Award-winning designer Jon Bausor has released a limited edition of facemasks based on the original artwork for hit show The Grinning Man.
Created to raise money for theatrical charities and launched to coincide with the streaming of Bristol Old Vic’s critically-acclaimed production, the masks have been made by ethically paid freelance costume makers who had been volunteering their time during lockdown to make scrubs for the NHS.
Printed free of charge by the theatrical printers Prompt Side – the printers of the stage backdrops for the original show – 100% of the profits will go directly to the Theatrical Guild, Acting For Others and the Fleabag Support Fund.
Both the show’s Grimpayne, Louis Maskell and Andy Serkis, whose company Imaginarium has recorded a motion-capture film version of the show, are supporting the project by releasing photographs of themselves wearing the prototypes of the masks.
Further details on how to purchase the masks can be found on Instagram @grinningmasks and on the website.
Directed by the Bristol Old Vic’s Tony Award-winning artistic director Tom Morris (War Horse) and based on the Victor Hugo novel The Man Who Laughs, the gothic love story which premiered at the Bristol Old Vic in late 2016 before playing a successful season in the West End will be available on YouTube as part of the Bristol Arts Channel until 3 July 2020.
Written by Kneehigh Theatre Company’s writer Carl Grose and with a score by Tim Phillips and Marc Teitler, the revised production reunited director Morris with two puppeteers from the original War Horse, Finn Caldwell and Toby Olié (from puppetry company Gyre & Gimble). Bausor’s original set designs earned him a UK Theatre Award in 2017.
Angela Thomas
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