Tag Archives: shadow puppets

Pirate Parties and the Joy of Ukuleles!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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After buying a ukulele each from our local Sue Ryder, my husband Tim and I have been taking the opportunity to learn how to play them.

Tim was keen to use his at Rough Magic Theatre’s latest Pirate Party gig last week for the musical statues game.  It was his first use of the ukulele in a professional context.  Luckily, we discovered that “What shall we do with a drunken sailor?” only has two chords!

I was not convinced that ukuleles are a particularly piratical instrument, so I made him a skull and cross-bones out of white gaffa tape so that it would look more the part.

The children and the parents all seemed to really like it and I think it definitely added a little extra something to the proceedings.

This could well mean more music in Rough Magic Theatre shows from now on, as up until this point I have been the main musician.  I did wonder whether it would be very difficult to learn ukulele because I play guitar already, but actually, it has been an advantage so far and I have not got too confused by having two separate lots of chords in my head.

The party of course had comedy antics from Rodger a parrot hand puppet and our original shadow puppet show “The Interrupted Wedding” which always goes down very well.  I am particularly proud of the shadow puppets I made for this show which were influenced by Tim Burton’s visual style.  The show also uses a white umbrella for the shadow screen which can be rotated for different scenes.

The party was for a four year old’s birthday party and they went to a lot of trouble to get into the pirate theme as they had pirate cake, balloons, bunting, and even paper plates and cups!  The event was rounded off with a treasure hunt and most importantly the birthday boy really enjoyed himself.

I was interested to discover that the parents found us due to their interest in the Skipton Puppet Festival.  They looked us up on the Puppeteers UK site, which is very nice to know as we have joined only recently.

We are in the process of doing a total overhaul of the Rough Magic Theatre website and hope to include a variety of new puppet party options for people to choose from.  One request we have had is for shadow puppet making parties.  If anyone has any other suggestions or requests for types of puppet parties, please leave a comment on the bottom of this post.

Don’t forget, I shall be at Beverley Puppet Festival soon doing both the “Jabberwocky!” and “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” shadow puppet suitcase shows.  Why not come and see me?  More details on the “Where You Can See Me” page.  You will also notice that my performance day for the “Masquepony” event has changed.

Past & Present Tents, New Page for Theatres and Gig List Page

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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At long last, my husband Tim and I got a chance to put up my lovely new tent to try it out due to all the nice weather we’ve been having lately.

I got it specially for the “Masquepony” Street Arts Camping Festival, (see previous posts), though I expect that it will be useful for other things too.

I shall be performing “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” on the 19th, but we are going to watch shows on the 18th and camp overnight too.

I unfortunately got rather stroppy with poor long suffering Tim as we struggled to work together as a team to erect the tent.  Being the daughter of a Scout Leader, I know all about the proper procedure for erecting and striking tents.  Tim has never been a Scout and his main camping credentials come from his stopping the family tent blowing off the top of a cliff in Whitby when he was a very small child, (by running to get help from some strange men).  Unfortunately, Tim is extremely tempted, being a man, to pretend he does know about erecting tents.

I made the mistake of deferring to him when we were camping in my brother’s tent in the Netherlands and went along with his choice of camp-site.  This was in a dip and all the water got in when it rained in the night and we relocated the tent to a raised area the next day.  After this incident I vowed that I would take charge of all matters camping and ignore Tim’s opinions on all points.

Unfortunately, this put me into an aggressive drill sergeant mode while we were attempting to erect the new tent.  I lost any vestiges of patience and all sense of humour was diverted into sarcasm and snide remarks.  It didn’t help that I had read all of the instructions thoroughly previously and Tim hadn’t.  With over enthusiastic forthrightness he would suggest doing things in ways that I knew would not work.

Eventually the tent was up and not too lopsided or wrinkly in the wrong places, (I blame Carry On Camping for all the Double Entendres that I have been striving mightily to avoid in this post).  As instructed in the “Tent Commandments” from the tent supplier, Tim went inside the tent while I watered it thoroughly with a watering can on the outside to “weather” it and check for leaks.  There weren’t any.

I promised myself I would behave nicely and be a model of patience when we were taking the tent down again the following day, and I managed a little better but would probably not have won a Happy Camper competition.  I hope that it will become easier and more enjoyable with practice.

We have also got new dedicated pages for schools and for theatres on the main Rough Magic Theatre website now.  Getting webpages formatted correctly seems to be even more frustrating than getting tents to behave themselves, but we got there in the end.  You will also notice a new page on this blog, which tells you “Where You Can See Me”.  This is going to be updated as and when new dates are confirmed and when more information about existing dates becomes available.

I have now had a meeting with Alison Jones of Pioneer Projects about “My Last Carnival” which is what they are calling the entertainment accompanying the “My Last Car” project and exhibition in High Bentham.  She likes my ideas about the Horse Automaton, so now I’ve got to try and work out how to make it for real, and what materials to use.

I hope to use reclaimed and recycled materials where possible, but this will depend on what is available.  So, something is definitely going to happen, watch this space to see exactly what!