A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in St. Helen’s

You may or may not remember a long while back I was ever so proud of myself for tidying up the Rough Magic Theatre storage room – and how, in October 2021, we had our first Alice in Wonderland gig for a very long time. How I repaired and spruced up our Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit’s House scenery and even got myself a wig, as my hair was no longer the correct length.

Then after visiting Tim’s family in Norfolk for Christmas, we got back and on December 28th we heard a peculiar noise and found the mess you see in the pictures.

As you can see a large chunk of the plasterboard ceiling had fallen down because of a leak in the bathroom above. The sodden plasterboard had given up and fallen down with a load of dirty water. This was massively upsetting as we had planned to try and get a few more gigs with the Alice show. This was a major setback.

So, having planned to push the show and get a few more gigs, we instead decided that this was a sign to retire the big Alice show but present the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party as a walkabout show only on the new website, and that we would spruce it up and renew the fabric on the tea table when we got a booking.

When I originally created the fabric for the tea table I used spray glue to attach the cut-out pink ripstop layer to the black ripstop layer beneath. This meant that the black layer where the glue was exposed had been getting a bit dirty and shabby-looking, even before the leak accident, so this was a good excuse to take the tea table apart and attempt to do a better job with some new fabric.

We were asked to bring the Mad Hatter and Alice to St. Helen’s library for a “HAF”(Holiday Activities and Food) event in the Easter holidays and proceeded to source the material we needed for a new tablecloth.

I wasn’t able to find fabric in the same fluorescent pink as the original but I did manage to find two similar shades of bright pink and source a copious amount of bondaweb to join the cut pink layer to the black layer neatly, without any messy glue. An expensive but neat solution.

Removing the teapots so the old fabric could be removed

Removing the teapots so the old fabric could be removed

Plan to incorporate 2 different shades of pink on the tablecloth

Marking out the shapes for cutting on the paper bondaweb backing.

Cutting out

The gig went very well and we are are already planning the “Mad Hatter’s” next outing to a Food and Drink Festival (more details to come soon). Sadly the selfie below is the only picture we got time to take on the performance day and doesn’t show off the fabric at all. I’ll take some more pics the next time we get it out.

In the meantime check out the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party show page by clicking HERE. We have lots of space left in our diary for this year and next year so please do GET IN TOUCH 😊.

We’re Back! 2 puppeteers and a baby at Settle Stories

Bell Tent for Artists Hangout (photo courtesy of Settle Stories website – thanks)

Dungeons & Dragons Cafe (Photo courtesy of Settle Stories website – thanks)

Anthony surveys a 50ft inflatable whale and The Naked Man (all the usual Settle sights)!

Settle railway station

Inside the old signal box!

As you know, from my previous post, I have been very busy recently with my pregnancy and then looking after baby Anthony.

Well, Anthony has passed his first birthday and it’s back to work again for me.

Settle Stories (an excellent storytelling festival, local to us) took place just a few days after the end of my maternity leave so we decided to visit the “Artists Hangout” at the Bell tent and catch up with some other artists, and the festival organisers to see if there were opportunities to be involved in the future.

We met some very interesting people – including Hassan El Geretly, (artistic director of El Warsha Theatre Company from Egypt) and a lady called Nicky – a storyteller based in Manchester.  We also met up with a painting teacher, a landscape photographer/artist, some actors and a small number of the actual performers from the festival itself.  These included Darius Nash and Tamar Eluned Williams, who were performing Stories for the Silver Tree.  Darius was also leading a clowning workshop at the festival.  Here is their Youtube video below for this performance:

The festival organisers Sita Brand and Charles Tyrer were also there and spoke about their plans for developing longer term relationships with artists at the festival.  This, they hoped, would allow artists to get to know each other and the people and environment of Settle.

After the meeting, we went into the “Dungeons & Dragons” cafe in the Friends Meeting House which was really wonderful – decorated with cobwebs and a handmade dragon on the wall.  All of the refreshments were themed and the helpers were all in costume.  Not only that but on each table there was a little handmade Dungeons & Dragons game with little tiddly-winks for counters so you could have a game with your refreshments!

Unfortunately, it was a rainy day but this did not seem to put off the dauntless British punters: the cafes and streets were certainly crowded at lunchtime!  After our lunch we decided to have a go (in what time we had left) at the geo-caching story trail.  We successfully found one cache in the vicinity of the Friends Meeting House, (I’m not allowed to say where or it will spoil it for other people) and tried our hardest to find another one somewhere near the old signal box at Settle train station but neither Tim or myself had any luck.

We did find that the Friends of Settle and Carlisle Railway had volunteers showing off the restored old signal box and letting people have a go pulling the levers and making the lights show and the bells sound.  Tim and myself took it in turns to hunt for caches with Anthony at ground level and go up to the signal box.  We even got a commemorative certificate to show we’d had a go at operating the signals!

It would have been nice to have had time to sample more of the shows and workshops but we did have a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing time while we were there.  I believe the Listening Gallery is a permanent installation so we’ll be able to pop back and visit that on another occasion.

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I’m back doing shadow puppet shows and workshops in primary schools again, now that my maternity leave is over.  These workshops fit with the topics of light and shadow and traditional tales, making them ideal for the primary curriculum. These workshops involve a short show by me (“Jabberwocky“, “Edward Lear’s Nonsense” or “The Interrupted Wedding“) followed by the children making their own puppets and putting on their own shows in groups.  If you would like me to come and work with your school please CONTACT ME for more information and to book 🙂

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We are also available for street theatre walkabouts featuring either of the Shadow Puppet Suitcase shows (“Jabberwocky” & “Edward Lear’s Nonsense“) and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party walkabout show.

Edward Lear’s Nonsense is the perfect show for food festivals.  The suitcase shows are also perfect for Christmas entertainment or for a festival of light and I have costumes to fit all of these occasions.

Don’t hesitate to contact me to book or for more information.

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We’re producing a new larger-scale shadow puppet show, suitable for large audiences in schools and other indoor venues.  It’s early days for the project but I can reveal that it’s based on the traditional Japanese Fairy Tale “The Magic Ear”.  The show has an environmental theme and can include an accompanying junk percussion workshop.

We’re taking bookings for Autumn this year and 2019.  Email me here if you’d like to know more.  I’ll be blogging about the project in detail soon – keep your eyes peeled!