Tag Archives: Morecambe Variety Festival

Bye 2014 – Hello 2015!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
Reply

 

Hello again everyone!  The above images are from last year and did not make it into my blogs at the time because my phone whose camera these pictures were taken on died and I only recently managed to successfully retrieve the photo’s.

The first few pictures are from Buxton Puppet Festival where I saw Peter Piper Puppets version of Punch & Judy and Diddley Dee Puppets show “Rabbits to the Rescue”.

You may recall in a previous post that I held forth (at some length) against the “dumbing down” of Mr Punch with misplaced sense of political correctness.  Very soon after that I encountered this performance in which the puppeteer declared in no uncertain terms at the beginning of the show that this was exactly what he WAS planning to do.  Poor Mr. Punch was transformed into a sad and pathetic individual who not only didn’t get to hit anyone with a slapstick but was instead on the receiving end of a giant pencil wielded by a clumsy social worker in the form of Joey the clown, (among other indignities).  This was after Mr. Punch lost the baby after trying to teach the baby to walk.

The audience seemed to enjoy the show and “Peter Piper” rounded off the show by turning the audience into an impromptu band to process to the next outdoor entertainment.

However, in my opinion one of the best parts of the show were Mr Punch’s dog being taken for a walk by the puppeteer prior to the show and “weeing” all over the audience (with the cunning deployment of a not wholly invisible water pistol).  The other fun part was two unconventional “stagehand” characters whose function was to appear and hammer and saw at various parts of the booth and to tell the audience that the show wasn’t ready and hadn’t started yet.

“Rabbits to the Rescue” was obviously intended for an audience younger than myself and I have to admit to finding it a little twee.  For what it was though it was a lot of fun and the children obviously enjoyed it.  It was well performed and the puppets were very charming and nicely constructed.

I also attended Mintfest in Kendal as an X-trax delegate last year and that is where the other photo’s are from.

The previous year’s Mintfest (2013) we had been busy performing all day Saturday and Sunday with our “Fred Fettler’s “Pony 3000″ – The Transport of the Future!” show in the Westmorland Shopping Centre and thus had not had much time to see other people’s shows or to talk to bookers about our work.

“The Table of Thoughts” was an installation which was in an upstairs shop space in the Westmorland Shopping Centre.  I thought this was a very brave and unusual thing to include in a street arts festival but Mintfest are very good at including things that are a bit more challenging and different.  The installation consisted of a dining table with various peculiar “place settings” and foodstuffs.  The audience can sit at any seat at the table and by listening to an audio file from an mp3 player through earphones get a voice-over of the internal thoughts of the person whose place they are sat in.  This monologue is reflected in the appearance of the place setting in front of them as well.  In addition to this there are general ambient, but subdued, sound effects such as cutlery being used and muted unintelligible conversation.  I listened to all of the monologues, each of which was quite unique, and enjoyed them thoroughly.

I also had the opportunity to take part in our good friends at Frolicked’s game called “The Birds”.  We had heard them talking about this project at an X-Trax shorts presentation previously so it was great to get an opportunity to try it out.  We had to find a missing endangered bird, (who I am pictured with above) in teams.  I was with a dad and his little girl and another couple, none of whom I’d met before.  I did wonder if being in a team of other people I didn’t know would be awkward but they were all lovely and the activity was extremely challenging, exciting and fun!  It was obviously meant to be done in a group of mixed adults and children as some of the tasks/clues would be too difficult for small children and the challenges set were hard enough to be totally engaging and exciting for adults.  I am sorry to say that our team did not win though I think we did a touch better than some of the others.  I am saying no more but if you get a chance to take part in this game yourself, I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

One of the other puppetry offerings at Mintfest was Burek the marionette dog – puppeteered by Lucasz Puczko.  He is from Poland and has travelled to lots of different countries with this act.  I have recently found out at the X-trax Northern Street Arts Networking event that Lucasz enjoyed the reactions of the audiences in Kendal so much that he has now moved to England to live and work and is currently based in Bradford.

It was very refreshing, after hearing a bit of doom and gloom from a lot of people on the state of the industry in this country and the amount of work/money/opportunities available, that someone would actively seek out England as a place to work because of the friendliness of the people and the audiences.  Jeremy Shine was very keen to promote Lucasz’s act on the basis of it developing a hitherto untapped audience – dogs!

A lot of dogs seemed keen to interact with Burek but most seemed a bit disturbed by something that looked and moved like a dog but obviously did not smell like one!

I have heard a lot of people say that the best way to keep new year’s resolutions is to put them down publicly on a blog like this.

Last year was a good one for us in many ways with a lot of firsts.  We produced a new show “Clueless & Wuffles” for Glastonbury, (which we were attending for the first time).  I performed at Morecambe Variety Festival and also did workshops and performances for a number of Primary Schools that I hadn’t visited before.

Tim and I performed in Skelmersdale with our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party walkabout show, (somewhere I have never visited or performed before).  Together with Rough Magic Theatre founder member Leo Nolan I created a French Nursery Rhymes for beginners show: “Nursery Rhymes with Monsieur le Fou” for Wakefield Grammar School Foundation on European Languages Day.

