Puppet Animation Festival

2 Apr 2004 in Festival

Eden Court To Stage Puppet Festival Performances

As the Eden Court Theatre prepares to stage events from the nationwide Puppet Animation Festival for the first time, the festival’s director SIMON HART, fills in the background to an event that has, like Topsy, just growed and growed.

EDEN COURT is staging four puppetry shows as part of the 20th Puppet Animation Festival, the UK’s oldest and largest performing arts festival for children and young people. We will be presenting over 200 events in more than 100 venues throughout Scotland during the four weeks of the Festival, which isn’t bad for an event that started as week-long series of performances 20 years ago at the Netherbow Arts Theatre in Edinburgh.

The four plays which are coming to Eden Court are good examples of the kind of work we support. Folding Theatre Puppet Company are based in Aberdeenshire, and usually specialise in telling traditional Scottish tales, but they have chosen to venture into Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky this year. They have created a superb retelling of his fantasy poem, with live music, and that one is suitable for 7 years and over.

Hoodwink are a new Scottish company who presented very successfully in our New Companies showcase last year, and who are heavily involved in the festival this time with their version of Rumpelstiltskin. The mistress of the laundry retells this classic tale, complete with a cast of clothes pegs, washing and the odd sock, and we think this would be suitable for 5 years and over. We are delighted that we are able to help young companies in that way.

Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre have been around a lot longer, for 15 years or so, and there will no shortage of trickery, fun and exciting puppetry in the quirky animal tales they tell in Finders Keepers, which should be suitable for 3 and over.

The final company visiting Inverness is one of the two European companies we have in the festival this year, Vlinders & Co from Belgium. The particular show they are bringing is called Oetsie Poetsie, and they have been performing it all over Europe to tremendous acclaim and lots of awards. It’s about two office cleaners who are a bit bored, and start to create all kinds of weird creatures from their cleaning equipment. It’s a very funny show, and works really well with kids of 3 and over, both as clever puppetry and as slapstick.

There will also be some puppet making sessions with the Eden Court’s Outreach workers for 2-5 year olds (with a parent or carer) and 5-10 year olds. On top of that, we are also taking events to various other places around the Highlands, including some schools events.

In terms of public performances, Collaborator Theatre Company will perform The Magpie’s Nest of Memories in Culduthel (3 April), Drumnadrochit (3 April) and Arisaig (5 April); Hoodwink take Rumpelstiltskin to Beauly (12 April); Folding Theatre are doing Jabberwocky in Culloden (12 April); and Jack O’Lantern perform a traditional puppet play, Michael Scott & the Devil, at the Macphail Theatre in Ullapool (23 April).

The art form is in a very buoyant time in Scotland, and the expansion of the festival has been very much demand-led. We have about 15 full time companies, and they are presenting the best in puppetry techniques. There is a kind of power for kids in these objects when they come to life, and our Scottish companies present a wide range of work that is very appealing in terms of subject matter anyway. When that is combined with high production values, they create very high quality theatrical events. We are able to take these events into a huge variety of venues, many of which are not traditional arts venues.

(Simon Hart spoke to Kenny Mathieson)