I recently had the pleasure of working on an animation project at the Royal Exchange Theatre in which pupils from Our Lady’s High School responded to Scuttlers, a play based on the gangs of Manchester in the late 1800s. Using the themes of the play as a springboard, the group spent a week at the theatre, devising characters with an illustrator and puppet maker. Towards the end of the week, I joined the class, teaching them how to breathe some life into their plasticine figures with stop-motion animation.

The films have been playing at the Royal Exchange Theatre, along with an exhibition of their puppets and drawings. For more information on the work the theatre does with school groups, see this link;

http://www.royalexchange.co.uk/discover-schools

All photographs courtesy of Joel Fildes.