Category Archives: Jabberwocky

Rough Magic Theatre at Covent Garden May Fayre and Puppet Festival

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Here are some pictures we took while performing at the Covent Garden May Fayre and Puppet Festival on Sunday.

As you can see, we had excellent weather for shadow puppetry as it turned out to be a very sunny day, (that is all using sunlight with no artificial light at all). It is of course possible to do the show in less sunny weather and indeed night time events as I can use my battery powered strip light for that.

I decided to do our “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” show as it is slightly longer than “Jabberwocky!” and thought people would feel they were getting more value for money, I had also already performed “Jabberwocky!” in London and felt like it was worth trying out the other show this time. However, for busking purposes, I can’t help wondering now if the “Jabberwocky!” show would have been better, as with only 8 puppets, the turn around time for performing again would have been faster.

We saw some famous TV puppeteers including Phil Fletcher, Warwick Brownlow-Pike, Ronnie le Drew etc. but missed Harry Hill as we decided to stay with our pitch and didn’t realise that he was the “special event at 3pm.” We also met the incredibly talented ventriloquist/comedian Max Fulham in person for the first time. Max has appeared on TV in Crackerjack amongst other appearances and should definitely be given his own TV show (in my opinion).

Anthony and Miranda really enjoyed themselves and did the whole of the big parade with their Punch and Judy puppets. There was a bit of argument over who should have Mr. Punch, however, and I fear that I might be better off bringing the crocodile instead of Judy if there is a next time. Poor old Judy!

We also brought the Rough Magic flag with us for the parade which was originally made for Glastonbury Festival.

As well as seeing a few old friends we met some new ones. Paul Jackson (our next pitch neighbour) was very friendly and helpful and we also met Cath March of “Invisible Needs” who kindly put us all up at her flat for the weekend, many thanks to both of them.

We also managed to squeeze in a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see the puppets etc. on the Saturday, (see above).

Making “Our Hero” In Profile Puppet

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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  • The features from the head are gradually cut out…
  • The head complete, but with lower jaw still to do.
  • head with lower jaw separate
  • head with lower jaw in position
  • Head and jaw in position on the drawing of the body
  • The image for the body has been photocopied and stuck onto card and the details start to be cut out. The neck and pivot point for the head are roughly shaped at this stage.
  • Cut out body with head and jaw in position
  • I have established the pivot point for the head and cut away all the un-necessary card.
  • The finished puppet (though without controls added yet.
  • on the OHP flatbed
  • The shadow on the screen

I was completely happy with my original drawing of the head for “Our Hero” (otherwise known as the mystery solving librarian or “Secret Keeper” from the title of the series). This is his “at home” lounging round the house look. I managed to blow up the image on my copier so that it was exactly the right size relative to the “in profile” Prime Minister puppet.

Having completed the head I re-drew the torso as the original drawing was a bit sketchy and lacking in detail. I also wanted to show him in a profile rather than 3/4 view. I’m not sure if the finished image isn’t slightly on the skew, but I knew I was happy with it, (whether it was a true profile view or not).

I decided that “Our Hero”‘s character called for a more upright stance than the Prime Minister so decided to create a head nodding action in a different way. The Prime Minister has a head and neck joined together and the whole neck pivots forward and backward on the body. This time I made the decision to have a rigid neck with the head pivoting forward and backward on the neck (I hope that makes sense – if not look at the pictures). It made it a little more challenging to join the joints on the jaw and neck as the pivot points for both were quite close together. I am creating the joints using thick thread (the same kind as I use for the joints on the miniature shadow puppets in my Shadow Puppet Suitcase shows) which is knotted on both sides of the joint.

I secured the jaw shut with elastic in the same way as with the Prime Minister (which still allows the mouth to be opened when he needs to talk). The joint is not very flat because the elastic knot is quite big but the shadow on the screen looks fine.

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Thanks so much for contributing to our work! 😃👍

Thanks so much for contributing to our work! 😃👍

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