Directing
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The story of married animators, John Halas and Joy Batchelor. A Jewish emigre from Hungary and a working class woman from Watford, England, John and Joy fell in love, created cartoons that helped the allies to win the war, and produced the first feature-length animation in British cinema history, Animal Farm (1954).
Our narrator looks fondly back at his childhood in Liverpool and the antics of his best friend Johnno. Well known for being a showman and a keen one for joking and the like, Johnno starts to change for the worse after he announced that his father has died.
Despite having time to reflect upon his twelve years behind bars, he can’t shake off the ghosts of the past. If he could catch up with Johnno, the guy who put in him in prison. Make him understand what it was like to have entire life waste.
Blues rinses, portraits of the queen and stand up bingo. Chris Shepherd delves into his past and recalls the world of his Aunty Glad and her local Conservative Club. The hues of blue that make up the Tory heartland are more than just a party - they are a state of mind.
Chris Shepherd directs a short animation in tribute to Joe Orton (Entertaining Mr Sloane, Loot) to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. Joe Orton would write letters of complaint using the pseudonym of Edna Welthorpe. Using this persona, Orton would wind up companies, vicars and even ridicule his own plays. In this short we see what mayhem ensues when Edna writes to Smedley Jams and Littlewood home catalogue service.
A son is reunited with his long lost father for the first time. You might imagine it's time to discover everything about where he's come from and where he's going. But he's about to get a surprise...