Emergency Cheese!

I recently had the task of making some emergency cheese for Baroque Theatre's production of Kindly Leave the Stage (the real cheese had started to smell). So I hurriedly set forth with some card packing from my ill-fated headboard (more of that in another post), a toilet roll tube and a pile of junk mail to make a paper-mâché edam, brie and a cheddar. Of course, if I'd had more time I would have smoothed them over with some cotton flock, but overall I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out!

Have a look!

I also did an emergency masking cloth for Kindly back in February.

You can still catch Kindly Leave the Stage at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich on June 5th, at St George's Theatre, Great Yarmouth on June the 7th and 8th, at the Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells on June the 13th, and at the Hawthorn Theatre, Welwyn Garden City on June the 15th. See here for more details!

The Great Detective

Lord and Lady Swigwell are holding a great party at Swigwell Castle... until Lady Swigwell discovers that someone has stolen her diamond necklace! Lady Swigwell and her butler Speaking begin to search the guests – every audience member is a possible suspect! Then we discover something terrible: Lord Swigwell has been decapitated!! Only one person can solve these terrible crimes: Smellsock Fomes, the greatest detective in the world!

I designed The Great Detective for White Horse Theatre this Autumn. It is aimed at German children learning English between the ages of 10 and 13 and was directed by Kenn Michaels.



 

Costume designs for Lord and Lady Swigwell

 

 

Speeking and Lord Swigwell, complete with latex mask and gloves

 

Lord Swigwell is feeling unwell.

Lady Swigwell and Speeking fail to notice the theft of the necklace...

 

There is only one man to call!

 

 

Smellsock Fomes must examine the scene of the crime!

 

 

Who can the murderer be?

 

 

Lord Swigwell is dead... and his severed head is in this bag!

 

Smellsock Fome's Resurrector Machine brings the murdered Speeking back to life. Light-up automata machine.

 Lady Swigwell is re-united with her diamond necklace!

And if you're wondering who the thief and murderer was...

 

... look underneath your chair... Is there a large black bag? It has a bottle of poison and a bloodied saw in it! The murderer is YOU!!

 

 

White Horse Theatre Production Design

Well as far as good intentions go, I am serenely cruising down the path to witty, engaging, punctual blogging success. Life does, however, seem to get in the way; so here I am (again) apologising for eons of blog-free vacuum, offering up another sporadic blog post...

 I have just returned (again!) from spending another three months in Germany where I have been dismembering Ken dolls, haggling at flea markets, assembling bizarre steampunk automata, spending many hours (and even more Euros) whimpering in Primark, and of course warming my blueing fingers over an elderly gas heater in between bouts of painting.

 So whilst I collate my production photographs from my first couple of months out there, here is a little taster of what we’ve been up to behind the scenes at White Horse Theatre...

So nice to be designing again... I get to wear nice clothes like normal human beings! Spot the following: The Golden Gallery of St Paul's (upside down), three legs of ham, two old man's hands, an old man mask, an umbrella (soon to become the London Eye), an ice cream tray, two strings of saussages and a phonograph.

 

The workings of a mad woman - Smellsock Fomes' Resurrector Machine

 Here we have the sculpted head of Lord Swigwell, soon to be cast and made into a mask for The Great Detective. On the right is a Bayeaux Tapestry-inspired squirrel puppet for Maid Marian. Both were made by the wonderful Lucy Dentith.

Here is a little puppet of Smellsock Fomes in his flying machine and the famous diamond necklace, both also from The Great Detective and made by myself and Sophie Clayton.

The beginnings of a beautiful Bayeaux deer, also made by the lovely Sophie Clayton.

The backdrop for The Great Detective, also in progress, and painted by the very talented Meg Williams.


More show photos, anecdotes and enthralling plotlines coming soon!



More Scenic Painting

Apparently the key to successful blogging is having some sort of routine publishing date every week or whatever. This means that your audience knows when to check your blog for updates, and makes your blog more successful from a marketing point of view and less frustrating for your readers to use...

however...

                 well...

Like many arty people, I’m electronically shambolic.

 Here, therefore, is some scenic work I did in January (oops).

Lizzie and the Pirate/Tarradiddle

Properties!

When you have numbed all the nerve-endings in your fingers with an accidental layer of superglue... when you are desperately trying to remember trigonometry in order to sew a triangle of fur over a cat’s arse... when you are chasing what appears to be the last twelve gold beads in the whole of Germany around the props room floor... when all your colleagues are giving you grief about the tiny rubbery over-cooked chicken that you left on the doorstep a week ago (If I had found the bio-bin, I would have dealt with it earlier)...

... frequent blogging whilst at work doesn’t seem quite as attainable a concept as it did before you started working.

So let me show you what I have spent the last three weeks working on

Edgar The Spider

 

Edgar (fondly named after Edgar Allen Poe) started out in life as a joke-shop spider. He was a bit too small and plasticy to have much impact on stage, however, so I cut his legs off and extended them.  I created his new legs from wire (to add rigidity to the upper part of the legs) and lightweight chain (to add that satisfyingly startling jiggle-factor). I then covered him in tarantula-coloured fluffy wool, and attached a couple of yellow beads to created home-made-looking eyes, tying in with the slightly crafted look of the rest of the play.

 Edgar in the scary haunted-house scene in 'Lizzie and the Pirate'.

Mina the Cat

Mina (as in Harker, as in Dracula) also belongs to the haunted house sequence wherein she jumps out of a chimney! I vaguely made her pattern from scratch. She has a rigid tail, weighted feet to give her that extra leaping quality, and button eyes.

The Skull

The Skull (un-named, I've already proved I can read) rather unsurprising also belongs in the haunted house. For this, I rather excitingly devised an Indiana Jones-type contraption, whereby the skull sprung up out of a box!



The skull is activated when the actor sneakily nudges the end of the pole through the handle of the box. The weight of the large washers causes the skull end to flip upright and into view! I am a little bit obsessed with automata devices, so this was a very satisfying prop for me to make, even if there were a lot of chisel/washer/fulcrum-based adjustments needed!

The Crown

The crown was a central plot device in 'Taradiddle' and was somewhat challengingly required to be gold and silver and red and yellow and green and blue with diamonds and rubies and emeralds!!! I overcame this with feature-coloured gems at equi-distant points around the crown. The crown was created by wiring and glueing lots of beads to a pre-existing crown structure, and creating a new rim to fit the actress's head.

I love to solder!

The Mirror

The mirror was also in 'Taradiddle', and like everthing else in that play, it required bling! I created it from a plastic photo frame and cut it a new wooden backing and handle. I then covered it in gold paint, gems and glitter. I very much felt like I was working at the Mattel factory. Isn't it hideously wonderful?

...and that's all for now. I also have all my scenic painting to show you, but my computer is currently 'unable to find a destination'... hmm

Promised Land

Here is my Waterloo:

This is one of my most recently painted backcloths. It is a terrifying (well, for one person with limited time) 4m x 2.5m...

                                 ...and it's photo-realistic.

 An early blocked-in photo

 Look at the individual bricks!! Lucky I came up with a cunning device that made them easier...

 The finished piece in my painting tent

 In the theatre... all the brick houses have individual bricks

... and with some acting stuff going on in front of it!

A piece like this can really suck you in - I could easily have spent another week working into it.