas story," said Juliette Howell, head of television at Working Title, which is making the programme. "It feels fresh, original, and above all funny."

The BBC first adapted the books for television in the early 90s as acclaimed Sunday teatime series The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield, which starred Ian Holt, Rebecca Callard and Penelope Wilton.

In 1997 John Goodman, Jim Broadbent and Celia Imrie starred in a film adaptation of the much-loved children's books, the first of which was published in 1952.

Ben Stephenson, controller of BBC drama commissioning called the show: "a brilliant and bold, contemporary version of this classic tale."