Ploo - Aardman's new venture

Animation firm Aardman yesterday ramped up its warning that it may be forced to move jobs aborad because of other countries’ lucrative tax breaks.

The award-winning company, which employs 250 people in Bristol, is set to begin production on its new series Ploo next month.

But it said that just a handful of the 40 new jobs created for the £3million project were expected to be filled at the city’s Harbourside headquarters.

Instead, Aardman has insisted once again it may move production to Germany where it can take advantage of tax concessions.

Miles Bullough, the head of broadcast at Aardman, has previously lobbied the government to bring in tax credits for the industry which will rival arrangements in Ireland, Canada, France and Germany.

But in an interview with the New Statesman, he said: “Clearly our politicians can’t wave a magic wand and make everyone else’s tax credits go away.

“But we have asked for a credit of 15% to 20% on corporation tax to be introduced, along similar lines to the film tax credit. Then we can catch up with the competition in one leap.”

The firm, launched 40 years ago, is best known for its Wallace and Gromit series which picked up three Oscars in the 1990s.

Ploo, which is aimed at the pre-school market, has already attracted a lot of interest from big broadcasters with Mr Bullough claiming a dozen companies are ready to buy it.

Aardman has been lobbying since last year for the UK film tax credit — worth 15%-20% of the cost of production — to be extended to children’s animation.

Mr Bulluogh told Deadline magazine in November: “For us to consider moving overseas is wrong, but unless we get a level playing field we will have to consider going.

“Prime Minister David Cameron and arts minister Ed Vaizey both came to visit and gave us a sympathetic hearing, but you never know with politicians.”

The British company is on a high at the moment following the success of its Christmas movie Arthur Christmas – its first with Sony Pictures.

However, its next big screen release, Pirates!, has prompted anger from charities over its depiction of a leprosy sufferer.

Following complaints the animation firm agreed to change a scene in the trailer “out of respect and sensitivity” for people with the condition.

Bristol-born author Andrew Miller is looking forward to “a little frivolity” after winning the Costa Book of the Year award last night.

Mr Miller’s book Pure was praised by the judges as a “vivid rendition” of the French revolution era.

The 51-year-old, who now lives in Somerset, saw off the challenge of bookies’ favourite Matthew Hollis, whose biography of poet Edward Thomas was tipped to win.

Speaking to reporters last night, the novelist said he would spend his £35,000 prize money on “living”.

“It’s not as if writers tend to be particularly wealthy people. I certainly have no private income,” he said.

“What money we raise through events like this we pay the mortgage I’m afraid, we live off it. There may be a little frivolity, some nice shoes or something, but basically you live off it.”

Pure is the story of a young engineer sent to Paris on the orders of the king to demolish an ancient cemetery that is overflowing with the dead.

Mr Miller said this morning on the BBC Breakfast show that his inspiration came from living in the city and reading French novelist Philippe Ariès’s, The Hour of Our Death. He added we would now take a break from writing.

“I read it [The Hour of Our Death] a few years ago. When you read something, it begins a process of proliferation in the mind but it took years to find the story.

“To write about places like Paris is one of the pleasures of writing. I lived in paris for a while and it never fails to inspire.

“I’ll be having a little pause now and I’m not looking for inspiration at the moment. All books should be given time.”

London Evening Standard editor Geordie Greig, who chaired the judging panel, praised the book’s “vivid rendition” of the era, but admitted the panel had been split with “quite bitter dissent” with some judges backing Mr Hollis.

He said the novel was “a morality tale that engrosses with its vivid rendition of pre-revolutionary France”.

Brisfest 2011 in the city centre

Bristol’s summer music festival will return to its “spiritual home” of Ashton Court, after Bristol City Council approved plans for the grand return.

The Bristol Festival Community Group, a charitable organisation managed by volunteers, has run BrisFest in the city centre since 2008, after the demise of the Ashton Court Festival in 2007.

