Author Archives: Edward Wren

About Edward Wren

Edward Wren is a theatre maker, performer, musician and puppeteer. Founded in 2007, his company The River People won a Total Theatre Award in 2009 and has since toured nationally and internationally.

Dr Brown: Befrdfgth / Dr Brown Brown Brown Brown Brown and his singing tiger

Growing up can be a compromise. In the relentless drive towards adulthood it can be so easy to forget some of the most important elements of being a child. In some small way Dr Brown, with his shows Befrdfgth and Dr Brown Brown Brown Brown Brown and his singing tiger, is helping us to reconnect with the most crucial of those lost pastimes – the importance of being silly, the joy of play.

Befrdfgth takes its audience on a subtle journey. Beginning with Dr Brown (Phil Burgers) ludicrously peering out at the audience from behind the curtain, even kicking them as they pass. This unsettling start continues as he makes his way into the audience in a ridiculous fashion, hidden under a large curtain, to steal an audience member’s scarf. The poor victim is then encouraged to get it back; it’s not so easy of course and a game ensues, ending with the member of the audience being dragged behind the curtain. The audience are laughing but it’s all so unsettling, and when the lady returns to her seat, visibly shaken, the atmosphere has a very peculiar tension. It all increases as he comes into the audience again and I can hear the collective wish being chanted in unison with the collective mind of the audience, ‘Please not me, don’t get me’.

But in a fantastic twist of tone Burgers emerges slowly from the curtain with his hands in the air and a fearful expression on his face. He seems to be mouthing words silently and shaking his head as if to say, ‘I’m sorry I have no idea what I’m doing’. Without ever uttering a word he then moves through a series of irreverent sketches, all executed in excellent mime, and all of them entirely ridiculous; a beggar woman who asks for a coin but has no pocket to put it in, a man who gets inside a cow then falls in love with another cow who bears him a child.

As the show goes on the realisation slowly sweeps over the audience – it’s OK because he’s playing, he’s just being silly. Then the audience relaxes.

He asks the audience to play too: we have to provide the sound effects to his sketch of a ride through the park. As our collective comfort grows we feel the urge to play along, to be silly and to laugh at ourselves. Burgers himself couldn’t help laughing as he asked the audience to all copy him in speaking gobbledegook – a wonderful moment of connection between performer and spectators.

This freedom to play is then taken to another level as he gets a member of the audience to take a role on stage as the son of the cow from the previous sketch. He, the audience member, becomes more and more involved as he is asked to perform a sketch on a bike in the park while we provide the sound effects and Burgers takes a seat in the audience.

This is a real highlight of the show as we watch someone playing, with complete freedom to be silly in front of a room of strangers. It is entirely liberating, a shared game that we’re all playing.

Before we know it we’re at the end, gentle music is playing and Dr Brown is preparing to leave. We see him humbly thanking each member of the audience who got involved, obviously very appreciative that they agreed to play. He blows kisses at them in his gratitude.

We then begin to feel a strong emotional connection to this man whom we all feared just an hour ago. I even hear a gentle ‘awww’ from the audience as he mimes giving us all a hug, and I feel we’ve all actively taken part in something special and worthwhile as the show draws to a surprisingly poignant close. The experience was entirely unique, utterly inspiring and won’t be long forgotten.

Dr Brown Brown Brown Brown Brown and his singing tiger, his show for children, is a more tame version of the same experience. Joined on stage by his singing tiger (Stuart Bowden) who helps to translate Dr Brown’s silence, the focus here is much more on being silly.

We join Dr Brown as he goes through his daily chores from breakfast through to riding his bike, his favourite thing to do. Each sketch is so wonderfully silly and executed with such great timing it has the audience of young and old in stitches. Stuart Bowden does an excellent job of softening what could be quite a scarily bearded man with his ukulele and constant singing.

One of the best elements of the piece is of course the audience interaction. He likes to pick on the dads and gets them to mess around on stage which delights the children. At one point he invites all the children in the theatre to help him put on his Wellington boots. The kids crowded onto the stage in glorious anarchy; it was great to see so many children involved with the performance.

The climax of the show involves the long awaited bike ride. Dr Brown decides he wants to do a stunt over a very tiny ramp. Again he invites all the children on stage to lie down in a line as he tries to jump over them all. Before we know it there are twenty or so children lying down on the stage heading right out the door. Just like his adult show the whole audience are a part of the game, and the ridiculously silly pay off at the end of the stunt completes the play.

It’s so very inspiring to have a successful performer at the fringe so dedicated to such a simple and joyful thing. Both his adult and his children’s shows are a monument to the importance of being silly. Whether you are a child who embraces that worthwhile virtue, or an adult who has long forgotten it, Dr Brown is reminding us all of its joyful importance.

Frozen Charlotte: Paperbelle

A leisurely stroll through the park is the perfect way to begin the experience ofPaperbelle. Frozen Charlotte’s charming production is hidden away in the botanical gardens – a long walk from the city centre, but worth the pilgrimage in order to enter such a delightful story for 2-5 year-olds.

