Shadow Banquet

Shadow Banquet’s venue, The Toolmakers, Sheffield

Following on from the success of the Shadow Cabaret, we (Martin, Gary and myself) booked a new venue, The Toolmakers for November 25th and invited everyone along to the Shadow Banquet.

It was a banquet! So many acts and shows: New puppet shows, poetry, comedy, live music and audience participation!

We performed my show, ‘Going Underground’ More details HERE!

Gary

Patrick, Martin and l learned a lot from staging The Shadow Cabaret and the idea of The Shadow Banquet was a natural progression. I did two shows. The first was a satire on the rabbit-from-the-hat magic trick, which l called “Harriet Potter and The Rabbit From Hell”. It involved a magician rod puppet (Harriet Potter), a hat, crazy rod puppet bees, spider and rabbit. It was a mix of front-of-audience and shadow play, with music. The second show was a short audience-participation shadow play, involving snails, clouds and martians in hot-air balloons, set to instrumental music.

Gary Manton

Gary’s magical puppet, Harriet

Fantastic photos thanks to Frankie Currie and Jozef Palguta Steger

Kate and girls providing superb curries
Leeza and Dom

The Bear’s Radio

‘The Bear’s Radio’ evolved from a summer workshop where children inputted animals and action words and before the bear could go into hibernation. Through several Monday mornings at the Open Kitchen with nothing but cut out cardboard and a desire to make much of the fading light  the creatures re-emerged, this time to highlight the destructive effects of the felling of thousands of street trees across the city, and especially the plight of the Vernon Oak.

 

Leeza Wallace

Fiona
Sarah with rabbit puppet and maker

I was lucky enough to be able to help set the night up and watch how it all evolved. A real treat for me to see how an empty room was transformed ready for a night of fun, complete with a shadow puppet screen/lighting and scenery just waiting for the puppets to come alive. All carefully thought out – teamwork was visible throughout: Patrick, Martin and Gary shared their skills and resources until everyone felt confident and happy. The shadow puppet shows and other acts were a joy to watch. My lasting memory was observing the children progress from being inexperienced and a little timid puppet makers to confident puppeteers during the space of a few hours. Where self doubt and nerves were put aside and swapped for fun and laughter where all they had to do was to just have a go!! Truly amazing …. It was a lovely opportunity for me to catch up with old friends and make new in a relaxing and friendly environment. Looking forward to the next one!!! Sarah (a very proud sister)

Sarah Truman

Poster by Martin Currie