through the wardrobe

Earlier this year I spent a couple of months with a crack team of artists and makers creating a new stage version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, held in a purpose-built tent theatre in London's Kensington Gardens. Led by the illustrious Max Humphries, we were tasked with building puppets for the production.



We had a very short time in which to create a small army of giants, centaurs, minotaurs, woodland creatures, dryads, beavers and lions.

Here are some of the dryad (tree spirit) masks in progress:

...and the dryads in action on stage:

These are the Beavers' gloves before the fur has been applied:

Don't they look a bit like pangolins?

Mr. and Mrs. Beaver (Paul Barnhill and Sophie Louise Dann) on stage wearing their furry beaver gloves:

Aslan the lion was our most important and most difficult creation. Several versions of Aslan were built before we constructed the final puppet. A few early attempts may may be seen here, along with early puppet versions of the beavers and yours truly in giant beaver feet:



The final version of Aslan was built in less that five days, literally with blood, sweat, tears and very, very little sleep. Here are views of our final Aslan under construction in the workshop:

This is what Easter looked like in Narnia:

...and why exhaustion and butane heat tools should not mix:

This video shows Aslan, operated beautifully by Jane Leaney, Christian From and Will Lucas, in action:



Finally, two views of the threesixty° Theatre tents in Kensington Gardens.

The show, designed by Tom Scutt and directed by Rupert Goold, ends its run on September 9th, so if you haven't seen it you still have a little bit of time to get tickets!

strange creatures

With the combination of one of my housemates arriving home late and noisy every night this week and the workmen across the street starting too early, I've not been sleeping well. Last night I had a very disturbing dream about a group of cat-sized rodents nesting in my bedroom. They had humps like camels, tails like water rats and clawed, webbed feet. I wonder what the humps were for?


(image - Matthew Robins)

Tonight I'm going to watch Matthew Robins perform his "science fiction opera" The Death of Flyboy at the National Theatre, with shadow puppets projected on the fly-tower and live musical accompaniment. Listen to some of Matthew's music here. If you're in London you should come along.

dancing pigs in charity shops

A few days ago I found the most wonderful book in my local Oxfam about the 1971 ballet film Tales of Beatrix Potter. It contains a script for the film as well as background on the development of the production. My favorite part details the creation of the costumes, which were co-designed by Christine Edzard, who also directed The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream, and artist Rotislav Doboujinsky, who designed and built the stunning animal masks. I love this quote on Doboujinsky's working practice:

"Doboujinsky works at his own pace - and to his own standard of perfection. 'Now and again I have found no good solution to a problem,' he says. 'Then I renounce,' - renounce not compromise. He must almost have renounced Hunca Munca; thirteen times that winter he made her mask and it was not until February 1970 that, with the fourteenth attempt he was satisfied."

The characters were all performed by dancers from the Royal Ballet. Below are pictures of Jeremy Fisher, who has the most fantastic stripy-stockinged legs, Mrs. Tittlemouse and Johnny Town-Mouse, several waltzing mice, the foxy "sandy-whiskered gentleman", Pigling Bland and friends on a picnic, and a group of extra tails.










Construction materials included:

"60 yards of paper for tails
5 lbs pig bristles - half white - prepared solid, product of Poland
Gallons of various glues
Bags and bags of feathers - marabou, duck feathers, swan feathers
12 pairs of artificial hands (hired) on which to fit paws
Marbles: ping-pong balls : sugar basins"

..and a Van de Graaff generator for affixing animal hair to glue-covered masks!

Isn't it delightful?

straight from the World's Fair

I went to see another play at the National this evening. It was like a two and a half hour version of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. As much as I admire Jeremy Irons, he reminded me strongly of the animatronic president.

puppet-o-rama

I'm in the process of cooking paper pulp to sculpt some figures. While it's boiling I'm trying to make some armatures, which would be easier to do if my studio wasn't shaking from the building opposite being torn down. They seem to be keeping the facade, which is good, but replacing artists' studios with trendy housing is a dreadful shame.

