Edinburgh Fringe 2024
The Sex Lives of Puppets
Blind Summit
Genre: Comedy, Puppetry, Theatre
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
This show offers the hint of a mirror on us all in the audience as puppets come forward openly discussing their sex lives. One or two people may blush at first but the puppet character conversations with each other and to the audience are unbelievably real and mostly relatable! From the first minute or two of the show we are laughing!
Review
Puppets can take on surprisingly human attributes when the puppeteers and its builders are experts – puppets seem to be able to do anything because of their bendable bodies, compelling voices and physical expressions as well as how much audience members suspend their disbelief. Watching audiences of all ages become engrossed in a puppet show is fascinating because they
react spontaneously with their gaze assuredly on the puppets.
The renowned company Blind Summit led by Mark Down specialises in creating original theatre with puppetry and after several years and creating many shows their current production at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe is foraging new terrain (for puppet shows) and delving into the sex lives of puppets! First of all we may ponder ‘do puppets actually have sex lives?’ thus if we suspend our disbelief (again) and watch the show we will find out what happens after dark from the point of view of several honest characters.
Blind Summit presents each scene of one or two puppets on a waist high table with two performers working each puppet. The team of two not only manipulate the limbs, head and mouths of each puppet but one of them also does the voice and dialogue per character.
What follows is the hint of a mirror on us all in the audience as puppets come forward openly discussing their sex lives. One or two people may blush at first but the puppet character conversations with each other and to the audience are unbelievably real and mostly relatable! From the first minute or two of the show we are laughing!
The story is rather like a reality show format but with just the guests sharing their private lives as if being interviewed. It is surprising how open they are when sharing and how much a couple’s small verbal and non-verbal reactions seem to remind us of people or types we know in real life, except of course we know them when they are just, well, being regular people.
Without giving away spoilers there are about eight different scenes with different characters each time. Performers carry signs across the stage with the puppets’ names before each conversation. We meet characters called Meryl and Jeremy, an actress with a dry sense of humour called Suki, Daz with a distinctive hairstyle, and posh characters Dimitri and Robin who are very animated to name a few. Blind Summit sets and reaches a high standard of performance where all scenes are well produced but one or two weaker scenes could benefit from some finessing, which will no doubt happen during the run.
A highlight of this show (as well as the hilarious scenes and variety of characters) is the crafting and how the puppets are brought to life by the talented puppeteers and the voices of each character. Each puppet is beautifully designed and built with interesting costumes, characterful facial features and a wide range of movement options, including head tilts and limbs with joints enabling them to show attitude, point of view and swagger. The performers also speaking the dialogue are excellent and effective for each character, requiring a voice repertoire of changing accents, age and personality for each character they voice.
The creative team includes Designer and original idea by Mark Down, Co-Writers/Directors Ben Keaton and Down, Puppet Designer Russell Dean (Strangeface), plus Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles Consultant Prof. Chris Bonnell.
It is said that puppetry is breathing life into an inanimate object and the Blind Summit company is very successful at doing that – as well as creating a unique take on puppetry that is very entertaining and extremely funny!
