Tag Archives: shadow puppet show

New Year, New Shows!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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I am currently working on a brand new shadow puppet show featuring a number of favourite fairy tales which we are calling “Fairytales of Wit, Wisdom and Witchcraft“. It has it’s own webpage with all the details so do CLICK HERE to take a look. It is particularly suited for schools, libraries, studio theatre and other small spaces.

We are taking bookings now for summer 2025 so do get in touch if you are interested!

Here is the promo video below:

Also coming soon are 3 new episodes of “Al and Kai’s Faboo News”. If you’re not already subscribed to the channel you can find it @faboonews on YouTube or at https://www.faboonews.com/

The first new episode will be airing at 9am on Saturday 15th of February and the next 2 on the following 2 Saturdays, plus keep your eyes peeled for Faboo News extras on Wednesdays.

The new episodes will be on the themes of The Great Outdoors, Medicine and Family,(feeling different).

If you want to get involved with the show you can click the “Faboo Yous” tab on the website or if you’re in the Lancaster area on Saturday Feb 1st Faboo News will be at the Fun Palace event at Lancaster library. The event is 12-4pm and I’ll have more specific times for Faboo News activities soon.

In the meantime if you’d like Faboo News to visit your school or community group you can find out more about Faboo Workshops by clicking HERE.

On another note, I recently found a video from a rehearsal of Theatre Mill’s “Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band” for which I was commissioned to make the shadow puppets:

If you would like to commission some shadow puppets please get in touch and you can find out more about commissions I have made on our commissions page HERE.

Rough Magic Theatre’s New Edward Lear Picture Book

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Edward Lear Books at Bentham Christmas ShoppingSome time ago I was lucky enough to receive a visit from Meg Amsden  of Nutmeg Puppet Company (who was chair of BrUNIMA at the time).

Meg is a good friend of Ali Clough of Pioneer Projects who, like myself, is a resident of High Bentham and I had invited her to come and see my new Shadow Suitcase show “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” while she was up here visiting Ali.  Meg was also keen to see our Liquorice toy theatre and Hansel & Gretel set/characters and to hear more about Harry Oudekerk’s Vischmarkt Papierentheater Festival in the Netherlands: a festival that we recently attended.  You can see lots of previous blog posts about the making of the Hansel & Gretel show if you search through (click HERE for earliest H&G post).

Meg made lots of lovely comments on the Edward Lear show and also suggested that the puppets could be used to make an accompanying picture book that I could sell.  This idea has been at the back of my mind as a project for “when I get round to it” and finally at the end of last year I did it.

book cover

I made about 10 books of Edward Lear’s poem “The New Vestments” and scanned the shadow puppets to create the illustrations for the book.  I did not use the name of the poem for the title of the show because “vestments” is an old fashioned and confusing word that we tend not to use much these days.  The idea was that I would be able to sell the books to people when I am performing the show but I decided to try selling them at one of Bentham’s late night Christmas Shopping events (organised by We Are Bentham ).  I brought the shadow theatre along with me just for display purposes to explain where the illustrations had come from.  I am happy to say that for this trial run I sold every single copy and my display copy as well!  Thank-you Bentham folks!

If you would like to book my “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” shadow puppet show or “Hansel & Gretel” Toy theatre show don’t hesitate to get in touch.  CLICK HERE to contact me.