The annual event, thought to be Britain’s biggest free festival attracting up to 60,000 people, had run since 1974 but went bankrupt in 2007.

The event predominantly promoted local artists, but in later years saw the addition of top UK acts headlining, including Portishead, Feeder, Robert Plant, The Stranglers, Kosheen, Super Furry Animals, Roni Size, Plan B and Simple Minds.

BrisFest began the following year as a two-day event, attended by some 14,000 people. The festival expanded to three days in 2009 and 2010, when visitor numbers grew to 16,000. About 25,000 people attended the event in 2011.

Now, having secured a pledge for 10,000 people to buy tickets for the new festival, the council has given the green light for the move to Ashton Court.

Organiser Poppy Stephenson, of the Bristol Festival Community Group, told the BBC: “Having started off on a smaller scale, we’ve built BrisFest from the ground up over the last four years.

“We now have the people, the resources and the systems we need to bring us home to Ashton Court, our ‘spiritual home’.”

The group is aiming for 40,000 people to turn up for the event over two days, which will be held on the weekend of September 22 and 23.

For tickets, and to find out more about the festival and the Bristol Festival Community Group, click here…

Adge Cutler

A song released to raise money to place a tribute statue to late Wurzels frontman Adge Cutler in his home town of Nailsea has failed to sell a single copy.

Tribute band, The Cornish Wurzells, released their song ‘Drink Up Yer Scrumpy’ as an MP3 download in November.

But yesterday, keyboard player Terry Pascoe – who also played in the Wurzels in the 1980s – said they had so far failed to sell a single copy.

The group had hoped to raise £40,000 for a statue to be erected in Mr Cutler’s home town.

Mr Pascoe said: ”We’ve not had a single download from either iTunes or Amazon. ’But we’re not quitters, we’ll let it run its course and review it in a year’s time.”

The Wurzels had hits with songs such as Combine Harvester and I Am A Cider Drinker in the 1970s.

Mr Pascoe added: ”Without Adge there would be no Combine Harvester or Cider Drinker. He was a quality writer, there’s alliteration in his songs – all the things you find in classic English language.”

Adge Cutler died in a car crash at the age of 42 in 1974.

Tickets for a music and comedy gig to raise funds for the victims and their families of the M5 crash in Somerset earlier this month have gone on sale.

While the gig was initially going to be in Bristol, organiser John Langley has now secured the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare to stage the event on December 4.

The event will take place four weeks since the tragedy, in which seven people lost their lives in poor visibility on the Taunton strech of the motorway.

Headlining the music will be The Overtones, and supported by other acts including the Bristol-based comedian Mark Olver.

A minute’s silence will also be held during the gig to honour those who died, those who were injured and the families of both.

Tickets for the event at the Grand Pier in Weston are for over 18s only, and are priced £15. Details can be found at http://bristolticketshop.co.uk or by calling 0870 44 44 400.

Bristol24-7 is proud to have provided our graphic designer Tracey Feltham to design the poster for the event!

The Arnolfini in Bristol is celebrating its 50th birthday

One of the UK’s leading cultural centres, Arnolfini in Bristol, marked its 50th anniversary over the weekend with the launch of a major exhibition.

Established by three artists, Jeremy and Annabel Rees, and John Orsborn, Arnolfini began life in 1961 as a gallery above a bookshop on the Triangle in Clifton, moving to its current home on Bristol Harbourside in 1975.

The name was chosen by Jeremy Rees, after Jan van Eyck’s painting The Arnolfini Portrait, in the National Gallery.

To mark the anniversary, the centre hosted a weekend of music, arts and the launch of Museum Show – a “museum of museums” – the first exhibition to chart the tendency in modern and contemporary art to present “idiosyncratic, semi-fictional institutions”.

The first show runs until November 19, then Museum Show Part 2 kicks off on December 9 including, among others, the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind, by Khalil Rabah.

