Category Archives: Schools Workshops

Punch & Judy P.C. debate in Derby

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An Anti-Domestic Violence campaigner took issue with the content of a Punch & Judy show in a Derby shopping centre – CLICK HERE for the article.

You will see that I attempted to open a debate on Punch & Judy content and political correctness in my previous post and it is very interesting to see the comments on this Derby Telegraph article are largely in favour of the traditional Punch & Judy content.  CLICK HERE for the follow up article which features the overwhelming support of the newspaper readers for Punch & Judy.

It would be very interesting to see what Punch & Judy practitioners have to say about how they make decisions about what to include in their show as not all Punch & Judy shows have Punch receiving his just deserts for his naughtiness at the end of the show but rather see him beating the devil with his slapstick too.  But violence against the Devil is good, isn’t it?  Please add your own comments on the issue to this post.

I think the Punch & Judy Online source material for schools is very useful on this issue as it describes Punch as being designed to be a kind of clown (and slapsticks are what clowns would use in their comedy) and also describes Judy as a female clown.  CLICK HERE for a link to Punch & Judy Online

“The Interrupted Wedding” Shadow Show goes to Ladybarn Primary School

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Hello again everybody.  Sorry to have gone a bit quiet for a while. This January I have been mostly attending lots of networking meetings, making plans for the year etc.  So I thought I’d wait till I had something a bit more exciting to blog about.

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Last week though I visited Ladybarn Primary School in Manchester.  The Year 2s were doing a project called Puppets & Magic.  The teachers planned to make hand puppets out of felt with the children and wanted them to be inspired by seeing some professionally made puppets. So I performed our Shadow Puppet Show “The Interrupted Wedding” and did a bit of a lecture demonstration looking at different types of puppet from around the world and some of the history etc.  Then I showed the children some performance techniques and then the children played with different types of puppets themselves. “The Interrupted Wedding” is performed using an umbrella for a shadow screen and is a show we use for parties as well as in schools. The show went down extremely well with the children who really enjoyed the story.  This story is an original one written by Rough Magic Theatre’s own Tim Austin.  It is always nice when children tell you they have enjoyed something without being prompted.  In my experience children give very honest reactions compared to adults who might want to be polite and spare your feelings. They also seemed to particularly enjoy seeing some of the puppets from other Rough Magic Theatre productions that I brought in for them to see.  There were 2 rod puppets from our version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, (Stephano and Caliban), the “Pig/Baby” double ended “mouth” puppet  from Alice in Wonderland and the Bunraku style Alice puppet with real hair, (which came off my own head).  The Alice puppet is fun to show how she works as you can see all her insides by lifting up her dress, (kids always find that kind of thing funny) and then of course her head can be removed to show the hand control.  Seeing the Alice puppet’s body without its head is also something children appreciate a lot! The next school we are visiting is in Keighley where we will be doing our “Hansel & Gretel” show and doing a shoe-box toy theatre workshop.  You can read about this workshop in an earlier blog post HERE. If you are interested in booking any of the above shows or workshops please get in contact.  Click HERE to get in touch.