Beyond Bagpuss

Chris Pallant has dived deep and long, leaving no stone unturned, and has finally come up for air with a valuable treasure-trove of thoroughly researched facts and enlightening insights into the weird and whimsical worlds from the studios of Smallfilms. -- Daniel Postgate, Smallfilms Ltd/Quintet Pictures, UK
In an eagerly awaited study, Pallant finally places the extraordinary worlds of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin at Smallfilms into proper perspective as one of the most significant achievements in British Animation. Using primary interviews, rare archival holdings, and an extensive audience study, Pallant pieces together a detailed, thematically-driven, history of production and reception, offering astute insights about the distinctive aesthetic ‘stillness’ and craft values of Smallfilms’ folk art. This is not merely a reiteration of the whimsy and nostalgia often invoked by the iconic Bagpuss, however, but a thorough interrogation of Smallfilms’ meaning and affect. -- Paul Wells, Loughborough University, UK
Chris Pallant shines a fine scholarly light on to the story of Smallfilms, a little studio begun in a barn in the Kentish countryside, that created some of the most memorable British children’s programs of the Twentieth Century. -- Tom Sito, University of Southern California, USA
A thorough, engaging and innovative study of the creative pairing of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin which not only offers fresh insight into Smallfilms' much-loved classics like Bagpuss and The Clangers, but also greatly expands our understanding of lesser-known works which are ripe for rediscovery. -- Jez Stewart, British Film Institute, UK
Pallant’s diligent research into Smallfilms and his broader handling of animation’s chaotic journey from production to reception is always considerate and typically well informed, and it serves to reveal precisely how Postgate and Firmin’s impact upon British cultural history was anything but small. * Journal of British Cinema and Television *