This week I have been at Puppet Place working on the new show. Here's a couple of pictures of the space:

 I spent Monday and Tuesday making newspaper 'sketches' of the two characters, one big set and one smaller set. At lunchtime on the Tuesday I went for lunch with a group of puppet builders from Rusty Squid who have been working on a large interactive display at the Bristol Central Library

Click here for a video of the 'Book Hive' by Rusty Squid, including a short interview with David McGoran explaining how the project was conceived. 

On Tuesday Bee and I did some trial runs with the newspaper puppets, quickly discarding the larger more unwieldy puppets for the smaller scale versions. This scale offers more scope and comfort, as well as avoiding the 'puppets walking on the floor of the stage' issue, which Cris Pirie explained at the workshop on Saturday.  When a puppet walks on the floor much of the action ends up hidden from the audience unless you are sitting in the front row. Working on a raised set will be much easier with smaller puppets. The 'legs' guy measures up at about a foot and a half, and the 'arms' guy about a foot tall (with arms of nearly two and a half feet in length). 

We came out with some lovely bits of movement, and really broke it down on a few things and made strong progress. I'm really happy with how the performance aspect is coming along. Sadly I don't have the videos from the session with me at the moment, but hopefully I will be able to put them up here soon in one form or another. Bee also did some sketches exploring some costume ideas for the puppets:

Working largely from these I sketched a few more designs myself later that evening.

Wednesday was kinda rained off, but I used the opportunity to stock up on materials for making wooden armatures for the puppets and bits and bobs to begin set fabrication. 

On Thursday I was able to stay late at the workshop with Dik Downey of Pickled Image, He and his team are working on some large scale puppets for a show in London and I was able to pitch in and assist them for a while. I made good progress on the Legs puppet over Thursday and Friday, here are some Images of him so far:

 There are a few things that need doing on this puppet still, including perhaps lengthening the shins a little (they do look a little off don't they?) and finishing the head and hands. It sure is lovely to be able to build with wood at a good speed, since leaving John Wright Modelmaking I've missed doing machine work. For Monday and Tuesday next week Bee is coming in so we might get started on some set stuff. Here are some bits and bobs of set stuff I drew out:

 You'll have to pardon the lack of plot exposition as there is a lot to touch on, perhaps when we have a semi final treatment of the play written out I'll put it up.

I've booked the space for another week to give us a bit more time there. More updates soon!