Artistic director and chief executive Tom Trevor said: “We have been celebrating our 50th anniversary throughout 2011 and the programme has been packed with really excellent exhibitions, performances and special events.

“When Arnolfini opened, the founding Director Jeremy Rees wanted to put a plaque above the door saying ‘Enjoy Yourself!’. Although this inscription never appeared above the door, the spirit remains, in this our 50th anniversary year – we hope you ‘enjoy yourself’.”

For more information about the Museum show exhibition, visit the Arnolfini website…

Teenagers are more likely to try cigarettes if they see actors smoking in films, research from Bristol University has suggested.

The findings have led to calls for films which glamorise the habit to carry the same age classification as those containing sex and violence.

The research revealed that 15-year-olds who saw the most films showing smoking were 73% more likely to have tried a cigarette than those exposed to the least. They were also almost 50% more likely to be a current smoker than those least exposed.

And even after taking account of alcohol use and smoking among their peers, both of which are known to influence initiation of smoking, these teenagers were still 32% more likely to have tried a cigarette themselves.

The UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies wants such films to fall under the same stringent rules applied to films showing violence and sex, arguing that children need to be protected from potentially harmful imagery.

The study, using data collected from the Children of the 90s project, looked at 5,166 15-year-olds and asked whether they had seen 50 films which were randomly selected from 366 box office hits released between 2001 and 2005 and compared these findings with whether they had ever tried a cigarette or were current smokers.

Dr Waylen, from the School of Oral and Dental Sciences, said: “More than half the films shown in the UK that contain smoking are rated UK15 or below, so children and young teenagers are clearly exposed.

“Our results confirm an association between this exposure and youth smoking in this country, indicating that raising the certification to 18 in the UK is likely to lower smoking rates among youth.

“Given that smoking depictions in films are not consistent with the ban on smoking in public places in the UK and that the relationship may be causal, a precautionary principle should be pursued. Films ought to be rated by exposure to smoking in the same way that they are currently rated by level of violence. Smoking and its adverse consequences are certainly a larger public health problem. Such a policy would also make the movie ratings system consistent with the ban on tobacco advertising in all other media.”

The British Board of Film Classification said its current guidelines were “proportionate; take due account of the available evidence of harm; and reflect the clear wishes of the public”.

Pictures by Savannah Clark

Few can have missed the colourful, life-size Wow! Gorillas sculptures on the streets of Bristol this summer.

The 61 fibreglass gorilla statues appeared all over the streets and parks of the city in celebration of Bristol Zoo’s 175th birthday.

But today, the gorillas are to be moved in preparation for their sale at auction later this month to raise money for Bristol Zoo’s gorilla conservation projects and Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Appeal, The Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity.

Wendy Walton, head of commercial operations at Bristol Zoo, said: “We have all been bowled over by how popular Wow! Gorillas has been this summer. The success has been fantastic and we are thrilled with how everyone has really taken them to their hearts.

“I think the gorillas will be missed, but there will be another opportunity to visit all 61 gorillas in one place as they visit Bristol Zoo for a ‘Goodbye Gorillas’ event later this month.”

Gorilla facts

• Members of the public have picked up 75,000 Wow! Gorillas trail maps
• 35,000 copies of the map have been downloaded from the Zoo website
• The Wow! Gorillas Facebook page now has over 10,000 fans
• The mobile phone apps have been downloaded 5,000 times

The Wow! Gorillas will be on display at the Zoo from Saturday, September 24 until Wednesday, September 28. The sculpture entitled ‘Gorilla Tourist’, which is currently in Birmingham, will be outside the front of the Zoo for the public to visit for free.

Then, on September 29, the sculptures will be sold at the auction at the Victoria Rooms, Clifton, and will include a drinks reception and live music from leading Afro Celt band Baka Beyond.

Lauren Vincent, fundraising manager from Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, The Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity, said: “The Grand Appeal is delighted to be part of the Wow! Gorillas project and it has been so exciting to see the Gorillas all over  Bristol in all their glory this summer.

