Paka is a London-based clown. Black Hole's Forget Me Not is an unforgettable show conceived by Paka and puppeteer Sarah Wright and created by a company of more than two dozen, an international team that includes Lyndie Wright and other makers/puppeteers of Little Angel Theatre. Black Hole gives us a magical amalgam of live performance, puppets, video and pyrotechnics, under the loving guidance and direction of Andy Lavender
Like a scene from an old-fashioned children's story book, the show's opening is a miniature circus tent. The canvas lifts to reveal an equestrian circus and tiny flying acrobats (beautiful bunraku puppets operated by the onstage puppeteers). We are led into a world inhabited by a pyjama-clad Paka as a dozy old gent forsaken in a hospital armchair. He escapes into his fantasies and memories, taking us with him on his penultimate journey into a world peopled by delicate puppets, a flying scarlet frock of a Jezebel and the star of the show – Paka's magnificent mechanical metal steed, graceful and hydraulic – a flayed cyber 'Body Worlds' of a horse. It's a surprise to discover traditional hand-manipulated wooden puppetry combined with mutoid-esque metal machinery and sensitive human intervention. There are wonderful video films detailing atmospherically the melodrama – 'deserts crossed, storms endured and seas swum' – as Paka's character relives the past and faces his demons. Created in association with the Mime Festival, Art of Regeneration and the Albany, Forget Me Not is a charmer – a clash of elegance and steel.