Wallace and Gromit feel thoroughly British: a cheese-loving inventor in a knitted tank top and his silent, long-suffering beagle, living in a northern terrace where tea and crackers are never far away. Nick Park’s films pair gentle eccentricity with dry humour, visual puns in every frame and handmade models that still show the animators’ fingerprints, and Gromit’s wordless raised brow says more than dialogue ever could. Christmas television regulars for more than three decades, they are the natural stars of Aardman’s anniversary celebration. Pure magic!

Few British studios are loved as widely as Aardman Animations, and in its 50th anniversary year Lightroom in King’s Cross is giving that affection a suitably huge stage. It is spectacular and stunning show.

The year has already been a busy one for fans, with the Young V&A’s Inside Aardman exhibition and a new Shaun the Sheep film, The Beast of Mossy Bottom, on the way. Larger Than Life: Starring Wallace & Gromit, Shaun and More is the latest chapter, taking visitors behind the scenes of the four-time Oscar-winning studio in a 50-minute immersive experience with no interval. It follows the story of Britain’s favourite clay-animation characters through archive footage, animation and behind-the-scenes material. It is as much about creativity, humour and craftsmanship as it is about the imaginative characters themselves.

The story begins at a kitchen table, where Peter Lord and David Sproxton made their first stop-motion experiments. In 1976 Aardman released its first professional production, starring the irrepressible Morph. The studio went on to build an international reputation on handmade models, tactile materials, sharp visual humour and frame-by-frame animation. Every film is shaped slowly, one tiny movement at a time. That approach matters to Nick Park, who has argued that today’s animators rely too much on technology and that Wallace and Gromit didn’t appear overnight.

Five decades on, Aardman’s work shows that painstaking, hands-on craft can sit alongside technological innovation without losing the individuality of the artist’s hand. And it’s all to be discovered at Lightroom in London in this amazing show.

Lightroom’s four-storey space suits that craft well. The show fills four walls, each 11 metres tall, as well as the floor, using large-scale digital projection and immersive sound. Characters familiar from the television screen become giants, and the miniature worlds they live in surround the audience. Park’s signature “thumbiness”, the visible thumbprints and surface marks left in the clay, appears on a scale never seen before. Visitors can take in everything from towering sets to tiny props, and watch the first spark of an idea develop into some of the studio’s best-known cinematic moments.

The show was written and designed by 59, a Journey studio, and directed by Nicol Scott, in close collaboration with Aardman’s production team. It combines never-before-seen archive treasures with a handful of new animation sequences made especially for Lightroom, along with footage filmed inside the studio itself. The experience is divided into chapters, such as “Characters” and “Miniature Worlds”, and runs on a continuous loop, so visitors can settle into their seats or get up and explore as the spectacle spreads across the walls and floor.

The presentation moves between the studio’s early history and its most celebrated screen moments. Archive footage places Aardman within the wider tradition of stop-motion animation, while the Wallace and Gromit sequences revisit the cosy domestic settings and elaborate gags that have become central to the studio’s identity. The highlight is the model-train chase from The Wrong Trousers, in which Gromit frantically lays track in front of a speeding locomotive. Projected at this scale, it’s thrilling, though one reviewer noted that the projectors can’t quite keep up with Gromit’s flying arms, which sometimes blur.

The show suits all ages, though younger children need to be supervised in the space, and families are asked to be mindful of other guests’ enjoyment. Sessions run daily, with morning and afternoon slots, on view until 4th January. It’s great and follows David Bowie and David Hockney’s shows. Matisse will open in early 2027.

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