Tag Archives: street theatre

Shadow Suitcase Theatre at Beverley Puppet Festival

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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I had a fantastic time at Beverley Puppet Festival on Sunday.  We only found out about Skipton Puppet Festival Biennial sister festival last year when I met Anna & Haviel from Indigo Moon.  They and the Beverley Arts Trust organise the festival and it was great to be there for the first time.

Beverley is a beautiful place with beautiful old buildings like the Friary, (where the majority of the performances took place) and the minster.  And, most importantly given the recent trend of storms and torrential rain, it was clear and the sun shone brightly throughout the day.

I had been booked to perform both the new “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” suitcase show and the old favourite “Jabberwocky!” as well.  Both seemed to go down very well.

Later on in the afternoon my later sets were spent wandering out of the friary gardens towards the town where there were captive audiences sat outside pubs and restaurants. I do always ask people if they would like to see it first rather than having forced entertainment.

But we also encountered what I presume was a family group in the garden of one of the houses next door to the friary.  On enquiring whether they would like to see the show we discovered that it was the 93rd birthday of one gentleman in the group.  I did him a special birthday performance of “Jabberwocky!” over the low garden wall of the house.  They all enjoyed this so much that they took the birthday “boy” out to look at the rest of the puppet festival afterwards.

I was lucky to have my husband Tim Austin as steward and “roady” for the whole day. He was a star, helping me carry things, making cups of tea and switching my mini PA on and off for me.  It is possible for me to do these things on my own if necessary but it would have been a lot more tiring, especially with the two hour and a half’s drive there and back as well.

We managed to catch one or two of the other shows while we were there including Malcolm Knight’s Punch & Judy, Lady Lucinda by Noisy Oyster and in the evening the fabulous show by Sofie Krog (of Denmark/Spain), “The House”.  This was a comedy horror for adults and teenagers using glove puppets with an extremely sophisticated rotating set like a giant doll’s house.  The puppets looked fantastic and they were operated with fantastic skill but most importantly it was hugely entertaining and funny.  Anna Ingleby had seen them at the Charleville-Meziers festival and gone to the trouble of organising a mini-tour for them in this country so that it would be worth their while to come and do their show in Beverley for us.

A big well done to Anna and Peter Rolinson and all of the other people whose hard work helped make the festival a success especially the lady who made the lovely sandwiches.

Buxton Puppet Festival approaches with rapidity, we will be there on Tuesday the 24th.  You can book for our shadow puppet workshop and Alice in Wonderland performances on the Where You Can See Me page which has links through to the Buxton Opera House site.

Celebrating & Evaluating “My Last CARnival” + St. Simeon, Patron St. of Puppeteers!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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After the wonderful experience of making “Fred Fettler’s “Pony 3000” The Transport of the Future” for the “My Last CARnival” event, the fun did not end there.

Pioneer Projects, who commissioned Rough Magic Theatre to create the “Pony 3000” show wanted to thank everybody who had been involved with “My Last CARnival”, “My Last Car” and the Jubilee Flotilla and Picnic celebrations and to get feedback from everyone about the event as well.

So Tim Austin, Eddie Knowles and I, (not being ones to turn up our noses at scones with strawberries and cream, vol au vents and fruit punch) all went along.  I jest of course, it was very nice to be treated with drinks and nibbles, but that wasn’t our only reason for going.  A very big thank you to those who helped prepare all the lovely food, by the way.

I was very pleased to see Alan Dix again, (the artistic director of 509 arts) who was presented with a lovely model of a carbon footprint with a model car sticking out of it in memory of the occasion.  Their “My Last Car” performance and exhibition was absolutely top quality and a real treat to have right on our doorstep in Bentham Town Hall.  This was the feedback I gave to him, both from myself and from comments of other audience members that I heard at the time.  Alan returned the compliment by telling me what he had thought of our street theatre performance.  He said that he wasn’t quite sure how it was going to work at first, but that it was extremely “witty” and he’d enjoyed it a lot.  Here is 509 arts evaluation video of the event and you can just see me with my traffic cone on the bottom right towards the end!

I also found out that there is a Patron Saint of Puppeteers this week, whose feast day can be celebrated either on the 1st or 21st of July according to which calendar you follow!

Click HERE for the Puppeteers UK article on St. Simeon Salus (or Salos)

Please note, everyone, that Buxton Opera House are now taking bookings for our Shadow puppet workshop and “Alice in Wonderland” performances on the 24th of July, please see “Where You Can See Me” page for more details.