You may remember that last October we celebrated 'Thra-lloween' with a host of virtual activities, such as a Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance watch-along & commentary with the wonderful Warrick Brownlow-Pike & Fabulous Louise Gold. In case you missed it, here it is! This is lots of fun, enjoy :)

Both Louise & Warrick will be at The Great Con-Junction in November and can't wait to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of The Dark Crystal with all the Thralings in attendance.

In 1982 Jim Henson had the idea of creating a Dark Crystal Clothing Collection, meant to celebrate the distinctive costumes and graphic elements in the film.

He commissioned the London-based design team working in his Creature Shop to create a “dramatic haute-couture collection” that reflected the “style, richness and jewel toned colour” of the film. Hand-made with hand-screened prints on silk, suede, taffeta, and leather and hand-loomed knits, each garment or accessory showcased the specific talents of the designers and costumers that had come together to work on the film. The group included Shirley Denney, Ellis Flyte, Val Jones, Lesja Lieber, Diana Moseley, and Cas Willing. Using elements from the film, they designed outfits for both day and evening, along with hats, gloves, belts and jewellery – human-sized projects reflective of the items made for the film characters.

After 40 years, these stunning items still look just as good, and 9 outfits will be displayed in our DARK CRYSTAL MUSEUM area.

A wonderful snap of the team working on clothing collection;

We are so delighted to announce that Beccy Henderson will be joining us for The Great Con-Junction in November!

Beccy Henderson is an actress and puppeteer best known for performing Deet in Netflix's 'The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance' and the bespectacled geek 'Aisling' in Channel 4's breakout comedy 'Derry Girls'.

As a member of the core puppetry team for 'The Dark Crystal', Beccy performs multiple other characters in the series including the fierce Gelfling Naia, Maudra Seethi of the Dousan clan and Juni from the Order of Lesser Service, as well as assisting with the Skeksis and countless other creatures. 

She also lent her voice to various characters including Deet's baby brother Bobb'n, Maudra Ethri, the Thrushpogs and Brea's filthy podling. 

Before landing her first original puppet character, Beccy had been an assistant puppeteer on a number of UK projects including 'Pajanimals', 'That Puppet Game Show' (Jim Henson Company), 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' (Disney), 'Wildwoods' (Sixteen South) and 'The Secret Life of Boys' (Cbbc).

More recently, she has puppeteered on the Creature Effects teams for Netflix's 'School for Good and Evil', and Disney's 'Willow'.

The idea for the design of the Mystics came from the Artist & Illustrator Brian Froud's Trolls - pictured above, can you see the resemblance? In a talk at the BFI in 2019, Brian explained to the audience that the extra 2 arms were added just to differentiate the trolls from the Mystics. If you haven't already got Brian Froud's Trolls book, we would highly recommend it!

The answer will be posted on our Instagram on Wednesday

Answer to last weeks Quiz question: b) Neil Sterenberg