CROSGROVE HALL. Cosgrove Hall Archive

Lauriston Gallery, 20 Oct 17 - 17 Feb 18

Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, animators, and founders of Cosgrove first me whilst studying at Manchester Regional College of Art and Design (now MMU), Hall was studying illustration and Cosgrove was studying graphic design. They were later reunited whilst working at the ITV company Granada, where they both produced graphics for a range of television programmes including local News, documentaries and quiz shows. Due to the success of his first animated cartoon The Canary, Brian Cosgrove went on to direct and produce the animated series The Magic Ball (1971 – 72), and Mark Hall was brought on as background animator.

Followed by his friend Brian Cosgrove, Mark Hall left Granada in 1971 to form the independent company Stop Frame Animations. Stop Frame Animations made commercials, short films and series throughout the early seventies including, Sally and Jake for Rainbow (1972) and Noddy (1974). In pursuit of more creative freedom both Cosgrove and Hall decided to leave Stop Frame Productions behind, they detached themselves from Granada Television for the time being and signed a deal with Thames Television.  

Cosgrove Hall Films was established on the 1st of January 1976 on Albany Road in Chorlton- Cum- Hardy in Manchester. Over the next quarter of a century, the studio bought together some of the biggest talents, puppet-makers, actors, and animators in the UK to create some of the best loved characters in children’s animation, Dangermouse, Count Duckula and Chorlton & the Wheelies amongst many. The studio produced high quality animation specialising in both hand drawn, and stop motion bringing characters from popular childhood fiction to life in animations such as Roald Dahl’s The BFG (1989) and Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willow (1938)

Mark Hall sadly passed in 2011 but Brian Cosgrove has been instrumental in helping bring this archive to Waterside Arts Centre so that the public can once again enjoy the puppets, the animations and the stories behind the people who brought them to life.

Curator: Rachel Dargavel-Leafe

Images by Jason Lock