Category Archives: Buxton Puppet Festival

Celebrating & Evaluating “My Last CARnival” + St. Simeon, Patron St. of Puppeteers!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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After the wonderful experience of making “Fred Fettler’s “Pony 3000” The Transport of the Future” for the “My Last CARnival” event, the fun did not end there.

Pioneer Projects, who commissioned Rough Magic Theatre to create the “Pony 3000” show wanted to thank everybody who had been involved with “My Last CARnival”, “My Last Car” and the Jubilee Flotilla and Picnic celebrations and to get feedback from everyone about the event as well.

So Tim Austin, Eddie Knowles and I, (not being ones to turn up our noses at scones with strawberries and cream, vol au vents and fruit punch) all went along.  I jest of course, it was very nice to be treated with drinks and nibbles, but that wasn’t our only reason for going.  A very big thank you to those who helped prepare all the lovely food, by the way.

I was very pleased to see Alan Dix again, (the artistic director of 509 arts) who was presented with a lovely model of a carbon footprint with a model car sticking out of it in memory of the occasion.  Their “My Last Car” performance and exhibition was absolutely top quality and a real treat to have right on our doorstep in Bentham Town Hall.  This was the feedback I gave to him, both from myself and from comments of other audience members that I heard at the time.  Alan returned the compliment by telling me what he had thought of our street theatre performance.  He said that he wasn’t quite sure how it was going to work at first, but that it was extremely “witty” and he’d enjoyed it a lot.  Here is 509 arts evaluation video of the event and you can just see me with my traffic cone on the bottom right towards the end!

I also found out that there is a Patron Saint of Puppeteers this week, whose feast day can be celebrated either on the 1st or 21st of July according to which calendar you follow!

Click HERE for the Puppeteers UK article on St. Simeon Salus (or Salos)

Please note, everyone, that Buxton Opera House are now taking bookings for our Shadow puppet workshop and “Alice in Wonderland” performances on the 24th of July, please see “Where You Can See Me” page for more details.

Mechanical Horse Gets a Room With a View

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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All the bits of our mechanical horse and cart are now fully completed.  I have also finished my mechanical M.C. costume, though I am still working on one or two little props and things.

I am currently working on a loud-hailer made from a reclaimed traffic cone.

We had got various different parts of the horse assembled at various times, but it was a very nice moment when we finally had everything, apart from the little buggy for people to sit on, connected together.  One of the reasons we haven’t had everything connected at once while we’ve been making it, is the issue of space.  The issue of space to make and space to store the horse has been dogging us from the beginning of the project.

For this reason, it was great to hear we had a shop window to display the horse in for the week preceding the performance on June 2nd.  If you are in the area, you can see it in the window of Bentham Imaging on Main Street, Bentham.  Not only that, but we will be doing the performance directly outside this shop on the day, so it is very convenient.  Ali Jones from Pioneer Projects, (who commissioned the project for the “My Last CARnival” day), was very keen on getting it into a shop window as, when it comes out for the performance, it will be like it coming out of its stable.

I also came up with the name of “Fred Fettler” for our inventor character played by Tim Austin, who will be in the driving seat of the machine.  Having not come up with any better ideas I have plumped for the “Pony 3000” as the name of the vehicle.  The “3000” is meant to indicate that it is from the year 3000 as the pedal powered horse is meant to illustrate an idea of what the future of transport could be.

Here are more pictures of the work in progress:

We have also been booked for the Buxton Puppet Festival since my last post, which is happening at the end of July.  We will be doing a Shadow Puppet workshop in the morning and two afternoon performances of Alice in Wonderland on Tuesday the 24th.  See the “Where You Can See Me” page for more details.