As people familiar with Bristol will know, the city is home to the animation studio
Aardman, which is famous for a range of things, including
Wallace & Gromit,
Creature Comforts and
Morph. It's one of Bristol's biggest claims to fame, meaning that it kind of gets everywhere- it features in projects at @Bristol quite often, and in the summer there was a
Gromit hunt, with Gromits such as
this.
The latest Aardman-related thing to come to Bristol is a
Wallace & Gromit exhibition at
M-Shed, the dedicated Bristol museum. Having spent the week in separate places, my family and I wanted to have a bit of a family outing on Saturday, so the exhibition sounded perfect!
To get to the M-Shed, we walked down the Harbourside and over Pero's bridge, where we noticed that a '
love lock' collection is starting- couples (or friends, I guess) attach locks to a bridge, then drop the key into the water, to symbolise unbreakable love. At the moment, the most famous one is located in
Paris ('the capital of love'- of course!).
The exhibition itself is situated on the top floor of the M-Shed; those familiar with the museum will know that that's where the 'paying exhibitions' live. For a family ticket (two adults, two children), we paid £14.95.
For the most part, the exhibition contained the props and sets used for the Wallace and Gromit film, as seen below. These were all very detailed, and it was amazing to see just how much effort went into it all! It was also fun to recognise the sets from the various films- though I'm not a huge Wallace and Gromit fan, I've watched and enjoyed the movies, so I was familiar with it.
There was also lots of information about the making process. It was probably fairly basic for those with prior knowledge, but for someone like myself with little experience of stop-motion clay animation, it was interesting. A lot of it did make the whole Wallace and Gromit film business sound like a lot of people having a laugh and creating a film out of that- which sounds pretty fab, really! Check out the book titles on the 'bookcase' below- they made me laugh a lot, probably more than they should've done...
There were also quotes from Nick Park (and other notable Aardman figures), presented on huge 'Post-It' notes! I particularly liked this one 'cause that's what I do with my notebooks! ;)
One of my favourite parts was this cabinet, accompanied by the story about the bow tie. When Wallace and Gromit was first nominated for an Oscar, Nick Park forgot to take a bow tie to the ceremony, so fashioned one out of paper- and paper bow ties became an Aardman trademark! To date, Aardman Animations has won four Oscars.
There were also some opportunities to 'get involved', though these were limited to a few buttons to press, drawers/doors to open, a 'drawing board' table in the center and a 'portrait' zone, which I'm modelling below! To be honest, I was fairly unimpressed with the hands-on stuff- I think there's a whole lot more they could have done with it, and it reduced the whole thing to be literally just another exhibition, when it could have been far far more. Also, this made it less suitable for children- my sister got bored very quickly.
Of course, no Wallace and Gromit exhibition would be complete without a picture of the famous duo, accompanied by a cheesy catchphrase. This was tucked away at the back, and provided the main photo (and selfie) opportunity.
Overall, the exhibition was interesting, but limited. Though I enjoyed it, I'm not convinced I'd recommend it, particularly not to people with children- I think for young children there's not enough to do, and for older kids it would still seem quite boring. In addition, the layout was messy. Disappointing, really, especialy when you think about the really great hands-on stuff that Aardman's done at @Bristol.
Anyway, to finish off our time at the M-Shed, we went out onto the balcony, which is one of my favourite places- I love this view so much!
Lastly, we stopped at
Angelberry (
haunt of the WombBuds), then walked back to the car. As we left, we saw that someone had put bubbles in the fountains- so, of course, we had to stop for R and I to get stuck in! ;)
