Joining us on Day 2 are Hazel Mills and Will Newsome, who will be collaborating with Chris on the score for WEST. Here is a snippet from a jam earlier on in the day

Also joining us were Catherine Whyte and Lisa Yardley who continued to draw beautiful scenes for the show. We also had a visit from Aardman Animation head honcho Peter Lord - Aardman are just over the road and we are extremely grateful to them for letting us use their photocopier

Don’t forget tickets are available for the performances on Saturday via the Mayfest Website

Here are a few snaps from our first day working on WEST. Joining us for the day were Joseph Roberts, Catherine Whyte, Dave Bain and Lisa Yardley who are all so talented it was amazing to watch them work. Most of the day was spent drawing and thinking about our story.

It was really nice to hang out and get to know everyone, there was some really beautiful work coming out too. Tomorrow we’ll be joined by the musicians and we can start to put it all together.

Mayfest begins…

It’s been a great weekend to be in Bristol, yesterday as part of the research for WEST (which we start work on tomorrow!!!) Chris spent the morning hanging out with field recording expert Ollie Hall of Binaural Diaries making a few recordings around the harbour including a trip on Bristol Ferries.

The ferries are amazing way to get around and to get a different perspective of the city. Bristol ferries are offering discounted ferry tickets if you’d like to take a boat trip to our show at Bristol Diving school on Sat 25^th  - you can find details here 

Mayfest has been in full swing this weekend, I got to see Kate Tempest’s incredible Brand New Ancients and Keiran Hurley’s Beats yesterday, both shows using music and spoken word so effectively and highly recommended. The festival atmosphere was great in the Blind Tiger speakeasy last night. Seeing Beowulf tonight at Trinity, can’t wait.

WEST start tomorrow and tickets for the performances on Sat 25th can be bought in advance here 

WEST – Mayfest

It’s really great to be part of Mayfest again this year, it’s always programmed with such interesting work, we were lucky enough to be a part of the festival in 2009 (King Pest/Night Flyer) and we’ve been wanting to return to the festival ever since. The idea for West came from a workshop we ran at the Tobacco Factory last year during our tour of The Odyssey. We were amazed by the level of talent amongst the participants – most of them were animators, illustrators or puppeteers anyway – and started to wonder what we could achieve if we had a little more time with them…

From that starting point we came up with the idea of a special week-long project (20-25 May) to work alongside some Bristol based artists to create a new piece inspired by our surroundings. We got together yesterday at Bristol Diving School to talk about the project and get some ideas rolling, we’ll be taking a sideways look at Bristol and it’s inhabitants. Check this blog for regular updates on the project. West culminates in two performances on Saturday 25th May.

Huge thanks to the Mayfest team for working with us on this project. We literally can’t wait to get started! So by way of introduction, here is a list of our contributors that will be joining Nic, Imogen and Chris… the magnificent seven!

Will Newsome

Will’s instruments are the West-African harp known as ‘Kora’, his voice, guitar and piano. He’s written, recorded and produced three albums and two EPs, touring the UK, Europe, Japan, The Gambia and Senegal totalling about three hundred shows in the last five years. http://somenewwill.blogspot.com

Becca Rose

I am an artist and community facilitator. I work across disciplines, and especially love the place where illustration, storytelling and puppetry meet. I am inspired by most things handmade with love, folk arts from around the world, and the things our brains come up with when we are not thinking too hard. Participation is core to my practice, and I create events and run workshops.

http://www.beccarose.co.uk

Hazel Mills

In between fronting her post-punk outfit Adding Machine and performing with The Paper Cinema, pianist/synth player and vocalist Hazel Mills collaborates with musicians including Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) and Roxy Music’s saxophonist Andy Mackay. Her love of film and background in movement-based theatre fuel her passion for addressing the visual side of musical performance. www.hazelmills.com

Catherine Whyte

I used to draw and paint as my main job. I found that having children took me away and these days I mainly make and sell dolls and run workshops.I don’t draw as often as I’d like so I always relish a reason to draw more. http://www.popcornsnow.co.uk

Dave Bain

Dave Bain is an illustrator who lives and works in Bristol. He has worked with a range of clients, primarily producing work for advertising and publishing. He has also painted several large-scale mural artworks and often draws live at corporate and music events. On top of that, he curates art exhibitions and creative events alongside managing an illustration-focused studio. www.davebain.com

Joseph Roberts

Bristol-born Joseph Roberts is an Illustrator / Graphic Designer with a passion for the strange. His work is dominated by bright colours and intuitive line (that’s fancy-talk for scribbles).His favourite things to draw include: rooftops, frowning faces, the alphabet and shaggy cats. Joseph currently a spends hearty chunk of his designing time at Farrows Creative developing print campaigns, logos and visual identities for Arts organisations around the country. http://www.josephrobertsillustration.co.uk/

Lisa Yardley

Lisa Yardley is a maker of the magical and whimsy. Working with carnival to create the gigantic or Kid Carpet’s production of the Noisy Animals Lisa is enchanted with plays on scale. Breathing life into found frippery of every day life she creates visual delights, which enable the viewer to time travel to days of childhood imagination and wonder. http://www.lisayardley.co.uk