And to crown the year off I created a new light up costume for another event I hadn’t been involved with previously the “Light Up Lancaster” illuminations event.

We were also invited back to what is becoming a regular event the CARnival Bentham.  My ever popular Shadow Puppet Suitcase shows had a lot of airings as did the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and the Hansel & Gretel and “The Interrupted Wedding” shows made a couple of appearances too.

My resolution always tends to be to get more work.  I have been doing well with my aim to get more work doing “light and shadow” workshops in schools in Spring, Autumn and Winter but more schools work would be welcome, (please get in touch if you’d like a workshop/show or both in your school).  I shall be visiting a school in Hartlepool on Monday and I shall let you know how we get on next week.

I would also like to get more work with our main hour long indoor show “Alice in Wonderland” as last year was a quiet year for this show whilst being a popular one for the show’s offshoot Mad Hatter’s Tea Party walkabout show.  Please get in touch if you are interested in booking either of these for your school, theatre, literature festival, book day etc.

In order to get more done I am also resolving to get up earlier rather than hearing the alarm go off and falling back asleep again.  I also therefore have to go to bed on time and I am also trying to build more exercise into my schedule.

It would also be great (time permitting) to finally finish of the new version of the Rough Magic Theatre Website that has been ongoing for a couple of years now.  I also resolve to be more disciplined about doing the old social media regularly rather than the rather hap-hazard approach that I’ve been taking recently.

It would be really great to hear what your New Year’s Resolutions are too.  Please leave a reply on this post, (business or personal goals or both) 🙂

Oh I do like to be beside the Sea-side…..at Morecambe Variety Festival!!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
2

Greetings Blog readers!  Here’s a quick post about the Morecambe Variety Festival from the weekend before last.

This was an event organised by the lovely Neil Kendall and was at the Winter Gardens in Morecambe.  They had done this event before in 2012 but this is the first time we at Rough Magic Theatre have been involved.

Those of you who are local will know that for many years the Winter Gardens was left empty and was in a very poor state of repair.  However volunteers and the Friends of the Winter Gardens have been painstakingly working away to conserve and renovate the space.

Now it is possible to see what an amazing space it is, was and could be in the future given more money and more love.  Below is a video showing some of what the volunteers have been up to:

 

The festival attracted a lot of local people who hadn’t seen inside the building before and although there is still a lot to do they are very proud to have toilets and a cafe now which help to make the building a more usable and practical space.

Also the fellow performers I was sharing a dressing room with explained that I was lucky as when they had been involved with the festival in 2012 there had been no heating in the dressing rooms.  I am told that there are plans to install heating in the rest of the building which will be a massive leap forward as it will not only mean that the space can be used in the winter time but should also help minimise further deterioration of the plaster, paintwork etc. due to damp.

All that aside, you can see from the photo’s that even in its present state of slightly delapidated grandeur it was a wonderful setting for a quirky vintage style variety festival like this.

During the day, there were a lot of different performances going on, both outside the entrance of the building and on the main stage and around the edges of the downstairs auditorium and I with my Shadow Puppet Suitcase shows performed in the main auditorium area as well as the entrance hall and outside the building too as was appropriate.  You can see Neil’s photo of my “Jabberwocky!” show by clicking HERE.

There was also a showing Georges Melies’s “A Trip to the Moon” film with a specially composed musical score in one of the downstairs bar areas and also other things in spaces upstairs too.  I have only recently discovered Georges Melies but since I have, he seems to be popping up everywhere.  Below is a video of the film which has been restored and uses the hand-coloured version of the film:

 

 

After I had finished my shows on Sunday we saw the “Empty Theatre Tour” which had characters from the different eras of the theatre’s history conducting a tour of the building in character and contrived to convey an idea of being haunted by the history of the building, (in a nice way).

I had half a day performing on both the Saturday and the Sunday and since we were planning to attend the evening “Around the World in 80 Days” Cabaret Fancy Dress Ball event on the Friday night we booked into a Morecambe Guest House for convenience sake.

The evening entertainment was a combination of quirky variety and circus acts and burlesque performances, with the majority of the performers doing 2 separate performances.  These were linked together by a “flashman” M.C. and his put upon lackey touring the globe looking for the fabulous pink diamond of Limpopo!

In addition there was a fancy dress competition which was won by a lady who had made an ingenious outfit out of the pages of the “Morecambe Visitor”.

Speaking of marvellous local events.  We’ll be appearing at Bentham CARnival again this year at the end of the month, (to find out more about the event click HERE).  It will be a part of the Yorkshire Festival this year and is celebrating the opening of the “Way of the Roses” Passing Place Artwork in particular.  To find out more about this there is another page for CARnival Bentham by Bike that you can visit by clicking HERE.

The artwork is a giant pair of Queen Victoria’s bloomers made out of wire mesh to commemorate the fact that the silk for Queen Victoria’s bloomers was woven at the Bentham Silk Mill.  So bloomers are one of the themes this year as well as fish and fat sheep on bicycles.

I’ll be doing my Edward Lear’s Nonsense show which feature a pair of bloomers/”drawers” made of rabbit skins amongst other things and Tim will be the Mad Hatter who on this occasion will be doing a spot of fishing out of his teapots and kettles!