Description:

Author, broadcaster and comedian Phill Jupitus will be in Bristol on Sunday 27 July to host an Encounters Short Film Festival tribute to a hero of British animation - Oliver Postgate - and his best-loved characters, including BAGPUSS, THE CLANGERS, THE POGLES and NOGGIN THE NOG.

The afternoon of TV nostalgia is being staged at Watershed, next to Bristol Harbour, to mark the 50^th anniversary of the start of Oliver Postgate's stop-motion career and of Smallfilms, the company he founded with artist and puppet-maker, Peter Firmin.

With the help of guests, film clips and audience contributions, longtime fan Phill Jupitus will look at how Postgate and Firmin found the inspiration for saggy baggy BAGPUSS and their many other series, and explore why the stories and characters still delight today.

For PHILL, BAGPUSS & FRIENDS, Phill Jupitus will be joined on stage by Smallfilms' archivist and publisher, Loaf, and by Barry Purves, whose own award-winning stop-mo work includes animations for Aardman and Cosgrove Hall and on feature films including Tim Burton's MARS ATTACKS!

Phill Jupitus says: "Few people who grew up during the creative hotbed of 1960s children's television can fail to have been affected by Oliver Postgate's work. Whether it was the pastoral joy of Pogles Wood, or the nordic splendour of Noggin The Nog. These were programmes that told beautiful, engaging and simple stories with an underlying sophistication..."

Tickets are £8 (£6 concessions). To book, visit or write to the Watershed box office, at 1 Canons Road, Bristol, BS1 5TX; telephone 0117 927 5100 or book online at www.watershed.co.uk

PHILL, BAGPUSS & FRIENDS is the latest in a series to be produced by Chris Daniels for the Encounters Short Film Festival, to remember and applaud Britain's animation heritage and heroes.  Previous shows have focused on Gordon Murray's Trumptonshire tales (TRUMPTON, CAMBERWICK GREEN and CHIGLEY) and on MORPH, the character credited with establishing Aardman Animations as a company destined for success.