What would Wallace \u2013 everyone\u2019s favourite amateur Yorkshire inventor \u2013 look like with a moustache, straw boater and postal worker\u2019s coat? Would a massive set of teeth suit his faithful beagle, Gromit? How about a nose shaped like a banana?<\/p>\n
Such questions are answered by an illuminating and sometimes alarming exhibition at east London\u2019s Young V&A that showcases the work of the world\u2019s leading stop-motion outfit, the Bristol-based Aardman<\/a> studios. Early sketches for Nick Park\u2019s much-loved characters reveal that Wallace was once just a few bristles short of Hitler, while Gromit had fangs and the ability to speak.<\/p>\n Such designs were judiciously smoothed along the way: Gromit became toothless and mute, and Wallace\u2019s long, thin face was massaged into something wider and friendlier after Park watched Peter Sallis, the original voice of Wallace, enunciating the word \u201ccheese\u201d.<\/p>\n Timmy from Shaun the Sheep on display. Photograph: David Parry\/PA Media Assignments\/PA<\/p>\n Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends opens on Thursday and runs until 25 November, two months after the release of the studio\u2019s third Shaun the Sheep movie, The Beast of Mossy Bottom. Aardman, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, is one of UK film\u2019s most enduring and endearing success stories, with a current total of four Oscars and eight Baftas.<\/p>\n Its first film, Chicken Run, is still the highest-grossing stop-motion movie of all time, taking $225m \u2013 about five times its budget \u2013 while its latest, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, became the BBC\u2019s most-watched scripted show in two decades after it aired on Christmas Day in 2024.<\/p>\n Sales for the exhibition are comparable to those enjoyed at the V&A\u2019s main site in South Kensington. More than a quarter of the tickets have already gone, and the first three weeks are entirely sold out.<\/p>\n Over 150 items are on display, including never-before-seen models, sets and storyboards from Aardman\u2019s archives. They are all the more precious for their scarcity. A fire destroyed thousands of items in 2005, including the original Creature Comforts and Chicken Run models.<\/p>\n Peter Lord (right) and David Sproxton photographed in 2018 with one of their earliest creations, Morph. Photograph: Adrian Sherrat\/Adrian Sherratt<\/p>\n The exhibition\u2019s layout intends to recreate the experience of touring the company\u2019s studios, offering children \u201ca peek behind the curtain\u201d \u2013 and hopefully inspiring them to similar endeavours said the chief curator, Alex Newson. Boards around the four large rooms precis the key jobs across the studio \u2013 such as writer, puppet maker and director of photography \u2013 and the skillsets needed.<\/p>\n Aardman\u2019s co-founders, Peter Lord and David Sproxton, began modelling together as schoolboys in the 1960s on Lord\u2019s kitchen table in Woking. \u201cOur working hours were constrained by mealtimes,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had to finish by 6pm and get out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n They borrowed a 16mm clockwork camera from Sproxton\u2019s father, \u201cwhich meant we were in an unusual and privileged position\u201d, Lord said. \u201cNow it\u2019s democratic because everyone\u2019s got a camera. And it\u2019s such a powerful thing for young people to be able to bring something to life.\u201d<\/p>\n The studio was founded in 1976, then given fresh energy by Park\u2019s arrival in 1985. It now employs more than 500 people.<\/p>\n \u201cAardman is an incredibly complex and skilled operation,\u201d said Newson. \u201cIt\u2019s also slow. Each animator only produces around two seconds of footage a day. Yet it\u2019s one of the most accessible creative processes; even a small child can grasp it.\u201d<\/p>\n The exhibition offers ample opportunity for children to get hands-on \u2013 repeat visits are encouraged and included in the price. One area enables them to shoot a 20-frame stop-motion short using Playmobil figures, while another offers the tools \u2013 rubber gloves, drumsticks and coconuts \u2013 for them to provide a soundtrack.<\/p>\n The ship from The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! on display in the exhibition. Photograph: David Parry\/PA Media Assignments\/PA<\/p>\n Many models on display are designed to be handled, as are samples of their malleable metal skeletons. One scene featuring Feathers McGraw \u2013 Wallace and Gromit\u2019s sinister penguin nemesis \u2013 is set up so visitors can manipulate the lighting rig and witness the dramatic effect that subtle changes can make.<\/p>\n The demographic of visitors is likely to stretch beyond primary school age, but the exhibits have been tailored to children. \u201cWhat we see with kids is that they run to the interactive things first,\u201d said Newson. \u201cWithout those things to do, they won\u2019t engage with things in cases and on the walls.\u201d<\/p>\n These include meticulous models such as Gromit\u2019s vegetable patch, the local museum from The Wrong Trousers and a remarkably large and detailed ship from 2012\u2019s The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! \u2013 which Lord says is the exhibit of which he\u2019s fondest. \u201cI love that thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a totem for the whole production: wonderful, bonkers, mad.\u201d<\/p>\n Scores of spare mouths are on display \u2013 inserted and ejected from figurines to speed production \u2013 likewise a selection of everyday objects occasionally drafted in, such as clingfilm, tinfoil, icing sugar and lentils, the lentils used as rivets on Wallace\u2019s space rocket.<\/p>\n Gromit in the greenhouse model used in the filming of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit at the Young V&A in London. Photograph: Tolga Akmen\/EPA<\/p>\n TV screens explain various Aardman idiosyncrasies, such as the \u201cmodel hospital\u201d that specialises in ear repair and eye wiping. One striking video shows Park acting out storyboards with co-directors, the better to later recreate plausible facial expressions in clay.<\/p>\n Park can appear a self-effacing figure on awards podiums, but such footage reveals him to be a highly adept and rubbery performer, a match for any of the A-listers he brings on board for voice work.<\/p>\n Many of Aardman\u2019s films have explored the tension between embracing technical advance and being wary of it turning on its originators, but the exhibition suggests the studio has found a happy medium. Thumbprints are generally left intact, but cutting-edge software is employed to aid innovation. \u201cThe digital processes support the handcrafted processes,\u201d said Newson.<\/p>\n \u201cStop-motion is maybe more loved than it ever has been. It\u2019s not an antidote to AI, but there is something about its homespun nature that resonates. It\u2019s a counterpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n Feathers McGraw\u2019s cell from Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Photograph: David Parry\/PA<\/p>\n That such a sentiment has international reach is supported by Aardman\u2019s theme parks in Japan, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia, as well as outside Liverpool. Wallace and Gromit are remarkably popular in South Korea, but the lack of dialogue in Shaun the Sheep helps to explain why those characters account for 35% of the studio\u2019s overseas business.<\/p>\n Other diffusion lines include a Shaun circus show, scheduled to open in Manchester this year, partnerships with hotels and restaurants, and a few on-the-hoof ventures. The Shaun the Sheep restaurant in Dubai<\/a>, for instance, with its menu of lamb\u2019s brain, tongue, eyes, brain and trotters, is unlikely to be official.<\/p>\n The concepts behind the exhibition have been road-tested by years of schools\u2019 workshops and young internships pioneered by the company, said Newson. For Lord, his involvement in the former has led him to believe the \u201csimple pleasure\u201d of working with clay remains consistent. \u201cModelling is engrossing,\u201d he said, and it can work in symbiosis with the attractions of an smartphone.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we do at Aardman is really technical and complicated. It requires great skill and great patience, but even so, it\u2019s basically telling jokes and funny stories and creating good characters. Yes, we\u2019ve done clay for 50 years. But we\u2019ve also done play.\u201d<\/p>\n