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!

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