Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park unveils Feathers McGraw statue in Preston

Lancashire Post

The evil penguin has his beady eyes on the much-loved duo's own statue nearby.  Nick Park was the guest of honour at the official opening of Preston's new Animate cinema and leisure complex.

Transcript

00:00And we need to welcome a very special person. He is an honorary Freeman of our city, a proud

00:11Prestonian, a multi-Academy Award winner. And currently an Academy Award nominee for

00:24Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Foul. So, animator of great distinction, Mr Nick Park,

00:41CBE. So, without further ado, can I invite Mr Nick Park, CBE, Freeman of the City of

00:51Preston, accompanied by our Mayor, Councillor Phil Crow, to unveil this new piece of public

00:57art which signifies the opening of Animate Preston. Thank you. Right, can we manage a

01:03countdown, do you think? Can we start from 10? 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

01:15As a proud Prestonian, it is my great honour to be here with the Mayor unveiling this iconic

01:34character in the centre of my home city of Preston. Panther and Roar, as you know, completes

01:44the set of Wallace and Gromit and the entire cast of The Wrong Trail. I'm sure Wallace

01:51and Gromit would be very pleased, if maybe a little bit too close for comfort. And it's

01:59perfect timing too, because Feathers of a Crawl only very recently became the most popular

02:08trending image that people were asking for, into two feathers. It was quite by accident,

02:16really. And it's perhaps a testament to how evil, cool and infamous he has become. In

02:24fact, you could say about all the characters that they do have a lot of metal. Sorry about

02:32that. That was terrible. Like has already been said, Christopher Banks, Chris Jones

02:42and the whole team at Castle Fine Arts Foundation have done an amazing job and Ian Banks has

02:51helped a lot to pull this off. And Merlin around here, of course, played a role in all

02:57of this. Thank you everybody. I'm very proud to be here today. Thank you.

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