蜜芽传媒

Who are the people who don costumes, make-up and prosthetics of their favourite TV and film characters, to gather together in venues for cosplay and costuming?

Yasmeen Khan sets out to meet them.

Many of these events, or Comic Cons, are huge with thousands of people flocking to mingle with each other and with some of the film and TV stars who turn up to sign autographs, pose for photographs and top up their incomes.

But what do the so-called cosplayers get out of this? Costumes can be time-consuming and expensive, particularly as many cosplayers take pride in being as authentic as possible. Cosplayers maintain that the costume world has changed their lives for the good.

Yasmeen follows Star Wars cosplayer Beth Gourlay as she and her eight-year-old son Alexander get ready for Digi-Con in Doncaster.

We also meet Kerry, who is dressed as Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid, Julian - a perfectly terrifying Darth Vader, and many others.

Producer: Neil Rosser

A Spools Out production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4, first broadcast in 2017.