Tag Archives: street theatre

Rough Magic Theatre’s First Glastonbury

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Wuffles Poster

Hello again to all my faithful blog readers!  I am sorry once again to leave such a humungous gap since my last post.

As you know we were at Glastonbury the weekend before last performing our new puppet show “Clueless & Wuffles – The Case of the Missing Jewels!“.

We performed the show about 6 times altogether and Professor Panic, Mrs. Panic and our fellow puppeteers all said how much they enjoyed it.  Professor Panic said were “brilliant!” and that we were “stalwarts of the Panic Circus Tent”.

The audience appreciated it too – in fact while we were making a cup of tea at our tent, one of the Kidz Field artist’s children came to tell us specially that they’d enjoyed the show, (she said she liked the dog best!).  During our final show the children were so enthralled by the performance that they actually chased the villains of the piece waving swords that they’d made in the wood work tent!

We were a little concerned about whether the Panic Circus tent would be used as a creche instead of adults staying to look after their kids and watch the show, but luckily there were adults in every audience we had.  One of the main reasons we were concerned about this is that the show is aimed at a family audience and contains jokes for the adults as well!  I am pleased to say that these went down very well too.

I was also a little worried that I might find it difficult to relax and enjoy myself when we were not performing our show.  This was not a problem in the end, though we may have had a couple of slightly earlier nights than other people on days when we had earlier performances.  I am not someone who does well on too little sleep which is one reason it has taken so long to write this blog as I needed some recuperation time.

We arrived a day earlier than the general public and thus had a very smooth journey down to Somerset.  We had been warned in our information pack that glass, dogs and excessive amounts of alcohol etc. were not allowed and that our vehicle would be searched when we arrived.  We had great fun imagining what might happen when they discovered a life size Alsatian dog puppet in the van.

In actual fact Wuffles remained concealed in his bag and the stewards merely did a little peak through the van windows to see if they could spot anything noticeably suspicious looking, (they had a lot of vehicles to deal with).

So we arrived at roughly 3pm and had plenty of time to unload our props/puppets at the Kidz Field, pitch our tent, park the car, walk back to the tent, make our tea and suss out where the toilets and water points were.

We were lucky in having close access to the nicest toilets on the site which were the composting ones in the Kidzfield.  These use no water to flush, instead you use a cup of bark chippings when you have done a poo, (my apologies to those of a delicate disposition, quick pass the smelling salts!).

There wasn’t a lot of room left in the Kidz Field Crew camping so we grabbed a spot which tilted somewhat although it was at least mostly flat.  We were careful not to face the tent entrance uphill so as to avoid water running into the tent, (it was brilliant sunshine when we arrived but we wanted to be prepared).  We also put all our guy-lines out as this is essential if you wish to avoid water getting into your tent when it rains and we did a very good wrinkle free job.

We had scorching weather when we put up the tent, and again when we took it down, and torrential Biblical style storms with thunder & lightening in the middle.  We took our sun-cream and our sunhats for the sun as well as waterproofs and wellies for the rain and we were quite comfortable most of the time.  In one of the ridiculously colossal downpours I did discover water got in down the neck of my waterproof jacket but we took shelter in one of the performance tents.  The jacket is perfectly fine for normal amounts of rain!  You can see a picture of the spectacular Glastonbury mud below.  It seemed to come in three types – sticky, sloshy and slippery and it was quite amusing trying to get around in it.  We also managed to keep the mud only in the porch of the tent and kept the inner dry and largely mud free.

We took everything we needed to cook all our meals on our camping stove but recognised that if it rained all the time we wouldn’t be able to use it and would have to buy stuff instead – in the end I think we bought just under half of our meals out as we had plenty of good weather.  There was a lot of very good vegetarian and vegan food to be had – particularly in the green fields area, though finding stuff that was good value, nice and big enough portions was a little more challenging.  One of our favourites was a very big curry at the Avalon Cafe which actually started to fill me up before I’d finished it!  They also have live acts on a stage in there too which was great.

We got free earplugs from the info. stall on the Wednesday and these were good for when watching bands close to the speakers, and for sleeping at night.  I am very good at sleeping well and the sloping tent and the noise didn’t cause me any trouble.  We even managed to get at least one shower while we were there and met some nice people while queuing for it too.

Meeting new people in random places and having a nice chat happened quite a lot while we were there and was probably one of the nicest things about the festival.  The majority of people were very nice and friendly and there was a good camaraderie among the Kidz Field crew too.  It was heartening to discover that a lot of real hippies still go to Glastonbury and we attended a proper anti-fracking concert by an activist band called “Seize the Day” in the “Toad Hall” tent in Green Futures.  They were seriously good musicians as well as having a message to put across.

You can see from the pictures, videos and links below what kind of stuff we saw and got up to.  As we have so much to talk about I shall do some further reviews etc. in a second Glastonbury blog post including the new Ramshacklicious show “Grime” and the “Kiss on the Apocalypse” show by the Mutoid Waste Co. and not forgetting our fellow Panic Circus Tent performers also.

Do feel free to comment at the bottom and don’t forget our “Clueless & Wuffles…” show is available to book now for your event – (CLICK HERE to contact me!).

 

Links to Fellow Panic Circus Puppeteers –

No Strings Puppet Theatre & Mainbrace Theatre

Nicada – Punch & Judy

Over the Top Puppet Company

Professor Eek

Panic Circus

Also on the Kidzfield –

Ian – OtherWorld Arts

In the Outside Circus Tent –

Kiki Bittovabitsch (Video below not suitable for children)

Snap Boogie

Theatre & Circus Field –

Ramshacklicious

 

Cabaret Field –

Le Navet Bete (Napoleon: A Defence)

Glebeland –

Mutoid Waste Company (Joe Rush)

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

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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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!