We are asked to remove our shoes before we enter Paperbelle‘s world – a paper room, the furniture and walls all seemingly hand drawn, a world without colour. We sit on cushions and stools, immersed in the production, and watch in delight as solo performer Stanley Pattison introduces us to Paperbelle, a simple line drawing of a girl. She pops up all over the set, operated by a puppeteer behind the scenes while guitarist Ben Talbot-Dunn provides a beautiful underscore.

The story is simple, Pattison plays happily with Paperbelle as they slowly discover colour. It infringes on their monochrome world in a wonderfully playful way as the interactive set comes alive across three walls. Blue water fills up the fish bowl all by itself on one side; across the room the sun turns itself a bright yellow in a picture on the wall. The surprises keep coming and inspire wonder in the audience; never have I witnessed an audience so young so enraptured by theatre.

There could have been a touch more narrative in the piece, and it could have had a simple message for the older kids and adults to enjoy on a slightly more cerebral level. However, for the audience it is aimed at it is indisputably an incredibly effective piece of theatre.

The simple and playful nature of the style, the gentle music and Pattison’s charming performance makes the production surprisingly touching. At the end, when all the colours have entered the world and the set is transformed, Pattison asks the children to examine the cushions they are sitting on. I watched as the children took off the white cushion covers and discovered that their cushions were actually brightly coloured. The way this included them in the show and the pure innocent joy they displayed in this simple discovery brought a tear to my eye.

If you have young children I cannot recommend this production enough. If you don’t, I would still insist you witness this delightful show, a joyful celebration of wonder.

www.frozencharlotte.com

Unfolding Theatre: Best in the World

Take a moment to recall a point in your life when you did exactly the right thing at the right time. Unfolding Theatre Company ask this of their audience in their subtly powerful one-man production Best in the World. It is an inspirational hour that explores what it is like to be the best at something, told through the medium of darts.

Not being a dart aficionado myself I wrongly assumed that this show would have to work hard to engage me. But the humble delicacy with which Alex Elliot delivers the piece meant I was addicted to his every word from the beginning.

The piece is in the form of a seminar, told with the use of text and video projection, audience interaction, and a huge dartboard which straddles the centre of the stage. Elliot takes us through his passion for darts, the stories of the best sportspeople in the world, and the process of attaining and experiencing greatness. Elliot also includes snippets of his own life, his career and the death of his father.

It is the warmth of his performance and the beauty of the metaphors that he seamlessly weaves into the text that makes this production so touching. The fact that some of the metaphors change and are improvised each night makes his performance all the more impressive. A resonant example of which is when he speaks of throwing a dart – the decision to let go at the precise moment, to do the right thing at the right time – as a reflection on our personal growth.

Director Annie Rigby has done a wonderful job of making the show very personal. When we enter we are given an inspirational banana and are told to hold onto it in case our energy levels flag and impede our ability to achieve greatness as an audience. Elliot asks us gently to be involved in the performance, enquiring who would be willing to contribute by showing signs of support, cheering, nodding or perhaps writing something down. He instructs us in the creation of a paper dart, and on it we right an example of a moment when we did the right thing at the right time. We throw these onto the stage and Elliot shares some of them. Later he invites some audience members up onto the stage to throw a dart and practise that skill of letting go, and as we cheer on our fellow spectators we, the audience, feel ourselves to be an important part of the piece.

By the end of an hour in Alex Elliot’s charming company we have been given much to reflect on. I couldn’t help but feel that a concise message was missing at the end, something a little more concrete to walk away with, but in the days that have passed since I saw the show the accumulation of all that it offered has stayed with me and has given me much to consider. Overall this is a superbly poignant and introspective piece of theatre, a small gift to its audience that resounds with a gentle greatness.

www.unfoldingtheatre.co.uk

Tortoise in a Nutshell: Grit

It is often said that there is not enough puppetry for adults in theatre, and it can certainly be difficult to find performances that use the full potential of puppetry for tackling serious themes.

Thankfully there is hope at Bedlam Theatre, where Edinburgh-based company Tortoise in a Nutshell are making full use of this often misused artform with their show Grit. Bringing together a series of tales told through the eyes of a war photographer – whose voiceover reflects on scenes enacted by the three, mostly silent, puppeteers on stage – Grit skilfully assembles a powerful piece of theatre that tells the stories of children involved in war.

The production is arresting from the very beginning, when a puppet woman goes through the absent photographer’s belongings. The puppeteers all have such a skilful touch and devoted focus on the puppets that you can’t help but be drawn in instantly.

Later the company display great ingenuity as they use drawn images cast from an overhead projector on stage. These are caught on small hand-held screens – a simple trick that makes the images of war feel as if they are floating suspended in mid-air, while the manipulation of the focus on the projector allows the company to zoom in and out on the pictures to great effect.

