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Editorial Coverage |
Editorial Quotes
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'We've done it in a pot-hole before' by Leo Benedictus, Guardian 26.08.04 Performers seem increasingly keen to put on shows in private houses. So Leo Benedictus organises his own five-night festival - in his flat. Day 2, puppet theatre "I glance out of the window. We seem to have got Bangladesh's weather. Poor old Joe Gladwin, tonight's one-man puppet show, has to bring all his kit up from Somerset in a monsoon. I feel for him; he sounded very nice on the phone. Thankfully, there's not too much furniture moving to do today. Joe can set up his production of The Hound of the Baskervilles in the opera-singers' space. When he arrives, still miraculously genial, he parks his people-carrier outside and we unload it together. Wet work. Joe specialises in toy theatre - a style popular with Victorians involving cut-out figures that are jiggled when speaking. He does many shows for children, but this is one of his adults productions. With a fresh audience in place, we turn off the lights and shut the blinds. There's no interval, so we stockpile beers. Joe hands out binoculars and dives behind his home-made proscenium. The play begins. It's 1925. The scene: 221b Baker Street. A cardboard cut-out of Dr Watson quivers with emotion. Given the difficulty of doing all the acting, lighting, sound, music, special effects and scene changes, I had expected Joe to simplify the script. Not a bit of it. We get fog, lightning, trains, a flock of sheep (with bleat-machine), 10 voices (Holmes sounds like a Dalek) and 15 scenes, all in 55 minutes. Joe throws himself into his characters with gusto ("The foot-prints of a gigantic hound!"). "I once performed it four times in a day," he tells me, "but it nearly killed me." The flurry of cardboard and tiny machines does subtract a little from the tension and coherence of his story, but this is hardly the point. While all Joe's virtuosity cannot wring an adult performance from a cardboard puppet, it makes a wide-eye child out of me. Captivated, I forget that the whole thing was a flashback and start my applause a scene too early. I hope hope has a safe journey home." Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Next >> |