Magazine: STAGE STRUCK - November 2011

Isn’t it amazing when something you think you hate turns out to be something you actually really rather like? Maybe it’s never happened to you but it did happen to me recently and it happened over puppets. That’s right puppets. I really didn’t think I liked puppets. Not at all. Not one bit. As a kid I could have quite easily rung Sooty’s neck and as for Punch and Judy or Pinky and Perky... pass the bolt gun. But then someone mentioned Thunderbirds and after a few moments the Muppets came up and then Spitting Image, and I had a revelation: I realised that I do rather like puppets after all. Amazing; for years I thought I hated puppets and actually I really rather love them. And that’s just as well really as I reckon that puppetry is more popular now than at any time since Supermarionation dominated the Saturday morning TV schedules. In Britain puppetry has usually been associated with children’s entertainment (or politics), at least in more recent times, but this is not the case in other cultures and that influence is certainly creeping into British theatres. Just last month The New Wolsey staged a version of Romeo and Juliet which was mainly told through puppetry and the National Theatre’s Warhorse, at the emotional heart of which is an animated Horse, has been a success on Broadway as well as in the West End. And we’re very lucky to have a theatre dedicated to this particular form of dramatic story-telling.
 

A few years ago the Norwich Puppet Theatre was threatened with closure due to the short-sighted parameters laid out by the Arts Council. Thankfully the NPT refused to accept the myopia of this Londoncentric quango and successfully argued their way to a reprieve. They’ve gone from strength to strength since and their program offers a real variety of puppetry for all ages, live shows and classes for those who’d like to have a go at animating the inanimate themselves. This month sees a particularly well timed production. As in Warhorse, it is the First World War which provides the dramatic backdrop to A November Day, a show developed by Thingumajig Theatre in association with The Imperial War Museum which, also like Warhorse, has played successfully in the USA. Developed originally to commemorate the passing of the last of the men who had witnessed the slaughter of the Western Front, A November Day seeks to show how events slip from living memory into written history. Using hand, rod and shadow puppets, live music and a transforming set Thingumajig tell how the opening of a box in an attic leads a woman to discover the story of her Grandfather, a soldier in WWI, and the stray dog which he befriended. There are comic touches in this tale but it’s poignant exploration of ending and decay means the overall mood is generally bittersweet and therefore is only suitable for those 8+. The performance takes place the day after Armistice Day on the 12th of November at 2.30. Tickets are £9 adults, £6 children and concessions or you can buy a family ticket (2 adults, 2 children) for £25: available from www.puppettheatre.co.uk, on e-mail at info@puppettheatre.co.uk or by calling 01603 629 921. With World War 1 forming part of the National Curriculum A November Day will doubtless help bring to life a part of our history of which there is no longer any living memory.
The clientèle of Harry’s Bar will be gathering again this month and as usual they’re an odd crowd; not surprising when you realise that Harry’s is the watering hole where the dead can drink with the living and the famous rub shoulders with the unknown. In this third instalment from playwright Susan Hawkes, HG Wells is looking for a solution to his writer’s block and Rudyard Kipling is searching for his son Jack, lost in the mud of the Western Front. Rebecca West is at the bar having a drink with her characters from The Return of the Soldier and in the corner Margaret Atwood is composing some poetry. Harry meanwhile is looking for ways to attract some younger faces into his establishment and who can blame him? Dead authors being more trouble than their worth – and they don’t like karaoke. Harry’s Bar occupies an entertaining niche in the space/time continuum and you can enter the anomaly on the 22nd - 24th at the Elizabeth Orwell Hotel, Felixstowe or on the 25th at Danceeats, Jerwood Dance House, Ipswich. Tickets are just £9 or £8 concessions and available on 01394 279613.