Tag Archives: crankie theatre

Lots of fun at Beverley Puppet Festival!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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We had a great time performing our new show “7 Songs of Love” at the Moving Parts Arts Scratch Space at Beverley Puppet Festival this year. You can see images of the show in rehearsal on the slideshow above.

We will performing the show again at More Music in Morecambe on Saturday October 1st sometime between 12 and 4pm as part of their Fun Palaces event. So please do come and see it if you are interested in booking the show. We are interested in using the show for rural touring as well as more conventional theatre spaces. The show has a heavy emphasis on eighteenth century sailors/sailing so would be great for any maritime themed events/locations. It features a variety of eighteeth century folk songs so would also be of interest to folk festivals/music festivals. The show uses a minimum performance area of 4m square and ideally requires blackout, (does not have to be total). We are currently self-sufficient regarding tech. The version we performed at Beverley was 25 minutes long, but we intend to work on expanding the show to around 45 minutes (potentially with an interval). We can also combine showings with shadow puppetry workshops for adults or children as required. We are in the process of putting together a video trailer using the footage we got from the scratch space showings and will post this too as soon as we have it.

We are interested in partnering with venues to work with us on improving and expanding the show. We need space to rehearse and develop the show, a third eye, ideally some funding and performance opportunities as well. Please get in touch if this is you!

It was so wonderful to see so many familiar faces in person rather than on a computer screen. The atmosphere was really great and the fact that we were accommodated in the Beverley Friary YHA (which was also the festival hub) meant that there was plenty of opportunity to meet other puppeteers when we were not performing. We had just one performance on the Saturday and one on the Sunday which meant that (for a change) we had plenty of time to see other people’s shows. We were also able to attend the PuppeteersUK meeting at which the Chair (Malcolm Knight of Scottish Mask & Puppet Centre) spoke about the future plans for PUK and the current situation in the UK regarding the puppetry sector and also the impact of Brexit on touring, festivals etc.

We watched some of the other Scratch Space shows (as we wanted to support our fellow scratch space artists) including 7 Ravens by Tragic Carpet, Displaced by Prickly Pear Productions and Noughtymation by our friends at Noisy Oyster.

We also took a look at Noisy Oyster’s “The Noughty-One” installation which used the same 3-D printed puppets as the “Noughtymation” scratch piece. Nik Palmer had been experimenting with these during lockdown and I was very interested to see them in action live.

Sarah Rowland-Barker returned the favour by coming to see our scratch space show. We got lots of positive feedback from the audiences as well as some suggestions for improvements. One of the things we were unsure of was the age range the show was suitable for as the content is more adult than our usual offerings. Feedback suggested that it was suitable for Keystage 2 and up.

We also went to see “Kit and Caboodle” by Thingumajig Theatre. I have encountered Thingumajig many times at many different festivals etc. but I have mainly seen their processional work and this was our first time seeing one of their static shows, (I say static but it was of course combined with a little walkabout to gather an audience with their wonderful pack mule “Kit”).

It was very interesting seeing this show after having watched the Scratch Space show “Displaced”, (which was used the real stories of different refugees) as Kit and Caboodle dealt with many of the same issues but in a more subtle and family friendly way. It was good to see some positive/sympathetic messages about immigrants and refugees in both these shows as we need an antidote to all of the toxic messages about this subject in the press. As Kit and Caboodle is a street show there is more chance of the message reaching ordinary people in the street who might just happen to come upon it accidentally. As an indoor show, however, “Displaced” would undoubtedly be attended by people who are already sympathetic to the message of the show.

Andrew Kim very kindly let me have a closer look at the crankie theatre box that very cleverly slotted into the side of the set, (you can see it in action in the video below). I even got to have a go at cranking it! This was particularly interesting for me at the moment as I want to experiment with some crankie shows myself.

New Show to Premiere at Scratch Space at Beverley Puppet Festival 2022!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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We have been toying with the idea of producing a new live show for some time but have been struggling to decide what form it would take. A strong contender was the idea of creating a show based around a set of old English folk songs that I learned about 20 years ago, (the origins are a bit blurry and there are lots of different versions of the songs, some of which come from Scotland and Ireland as well). The songs come from an oral tradition so have been taken from place to place by travellers and wandering minstrels etc. and no-one knows exactly how old they are but the versions I know are mostly dating from the 18th Century, I think.

I love singing these songs and it struck me that I’d like to concentrate on making work that I really enjoy doing and am passionate about. As I already know the songs extremely well it will (in theory) mean that the show will be easier as there is less for me to learn. Having said that, we decided to add in an extra song for audience participation.

I have also been thinking about creating a crankie box or boxes which can be used in combination with shadow puppetry and have been working on a fairly small scale papier mache one to try out the techniques. Crankies are often performed in combination with a folk song which tells a story so this seemed like a good fit.

When I heard about the Moving Parts Arts Scratch Space opportunity at Beverley Puppet Festival it seemed like the perfect opportunity to put together and try out this new show. Tim Austin (my co-performer) will write the show and string the songs together with a linking story. The song “Jolly Jack Tar” is going to be the key story and Jack will be the key character who is narrating the piece. So we put together a short example video and I made shadow puppets of the two key characters from that song, (“Jack” and “the Lady”).

I was not looking forward to making characters in period costume as I would like to be historically accurate and that is not as easy as making something up out of your head, but in the end I think I’ve done a good job of coming up with 18th Century costumes for the two and am very pleased with the results.

Now that we have been accepted for the Scratch Space (a big thank-you to Moving Parts Arts for that) we have to try and nail down the format a bit more so that we know what to make. Tim thinks that we need a larger shadow screen than the trial cranky screen that I have been making and we should use this as an opportunity to build a bigger shadow screen for larger scale shadow shows. Then there is the question of how much of the music should be performed live and what recorded, as, if I am playing instruments live then I can’t perform the puppetry at the same time and if so whether we need to invest in some better P.A. equipment. I could, of course, sing and crank/puppeteer at the same time.

I am thinking that we might do a variety of things (some with me singing and playing and Tim cranking/puppeteering, some recorded etc.).

I would like in an ideal world something that is capable of amplifying two instruments and two headset/lapel mics at the same time and is also capable of playing recorded music from a phone or mp3 player for example. I’d also like it to be good sound quality with decent volume, fairly lightweight/portable (with the option for battery power perhaps) and not too expensive. So if anyone has any suggestions where that is concerned please get in touch!

I shall keep you updated with our progress on here so watch this space!

CLICK HERE for more info. on my “Where You Can See Me” page.