John Wassell

Walk the Plank started with a ship and as one of the co-founders it’s fair enough to say that John is very much at the helm of our amazing organisation with fellow co-founder Liz Pugh. After 35 years in the outdoor arts business, he has theatrical spectacle coursing through his veins. John’s job is to ensure that we never tire of losing our thirst for creative risk and that we inspire new generations of artists and production managers to imagine the impossible, and then go and create it. 

It started with a bonfire galleon 

 John has spent the last 35 years creating theatrical and celebratory events all over the world, reaching audiences of millions. 

He started his working life as a wooden boat builder and first stepped into the realm of explosive entertainment when he built a galleon bonfire in 1982. After a series of further bonfire builds, John was hooked on the whole outdoor spectacle thing and expanded his scope of interest to fireworks displays and outdoor performance in general. 

Working for outdoor arts companies like Emergency Exit Arts, Theatre of Fire and Welfare State International gave him the chance to work on a range of spectacular shows across the UK, USA and Europe, after which he decided, along with Liz Pugh, to set up Walk the Plank. 

Walk the Plank was born in 1992 with Britain’s only touring theatre ship which toured Britain’s coast for 16 years. Following its retirement to a quayside in Amsterdam John has worked on some truly incredible projects, including: 

• Creative Producer on Green Space Dark Skies, commission as part of UNBOXED, which culminated in a one-hour BBC Countryfile episode seen by over five million people. 
• Creative Producer for Wales Millennium Centre’s tenth anniversary finale Ar Waith Ar Daith, broadcast live across Wales and performed to an audience of 12,000 people in Cardiff Bay. 
• Creative Producer for The Return of Colmcille, for the Derry-Londonderry UK Capital of Culture, a 36 hourcity wide performance with a finale on the River Foyle watched by 25,000 people. 
• Creative Producer for Turku 2011 European Capital of Culture Opening, the largest outdoor performance in Finland, broad live on MTV.
• Creative Producer for the People’s Opening for Liverpool ’08, European Capital of Culture 
• Leading Walk the Plank’s team for the lantern element of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester 
• Working with director Mike Murphy on The Land of Giants in Belfast 2012
  

John Wassell’s specialism  

John loves working on major projects on an epic scale that draw in a wide range of outdoor arts disciplines. He still has a real love for fireworks and pyrotechnics and ways in which we can create something unique or different, and given his nautical interests he is mad about any project that involves water. John is also interested in working with festivals on creating adventurous non-musical content such as our Lost Eden art in the forest experience for Kendal Calling in 2015. 

John is inspired by his taste for adventure and both his and Liz’s combined passions for sailing and theatre which made a touring theatre ship a natural synergy of ideas. Bringing art to the people and inspiring artists and communities along the way has become hugely addictive for him.  

“It is amazing to see how our work can change people’s perceptions of themselves and the place in which they live. Creating a company that can do all these things seemed the natural thing to do.” 

When John is not tinkering about on his boat moored in Salford Quays, he is relaxing on his remote retreat in north Wales or messing about in his boatyard.  

“Wherever I am, I’m always thinking about the next Walk the Plank show.”