Had a lovely time designing this handbook from the Institute of Eggsperts, for the outdoor children's show Call of Nature. This is the first big printing job I've had which isn't a poster or a flyer, and it is very odd and exciting seeing it completed and looking like a real book.

At the same time I was designing this pop-up laboratory, also from the Institute. The brilliant Martin Campbell moved into Southside Studios, and it has been great to have him around. I saw a recent piece of his which used this wooden meccano technique, so I drew up a plan for the lab based on it, Martin made it and I painted and finished it. It fastens together using wooden pegs, and is windproof but also very lightweight. These kind of spontaneous collaborations make the studios an exciting place to be, and help us all raise our game.

The first performance of Call of Nature is this Sunday, and I can't wait to see everything coming together into a show!

This video is everything I documented on my phone during the build up to Uncanny Valley. It stops a bit abruptly when we got to tech week as I didn't have time to document that, so I have used production shots to try and fill in the gaps.

Uncanny Valley is an interactive show for 8-12 year olds written by Rob Drummond, it asks big questions of it's young audience and delivers a great story which brings those questions to life.

After months of hard work from everybody involved with this project, Uncanny Valley previewed this week at the Edinburgh Science Festival. This was my first time designing a full theatre show, and I had an absolute blast. Director Emily Reutlinger brought me and the brilliant Kate Bonney onto the team, and together we all explored the visual world of a teenager and her artificial best friend. Emily had strong ideas about how she wanted it to be and filled the piece with real human emotion, and Kate elevated the scope of our work by introducing responsive and adaptive lighting, which brought the objects and their environment to life. The world of the play became a CMYK-cyber-dreamy-future-scape. Which is basically my happy place.

To have the actors - Rob, Pamela and Kirsty - work so hard with the set and the objects I've made to bring them to life was a real treat. It's one thing to design and make an object, but it's another thing altogether to see an audience engaging with it like it is a sentient being! That is entirely down to the skill of the performers, and I'm amazed at what they achieved. The artificial characters were reviewed alongside their actor counterparts, with no mention of object manipulation or puppetry.

This could only have succeeded with Emily's vision, Kate's technical wizardry and the cast's persistent hard work.

If you're interested you can read some reviews below -
**** SCOTSMAN
**** HERALD
**** ALL EDINBURGH THEATRE
***** MUMBLE THEATRE
**** EDINBURGH GUIDE
**** BROADWAY BABY