Meet the Omni-Science Team: Alex Bennett

I’m Alex Bennett. I studied theatre at university and specialised in set and costume design. Since then I've been working freelance as a designer and artist. I create artworks by commission, be they costumes, jewellery or greetings cards.

At the moment, most of my time is being focused on creating pop-up greetings cards with the intention of working towards publishing my first pop-up book. Cartoons and comic books have been a large part of my life and inform all of my designs, at least in some small way. I'm fascinated by how a perfectly nuanced cartoon can express so much in a single still image. Harnessing the shapes and colours of animation and bringing them to life on stage and in costume excites me more than anything else.

As for Omni-Science, I’m the set and costume designer, responsible for clothing the cast, dressing the performance space, and, most exciting of all, building the robot! I was fortunate enough to have the same role when the play debuted at Assemble Fest in 2017. 

Most looking forward to
Generally speaking, I'm excited by how much the story has developed. This is going to be a much heartier play than it was the first time round and I'm so proud to see it grow. But the thing I'm most excited for is going all 'Tony Stark lost in the desert' and building an incredible suit of armour for our robot. There's been a lot of R and D gone into this new robot but it will still be reminiscent of the original – it really will be Omni 2.0 !

Favourite gadget
Tough choice. Inspector Gadget’s awesome. And does anyone remember Gadget Boy? It was a cartoon that I think was a spin-off (or a knock-off) of Inspector Gadget. That was a sick cartoon. But apart from that, do Spider-Man's web shooters count? If I had to choose any gadget in the world, it'd be web shooters. Easy.

Most used app
Lately it's been Instagram. I can scroll through there all day searching for interesting new pop-up mechanisms. I do the same on Pinterest too. Maybe I should get a life...

Best '80s track
Hall and Oats – ‘You Make My Dreams Come True’. Always guaranteed to make me dance.
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Omni-Science runs at the Fruit Market in Hull on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st September 2019. Book your tickets.