Tag Archives: Buxton Puppet Festival

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.

Rough Magic Theatre at Buxton Puppet Festival!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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As I my last few posts have been of the exceedingly wordy variety, I feel justified in making this blog very “picturey”.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I went to Buxton for their puppet festival on Saturday the 30th of July.  A small but very artistic bunch of children and parents created these fantastic shoe box toy theatres with me in only an hour and a half!  My hope is that they will be able to create more characters, scenery and stories for the theatres, having had this exceedingly good start.

After the workshop, (in which I was ably assisted by some very nice people from Buxton Opera House) I wanted to stick around for Karizmo and Sim Sim puppets performance of Sinbad.  In the gap in between, I got myself a picnic lunch and sat in the Pavilion Gardens.

If you’re getting the impression that being a puppetry professional is all picnics in the sunshine then let me tell you that I got up at 5am to be at the workshop in plenty of time and chopping slits in 20 shoe boxes with a stanley knife isn’t a barrel of laughs either.  I’m not complaining, just seeking to show you that I deserved a bit of relaxation time.

Karizmo and Sim Sim puppets did a fantastic, highly interactive show, getting the audience to help play percussion instruments, sing the songs, use the different rod and glove puppets and see first hand the marvels of the universe through the magic telescope of the Cyclops.  All of the audience, me included, found it a highly enjoyable experience.  The evil magician puppet being attacked by the “angry aubergine” puppet wielded by a very small boy was a highlight of the performance for me.  The authentic costume worn by Karizmo and the eastern rugs and the decorations on the booth were also a big part of the magic of the experience.