I found this virtual tour of puppeteer Ronnie Burkett's studio the other day. It's fantastic! I'm not a fan of marionettes, but he is an incredible maker. His heads are beautiful..


from Ronnie Burkett's 10 Days on Earth

I also learned that Sesame Workshop has launched a video site on which you can watch hundreds of clips from Sesame Street. Hooray!

whiffle bats

I got the rage this afternoon after trying for several painful hours to fix my computer. I spoke to an unhelpful tech-type person who did nothing but make me want to beat him and others of his ilk senseless with a whiffle bat. I ended up spending the afternoon watching Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief in defeat. This evening, however, I went to see Faulty Optic's Dead Wedding at the Barbican with music by Mira Calix.. it was wonderful.


Orpheus, from Dead Wedding

boring boring boring

I finally got to leave the house today after spending days in bed feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. Being stuck in bed is boring, and not having the energy to sit up for very long is even more boring. My brain feels like mush. Boring boring boring. I missed a talk about about the puppet construction for War Horse this week as well as meeting up for coffee with a fellow puppet designer. I did get to have a very nice lunch out today, and got to see Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D... doesn't make up for days in bed, but it's a start.

more on War Horse

Michael Billington has written a very positive review in the Guardian of War Horse at the National, along with a series of pictures on the Guardian website. They're lovely, but what's really stunning about the puppets is the way they move.. you can see some small snippets in a video on this site.

puppets and squeezeboxes

I was lucky enough to get to see a preview performance of War Horse at the National last night, which was staged in association with the Handspring Puppet Company from South Africa, who created life-sized horse puppets, as well as a number of smaller animals, human figures and shadow puppets for the show. The horses are some of the most stunning puppets I have ever seen, and their movement was so beautiful it made me cry. The show also features choral singing, a melodeon and a bicycle on stage (one of my favorite things). It was one of the best pieces of theatre I've seen in a long while, and well worth seeing if you can.

Images from past Handspring shows:

Tooth and Nail


Ubu and the Truth Commission

(more images from Handspring shows can be found here)

In celebrity-spotting news, we sat next to Harish Patel at the theatre last night, and Ben saw Colin Meloy of the Decemberists busking with his accordion on the South Bank this morning.

let's get together

I went to see Complicite's A Disappearing Number this evening, and Hayley Mills smiled at me.


Oh, and I'll be in Ireland for a few days... life is pretty good.

bad, bad theatre

Have just spent more than three hours sitting through a dreadful play at the National. It was the second show I've seen there in a month featuring handbells. Handbells. Surely someone should be monitoring these things. Some of the live music was good, but the rest of the show hovered between po-faced and ridiculous. Much chair slamming and rolling down the stage. The evening wasn't really enough of a distraction from everything that has been going on, but I was gifted a box of American macaroni and cheese (a childhood food of happiness, along with frozen peas in a cup) which might help.

And a friend's death notice was published today, something which I don't have any words for.

from the PQ

I spent the first part of last week at the Industrial Palace for the Prague Quadrennial Exhibition, which was massive in size and scope, but strangely disappointing when it came to actual design.

(the exhibition hall in the Industrial Palace)

There was an overwhelming amount of stuff on show; some great, some good and some quite mediocre. Each country had its own themed exhibition space. New Zealand's was actually inflatable, which is no wonder as it was designed by this woman:



Yes, her hair does actually come to a point several inches above her head. I saw her in person and can attest to the fact that she does indeed style it like this every day.

There were some things I loved. Latvia's space had lightboxes with images of Monika Pormale's hyper-real performance spaces...










..and the Czech Republic entry was my absolute favorite. The Forman Brothers designed a self-contained fairground space with a sloth puppet operated by pulleys, a booth where disembodied hands painted your face, the world's tiniest ghost train (in which you had to pretend to be the size of an insect and were attacked by a bird), a band of musician bears you could operate yourself, and a heartbreaking little puppet lounge singer in a booth with her very own tiny band..


exit for the insect ghost train


handpainted sign for the musical bears


the face painting booth

The Forman Bros. were also responsible for the Mystery Boat, which could be animated via a series of levers, buttons and pulleys:








More pics from the exhibition (click pictures for larger images):


a costume from the student exhibition


Iceland's exhibition space


Bulgaria's little automata tent


a Quay-esque moving box in the student exhibition


a pleasing row of teabags


from the Russian students' exhibition


disconcerting Israeli puppets


costumes from Taiwan


tiny deck chairs


costume design for The Birds, schools exhibition


sketches from Ireland