Tag Archives: upfront puppet theatre

“You shall go to the Pantomime!” – “Oh, no you won’t”….”Oh, yes we will!”

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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In February this year I was preparing the kids for their first public performance in our local community pantomime (Bentham Theatre Group).

Last year’s pantomime was “Peter Pan” and Anthony and Miranda were then aged nearly 3 and 5 years old. They (and us) attended all of the rehearsals including the dress only for Tim and I to test positive for Covid just days before the performances.

Obviously, we all had to isolate as a family and the kids didn’t get to perform in the show.

I was determined that this year would be different and we went through the whole process again. This year’s Panto being “The Wizard of Oz”. The kids initially said they wanted to be in it but then were a little daunted when I first played the MGM film for them and found it quite frightening. Soon after, however, I was getting repeated requests to play the film from Miranda and Anthony enjoyed it too. Anthony tends to be wary of films when he doesn’t know what will happen but enjoys them on repeated viewings.

I told them that they could be Munchkins or Flying Monkeys and they were keen on the idea of being Munchkins so I had to make them some Munchkin hats (see below) which I was quite proud of. They are made of various things I had lying around the house:

I built them onto a hat and a headband that we already had as I was concerned that a thin elastic would bite into their necks and be uncomfortable and I wanted them to be able to be able to wear them for extended periods without taking them off all the time or refusing to wear them.

I had a dentist’s appointment in the week of the panto performances and having got a cold I thought I had better take a lateral flow test to double check it wasn’t Covid. Unfortunately the test was positive and not just a faint line but a vibrant dark red that appeared almost immediately.

I took myself off to the top of the house (where our bedroom is) and Tim tested himself and the kids and their tests were negative.

Tim and I were both determined that the kids wouldn’t miss out on their Panto performances 2 years running, so Tim looked after the kids, took them to the performances and provided me with food and drinks at intervals, (he was a proper hero and slept on our very tiny sofa as well). We were very careful (using copious amounts of sanitising spray and wipes) and the kids managed to do their Panto performances and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Meanwhile, I was stuck in my bedroom upstairs not having to look after the kids and able to watch copious amounts of T.V. on my laptop. So, not all bad.

I started to feel pretty yucky and got lots of sleep in soon after I went upstairs, but when I wasn’t sleeping and eating I watched some Anime films on Youtube, (I found a Studio Ghibli film I hadn’t seen before called “Angel’s Egg” which was VERY interesting). I really wanted to re-watch Howl’s Moving Castle again but discovered the only place I could get it was Netflix so I caved in and got myself a cheapo subscription.

Having binge watched a large number of Studio Ghibli films I suddenly remembered that Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was on Netflix and decided to watch that.

I had already seen numerous trailers bigging up the stop motion on this film, saying that it took the medium to a higher level than ever seen before, using Del Toro’s vast experience in the direction of live action films and transferring camera techniques more usually reserved for live action to the stop motion medium:

I shall do a full review of this film and comparisons with Disney’s recent live-action/CGI re-make and Upfront Puppet Theatre’s live puppetry Pinocchio in my next blog post…..Watch this space…. 👀!

“The Snow Queen” at Upfront Puppet Theatre

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Last year as a Christmas treat we took ourselves off to Upfront Puppet Theatre again for their show “The Snow Queen”.

I had seen some of the puppets from this on display in a cabinet on a previous visit, (CLICK HERE for the previous post) but had not actually seen the show before.

My kids are both big fans of Disney’s “Frozen” films and I thought it would be interesting for them to see this puppet play which was closer to the original “Snow Queen” story. I had some very fond memories of film and TV adaptations of this story from my childhood so having seen John’s adaptation of Pinocchio (a very faithful adaptation of the original Pinocchio story), I was interested to see what he would do with this traditional tale.

I was extremely impressed with this show. The music was hugely atmospheric (particularly the jarring, uncanny music for the appearances of the Snow Queen) and helped to make the performance very exciting and immersive.

A screen at the front of the stage was used with front projections of snow and trees etc. at various points in the show. This was particularly effective for the sequence where Gerda was travelling in a carriage and we could see the carriage through the screen but an illusion of movement was created by the moving projections as well.

I was also impressed with the way the mechanism for showing the boat travelling on the river which worked very nicely with no technical hitches to distract from the story telling.

As always the show made excellent use of the turntable mechanism on the stage for scene changes and artful and dramatic use of the good old smoke machine as well. John’s puppets and sets were very well made too with excellent use of textures (reflective eyes for the Snow Queen etc.)

The show used a combination of rod and string puppets (with rod puppets appearing from the pit at the front of the stage and marionettes for the main staging further back) and achieved various transitions by having multiple puppet versions of the characters, e.g. Gerda on foot and Gerda mounted on the deer. Others however, were achieved through sheer skill (Kai mounting the Snow Queen’s sleigh and flying away).

Unusually for one of Upfront’s shows the puppeteers were on view (dressed in black so as not to distract from the puppets). I say unusually as the current stage has a bridge where the puppeteers can perform out of sight, (though of course for their cabaret puppets from Stanelli’s Super Circus they do perform in view as well.

John explained afterwards that the reason for this is that it is one of their older productions from when they had a smaller theatre space in one of the barn buildings and the puppets sets etc. had shorter strings for this reason.

I wondered when I was watching it if the reason the production was so excellent and well polished in terms of the performance was because the shorter strings gave better control, but on reflection it must have been at least partially that is because they have performed it a lot more times than some of the newer productions that were, perhaps, still being perfected.

My two kids (age 3 and 5) were totally absorbed from beginning to end and Miranda, (as seems to be her habit when reaching the end of a live show that she has enjoyed) said that she wanted to watch it again as soon as we reached the end. Anthony also gave it high praise, though I sadly can’t remember his exact words.

To sum up, I would say that this show was very effective dramatically and technically and made for mesmerising, spectacular viewing. I would recommend anyone who hasn’t seen it before to do so the very next time it is being shown and indeed I would recommend a visit to any show or exhibition here as the visitor experience is excellent with lovely toilets (including baby change facilities) and fantastic food in the vegetarian cafe. A real treat.