Guests of Honor - The Mongrels Crew
This year, it is our honour to announce 3 talented Guests of Honour, from ‘The Mongrels’ the hit BBC comedy, Warrick Brownlow-Pike, Andy Heath and Iestyn Evans.
Performing as Marion the cat, Warrick Brownlow-Pike has had a distinguished career in TV puppetry, performing on some on Britain’s best loved and most watched children’s shows, the BAFTA nominated game Hacker & Dodge's PUPSTARS and most recently the Muppets next feature film “Muppets Most Wanted”.
The passion for puppets and performing began young for Warrick, at the age of 2, inspired by the work of Jim Henson on The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street. Early on he began to create puppets and practice, thereby transforming himself into not only a puppeteer, but also a writer, director and consultant for various projects, chief among which are working with The Jim Henson company on their latest project, performing with The Muppets in their latest movie and of course our fandom’s favourite puppet show Mongrels.
Warrick has been performing Dodge the Dog on CBBC since 2010, and Oucho the Cactus in the same role and in his own series since 2007. He also performs a character called Jobi in a pre-school series called ‘Get Well Soon’.
Andy Heath is best known to us for his portrayal as Nelson the fox though also did work on ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ and performed on MTV’s ‘Fur TV’.
He also has the acclaim as puppeteering during the ‘Gorillaz Demon Days: Live at the Manchester Opera House’ special show and the current YouTube series ‘Bruce & Luther’ along side another of our Guests of Honour, the talented Iestyn Evans.
Iestyn says there is some debate in his family whether he began puppeteering before he could walk. Working in puppetry has certainly given him some amazing opportunities, from performing giant marionettes in an Opera in Germany, to interviewing doggy dancers at Crufts. As well as performing Kali the pigeon in Mongrels, Iestyn's work for television includes The Roly Mo Show, (which was nominated for a BAFTA), and the music video for Coldplay's single Talk. Live performances include the 2011 BBC Proms, performing alongside Andy and Warrick, and the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. This year has also seen Iestyn performing in the new Muppet movie, making squirrels for the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Musical, and he is often know to dash off to perform with his puppet improvisation group, Glitch.
In 2012 Iestyn and Andy won a Royal Television Society Award for their work designing and creating the puppets for Mongrels, with their company Talk to the Hand.
So get ready to share their knowledge, stories, experience and laughter at this years Eurofurence!