“We are very much looking forward to the auction of the Gorillas in September, which will raise vital funds for our Echocardiogram Appeal which will help save the lives of sick children at Bristol Children’s Hospital.”

Tickets for the auction are available for the auction from www.bristolzoo.org.uk/wow-gorillas or by phoning 0117 9747 300. Tickets are priced at £10 and spaces are strictly limited.

Sealed bids can be made in advance, and telephone bids will be taken on the night. For further information contact Judy Tucker on jtucker@bristolzoo.org.uk.

Tracey Emin

An exhibition by British artist Tracey Emin goes on display in Bristol today, days after her work took its place at 10 Downing Street.

Do Not Abandon Me is a collaborative exhibition of 16 intimate works made over two years at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) featuring the work of Emin and Louise Bourgeois.

The late French-American artist was a founder of confessional art. She died last year but carried on working until just one week before her death. She handed her final set of prints to Emin, who eventually added to the work, carrying them around the world with her until she overcame her fear of touching them.

The joint exhibition contains drawings exploring the themes of identity, sexuality and the fear of loss and abandonment.

Today’s opening marks the latest in a series of events connected to Emin, who despite being 48 is still referred to as one of the icons of ‘young British’ artists.

Last week, David Cameron installed a neon artwork by the controversial artist in No 10. The neon artwork titled More Passion raised eyebrows, as the prime minister attempted to “balance the new image of Cameron the moral conservative backlash-surfer with a sop to contemporary cultural cool”.

The Guardian’s arts writer Jonathan Jones said Emin – who came to fame in the 1990s with her Turner Prize-winning unmade bed – was a conservative icon for the supposed moral decay which led to last month’s riots.

“This woman first became famous because she put the names of her lovers on a tent,” he wrote. “She photographed herself sitting in a pile of cash and appeared drunk on live television. Her much-debated Turner prize exhibit was an unmade bed cluttered with evidence of a lifestyle the columnist Melanie Phillips, whose trenchant social views Cameron now appears to side with, would have no trouble diagnosing as morally sick and probably the product of a broken home.”

Meanwhile, yesterday it emerged Emin will work with artist-designer Pascal Anson has been chosen to have his artwork painted on a fleet of British Airways planes flying in and out of London during the 2012 Olympics.

The RWA exhibition will be open Monday to Saturday from 9.30am-5pm and on Sunday from 11am-5pm from today until October 23. Admission costs £5, concessions £3. Under 16s get in free but due to the adult nature of the content may not be suitable for this age group. You can view the works here…

Bristol City Council has bought into the idea of a major music festival in the city next year, and wants to talk to all interested parties to “make something happen”.

Following the success of the See No Evil street art project last weekend, in which much of Nelson Street in the city centre was transformed by some of the world’s best graffiti artists, officials are looking to create a festival that will attract A-list stars.

Mike Bennett, in charge of marketing the city to the world, aims to speak to local businesses next month in the hope of attracting supporting for the venture.

Bristol already has smaller scale music festivals, such as Brisfest which will take place next month, but Mr Bennett wants one big event that can attract the kind of international attention the See No Evil project has seen.

But the council’s communications director Peter Holt told Bristol24-7 yesterday that although the council has aspirations for the festival it is too early to speculate who might play and what form the event will take.

“We don’t have plans, so much, as aspirations,” he said. “Thinking is at a pretty early stage – no acts are booked or dates fixed – and the council is unlikely to be moving into the music promoter business itself, as much as we are interested in whether others might want to stage events.”

He added that the council is merely buying in to an idea that has been floating around for some years, using Bristol’s outdoor spaces, particularly Ashton Court, as well as the city’s more established venues such as the O2 Academy and Colston Hall.

Recent comments concerning the idea were, he said, essentially demonstrating the council’s enthusiasm for such a project, “and to kick-start a wider conversation with interested parties, to see if we can help make something happen”.