“My dear Watson, I can see from the tiny pieces of cardboard on your shirt cuff and the metal oxide staining on your left index finger and thumb that you are working on a new show……”

Before Christmas we started on putting together some puppets for a show trailer for a new Christmas show (for touring libraries, stately homes etc.). We hope to get the trailer finished very soon so we can advertise in time for Christmas 2024 (watch this space).

As to what it is about, I think I will invite you all to give your own educated guesses😉.

I also took it as an opportunity to have a bit of an experiment with the new Indonesian wayang kulit (shadow puppet) chisels. I am thinking that I am not likely to abandon using scalpel blades altogether but probably use a combination of chisels and scalpel. The chisels are certainly useful for creating certain types of cuts and shapes, (probably not faster though – but I had been warned). I have also yet to sort out suitable maintenance/sharpening tools for the chisels when I need them though I have been doing research on the best method and suppliers.

Do leave a comment or a question if you’d like to know more 😊.

Showings of “Seven Songs of Love” in Morecambe and Thirsk

We had a great time performing our new show at More Music in Morecambe at their Fun Palaces event.

Sadly the room we were performing in was a little on the small side at Morecambe and they had to turn some people away!

Everyone who attended really loved it and we had loads of positive feedback from adults and children who attended. There was also a very enthusiastic and creative shadow puppetry workshop after the performance.

The children experimented with lots of different techniques with gels, textures and puppets on our OHP. Some children also combined body shadows with the puppets and tried out multiple light sources to create different effects.

There was also a photographer (Nick Hellier) there to document the Fun Palaces event so we were lucky enough to get lots of great photos of the show, (see below):

Workshop Photos:

We also enjoyed travelling to Thirsk and performing in the Rural Arts Scratch Evening at The Old Courthouse venue there. This was a bigger space than the room at Morecambe and there was plenty of room for everybody and we got some very useful feedback on the audience age, length and storytelling in the show that will help us when we extend the show to its full length.

We have also created a Rural Touring page for the show on our website which has all the tech specs. floor plan, photos, video etc. for anyone wishing to book the show for 2023. CLICK HERE to view 🙂