Tag Archives: clueless & wuffles

Sock Crows flock to Glasto!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Once again, sorry to have gone quiet on you all but I have been very busy making 2 sock puppet crows for our Glastonbury Festival show: “Clueless & Wuffles – The Case of the Missing Jewels”.

As you can see above, they are now finished but I think I shall be adding one or two little tweaks to improve them.  Looking at the photo’s I think tongues would help with the visibility of the puppets’ features.  This is a bit of an issue for an essentially all black puppet.  I hope that the textures of the shiny beaks and legs and the fluffy feathery bits will help.

  • I used black welly socks turned inside out (to show a fluffier texture).
  • The eyes are gold beads (literally beady eyes).  The shapes of the beaks and parts of the wings and tail are made out of polythene damp-proofing membrane, (because we happened to have some spare).
  • The beaks have black carpet or “gaffa” tape over the top.
  • The legs are metal springs from the spiral binding of artist’s sketch pads, (covered with more carpet tape).  The fluffy/feathery bits on the tops of the legs and on the chest are from a chenille scarf of mine that had seen better days.
  • The fabric parts of the wings and tails are made of black “ripstop” a material often used for kites because you can cut it into shapes and it does not fray.
  • The feet are made of black cable ties, (zip-ties for my American readers).

The crows will look a lot better in action than in these photographs as, like most puppets, they are designed to look good in motion rather than sitting around like a dummy.  This is why it is so challenging for museums to display puppets in a dynamic way as they are designed to be seen in performance.

The picture of me making the puppets was taken at our local Celebratory Arts based Healthy Living Centre: “Looking Well Studios” in High Bentham.  They have been opening up their space on Saturdays for people to come in and do creative stuff.  It is nice to do this kind of thing in company with other people as the creative process can often feel a bit isolating.  A bit like Frankenstein going into his laboratory to make his creature for hours on end and only surfacing occasionally for cups of tea and a spot of mad cackling.  I did most of the making at Rough Magic Theatre headquarters though.

I have also been busy booking in various other work for the summer and I shall be putting the details up on the “Where You Can See Me” page as soon as they are confirmed.

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about the crow puppets and how I made them please make a comment below 🙂

Clueless & Wuffles Go to Glastonbury!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Wuffles Poster3Our New Show “Clueless & Wuffles – The Case of the Missing Jewels” will be appearing at Glastonbury Festival from the 25th-29th of June.  Click HERE for more details.

This is Rough Magic Theatre’s first outing to Glastonbury so it is all very exciting!

We were asked if we had a puppet show for Panic Circus’s Bigtop Puppet Venue in the Kidz Field.  We were in the middle of developing a new show with our lovely full size Alsatian dog puppet, (regular readers may recognise it :)) and thought this would be perfect for Glastonbury.

I was a big fan of the Pink Panther films and of the TV cartoon series Inspector Gadget when I was growing up.  So the idea of creating a comedy detective show of our own has irresistable appeal, particularly when one of the detectives is a dog.  This is another idea with a great PEDIGREE (pun intended) and I am also a fan of The Famous Five by Enid Blyton and of course Scooby-Doo.

Our show will hopefully encapsulate the best of these but have its own charm, character and quality of its own.  But most importantly it should be great fun and very VERY silly.  We have the basic plot, the costumes, Wuffles the dog and a fantastic song already, (if I do say so myself).  The next job is to create our dastardly crow hand puppets!

If you come to see the show, come prepared to sing along and join in.

If you take a look at my WHERE YOU CAN SEE ME page then you’ll notice that I am also going to Morecambe Variety Festival on the 3rd and 4th of May with my Shadow Suitcase Theatre Shows.  This is also very exciting as I’ve been looking forward to this festival for a couple of years!  I was provisionally booked last year but unfortunately they did not get the funding they were hoping for.  So it is fantastic that this year they have got the funding and this marvellous event will be going ahead.  Click HERE for their Facebook page with more information.

In the evening there is an Around the World in 80 Days Cabaret Spectacular on the Saturday and Tim Austin and I are both going to go along, (not to perform but to see everybody else).  We have not really been to anything quite like this before so we’re very much looking forward to it.