The Chalk Giants

I must have spent the last four weeks or so on this show but it has been well worth it. It opened last Saturday but the four of us closest to it, meaning the two actors, the director and myself, have continued re-working it in the light of audience response. I was down at the theatre yesterday painting a screen to hide the projector from the auditorium, having my two-tiered work top measured for curtains and black felt table tops, and labelling cables and equipment to make the technical gear easier and quicker to set up. I also did some work on a puppet stand, hastily knocked up with hammer and pins in the lunch break immediately prior to the dress rehearsal, to make it more road-worthy.

The photo is back-stage at an early stage of development. We only use one overhead projector now but it is still a technically ambitious production combining live video feed, shadow play, animation, pre-recorded footage on DVD, live action and, of course, puppetry . And then there's live and pre-recorded music supplied by your humble scribe. We use tie-clip radio mics to allow the actors to be heard when they are behind the projection screens. They also allow me to put a 'giant' effect on voices as required. The scariness of this means the show has a '5 years and over' age rating.

I know I am very biased but I can't recommend the show strongly enough. We have three more Norwich shows before heading to the Edinburgh Fringe next week where we'll be playing at Zoo Roxy on Roxburgh Place at 11.40am each day from August 6th to 23rd. And if you're a real puppet junkie I'll be accompanying Pinocchio on my clarinet at 10.30am in the same venue on each of those days.

I haven't told you what the show is about. Well, think Jack and the Beanstalk meets Jack the Giant Slayer but from the giants' perspective. But that's only half the story...

The Road Movie

I'm currently collaborating on a new puppet show called The Chalk Giants. It's to to be premiered next weekend at Norwich Puppet Theatre where it will run for just over a week before we take it up to the Edinburgh Fringe early in August. Without giving too much away we are incorporating moving images taken at key points along the chalk escarpment that forms the geological divide between the south-east of England and the rest of the country. We began by filming on the beach at Hunstanton in Norfolk a week ago last Thursday. The chalk cliffs there have a spectacular pink seam running through them which caught the sun very well. In case you are wondering at the way the chalk has separated itself by colour I can tell you that it is down to human intervention. One Michael Joseph Kennedy, an Irish accented denizen of the town, has spent the last fifteen years shoring up the sea defences by piling rocks from the beach against the base of the cliff. The colour scheme is his doing.

It takes about 80 minutes to get to Hunstanton from Norwich, whichever route you take. However, this was nothing compared to the next day's odyssey.



I set off a little before 6am to collect Kevin the cameraman and off we drove to our first port of call. Sally, one half of Indefinite Articles, lives just outside Cambridge by Grantchester Meadows, immortalised in song by Pink Floyd. I couldn't resist a quick look and found it just as peaceful as the song suggests. At 7.30am I saw one jogger and no one else.



Next stop was Buckingham for breakfast and I took a picture of the famous gaol. And then on to do some filming at Uffington White Horse, south-west of Oxford. It was a bakingly hot day and we wore black for the shots but the location and the views it provided were worth the effort. There is are other white horses in England, made by cutting away the top soil to reveal the chalk beneath, but the one at Uffington, thought to be about 3,000 years old is both the oldest and finest. It is highly stylised, its lines full of movement.



Next we took what was to be a short detour for a drive by shot of Stonehenge. A wrong turn, a pause for lunch and one of those traffic jams on the A303 where people get out of their cars to stretch their legs meant it took somewhat longer than we had hoped. I was driving so no picture. However, the light was poor and the famous landmark was not looking its best. I remember going for picnics there as a child - free parking, hardly any visitors and the stones, the fallen ones at least, were great for climbing on. Now it resembles a military compound.



Finally we made it to our goal, the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset. Here we met up with Steve, the other half of Indefinite Articles, who had been in Stratford directing a puppet for the Royal Shakespeare Company's rehearsals of A Winter's Tale ("Exit, pursued by a bear...")

The Cerne Abbas giant may be a relative newcomer, the first historical reference dating from 1694 and no real evidence to demonstrate greater antiquity. One theory suggests it was carved to poke fun at Oliver Cromwell during the protectorate. He is very well endowed - a giant in every sense - and another theory explains this as being the result of a Victorian re-cuttting which accidentally (?!) extened his member by incorporating his navel.

We performed for several takes using the hillside on which it stands as a backdrop but didn't climb the hill to peer over the fence that guards it. Instead we retired to the Royal Oak in the village for a well earned pint of Badger and the best pub food I've eaten in years.




The drive back was not quite as long but it was 2.30am by the time I parked up back in Norwich. Still, it's great to get out and about from time to time. And now to work on the music for the show.

Norwich Puppet Theatre

I've just visited one of my favourite venues, Norwich Puppet Theatre, to play for Indefinite Articles' Pinocchio. Steve Tiplady is a fine performer whom I've worked with many times. His shows always give the impression of barely managed chaos, Pinocchio being no exception, and this alarmed me at first. Now I realise that it's just his way and he can bring the audience back in the blink of an eye.

For this show I play as the audience enters the auditorium and is seated. This can take ten minutes or so. I used to use soprano or alto saxophone for this but now I favour the clarinet. It can cut through a din if it needs to but can also play right on the edge of audibility. This is a great opportunity to play whatever I'm feeling; whatever the space suggests. For young children I usually start of in a major pentatonic - calm and unthreatening - but by the end I might be running through a klezmer tune or two. The show itself also features Tibetan temple bells and, for the first time today, a rather strange instrument that I used to use when touring with Baobab Theatre. Always a favourite with children it's very good for making the sound of frogs, crickets and squeaky doors. However, if you hold the stick and twirl the little drum (really just an amplifier) on the end of the length of fishing line it roars like a hurricane or strange beast. I wish I could remember its name.
The wonderful thing about the Norwich Puppet Theatre is that it also acts as a puppet museum with puppets from the last thirty years of shows displayed and hung from every available piece of wall. A truly magical place to visit, although the thought of staying in there on my own for a night gives me the shivers. It is hired for seances from time to time, if that's the right word, and is popular with ghost hunters too. Some very brave souls work there.