We also see Tortoise in a Nutshell display a skilful manipulation of tone in a scene where a small puppet boy plays in the sand. His carefree laughs warm the audience to the character, who acts as a sort of everyboy, representing the innocence of youth that lies at the heart of the entire production. Slowly, as barbed wire intrudes upon his playground and his toys are exchanged for instruments of war, we feel the joyful play undercut by the dawning of a grim reality. This poignant moment is punctuated perfectly as the boy soldier picks up a rifle and makes his first kill, the sequence a near perfect example of the potential of such a playful theatrical form to tackle serious themes.

The production continues to explore the form of puppetry as it tells the tale of Aki, a boy who spent his youth laying mines and his adulthood removing them. This powerful tale is told through shadow puppetry, the change in aesthetic keeping the audience enraptured by the ingenuity of the stagecraft.

The show culminates in a visually stunning scene in which a paper city unfolds from cardboard boxes and moves gradually from civil disturbance to martial law. The form is continually explored and developed and by the end we find ourselves in a half-cartoon paper theatre reminiscent of the graphic novelPersepolis.

It could have been so easy for the company to focus on the morbid nature of the subject matter and to play on our emotions by telling us how sad it all is. But the style of presentation is playful and entertaining, with the touch of magic that good puppetry provides. It never undermines the topic but provides a contrast, a small gap in-between seeing and understanding that allows us to reflect for ourselves upon the sadness that lies beneath the surface.

The well-crafted soundtrack provides a superb underscore to the action and moves from beautiful to haunting, and by the end, as the paper buildings fall in a cloud of dust and our narrator reaches the climax of his story, the gravity of the piece takes hold.

Perhaps there could have been more room for the three skilled performers to show more of themselves, to step away from the puppets for longer. The voiceover can also be a little heavy-handed at times, clearly acted and lacking in the realism that could have given the piece greater punch. But overall this is a truly striking and accomplished piece of visual theatre, and I left with a renewed faith in the potential of puppetry.

www.tortoiseinanutshell.com

Les Enfants Terribles: The Trench

Firm festival favourites Les Enfants Terribles have returned to the Fringe this year with The Trench, the story of a man trapped underground in a collapsed tunnel beneath the battlefields of France during World War One. We follow him as he encounters demons buried in the mud and comes to terms with the loss of his wife and infant child back home.

High hopes abounded as I sat down for this production, as I’d seen some great work from the company in the past. But unfourtunately, while the individual elements that make up the show are very good, I was left with an unshakeable feeling that these parts never came together to form a satisfying whole.

The script, written by Oliver Lansley, is dense, almost Shakesperean in its language, the lines reflecting the familiar poetic structure with the odd ‘doth’ thrown in for good measure. The complexity of the language is to be relished in the first ten minutes, but as the piece goes on it begins to feel too heavy. The density of the text and the sheer amount of words begin to hamper the piece, and I found myself longing for silence to allow space to digest the images and to place some of my own interpretation on the action. The method of delivery also becomes very grating as everything is delivered in a strained shout with little to no variation in tone. The cast of four on stage never once crack a smile. Of course, given the subject matter, there perhaps should not be a lot of humour, but the relentlessly serious tone became numbing with no lighter moments to contrast the dark.

The music by Alexander Wolfe is of a very high quality, but feels strangely segregated. The solo singer and guitarist is relegated to the side of the stage and songs are placed in between scenes. The effect has the feeling of an open mike night that is happening in the corner, playing sad songs over characters moving around on stage. The moments when the music serves the scene are most effective – most notably the use of a bow upon a metal cage to provide a haunting underscore whenever the horrors of war enter the piece in the form of macabre puppets.

The greatest strength of the piece is the design, and the puppets are truly breathtaking. The full-bodied puppets, operated by two or more of the cast, vary from hoofed demons to a particularly excellent representation of a World War One gas attack constructed of a large grotesque skull and great sheets that fill the stage. These demons fufil the task of embodying the horrors of war very well; they look like a convergence of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal and Brian Froud’s illustrations of goblins and fairies. Designer Sam Wyer has excelled himself in the sheer striking visual presence they have on stage and they are worth the ticket price alone. However, the method in which they are performed is purely presentational; they enter and stand there and talk, then exit. With the magic of puppetry coming from movement, it feels like a real waste of such excellently crafted creations. They feel suffocated under the words, brought on stage to serve the script with little to no consideration given to their characters or to their potential manipulation. Consequently they serve only to paint a (very striking) picture, and provide no magic that might elevate the scenes beyond their functional nature.

There are some excellent visual moments that stick in the mind, but the weaknesses of the individual parts of the piece detract from the whole, which meant that by the time we reached the heroic climax the outcome felt dimmed. With half the dialogue and more care taken in the construction and execution this piece could be awe-inspiring. But as it was, it felt like a show that never really found its feet. Certainly entertaining, but ultimately unsatisfying.