Nessie - Coming soon to Edinburgh Community and Pitlochry Festival theatre - video Dailymotion

The Scotsman

Arts correspondent Jane Bradley tries her hand at puppeteering with the cast of musical Nessie, which is touring Edinburgh and Pitlochry

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Jane Bradley, Arts Correspondent at the Scotsman and I'm here today at Pitlockery

00:07Festival Theatre where I am going to get to have a go at puppetry with the cast of Nessie.

00:12Nessie is a new show which is to be performed here and in Edinburgh at the Festival Theatre

00:17and the cast are going to let me have a go at operating the puppets and seeing how I

00:22get on, so wish me luck.

00:25This is Keith Macpherson who is playing Oggy the otter among a number of other parts including

00:30Murdo and one of the pupils and yeah, so Oggy seems to me almost one of the most complicated

00:37puppets in the show, is that right?

00:39I think actually probably not, he's sort of, he can do all sorts of things but he's quite

00:44simple to operate.

00:45He's got these two levers, this one for his hip and that one for his head, so with the

00:49hip thing you can make him run, he can walk a little bit like that and he's got a lovely

01:01tail that balances him out when he sits down so I can just hold him like that with one

01:04hand and he still works and he's got these little levers on his paws so he can gesticulate,

01:11he can wave at you, he can be authentic, he can eat and he can do it, so yeah he can do

01:21all sorts of things, he can give himself a scratch like this.

01:28All the movements seem like very natural, did that come easily to you or was it something

01:32you really had to work at?

01:34It's a bit tricky, I've done one puppet show before which I'm glad I haven't done, it takes

01:40a while to get back into the air and I think the thing about it is you have to do one thing

01:44at a time, so he hears something, he reacts to it, he says something about it, if he wants

01:52to go somewhere he doesn't just go, he looks in the direction he's going, he moves round

01:56and off he goes, so you just have to divide it up so everything's very clear and choreographed

02:01and planned out and the more you do that, once you make that natural it becomes, it

02:06looks flowing but at every moment you know what he's doing, so yes it's tricky.

02:11Yeah it seems very tricky, can I have a go?

02:13You can of course.

02:14I don't think I'll be able to do any kind of natural flowing movements with him,

02:18because there's so many different levers to hold at the same time, that if you suddenly

02:22decide you need to move his feet then you've got to...

02:24Well the good thing is that if you hold on to that one you can let go of everything else

02:29and he's still alive.

02:31But if you let go of this one, not so much.

02:34And the other thing, can I just show you another wee thing that's nice, is even when he's doing

02:38nothing you can keep him alive just by having him breathing.

02:42Just little movements.

02:42Yeah as far as I breathe.

02:46Yeah.

02:48And just a tiniest movement it's like he's alive and he's breathing so you know even

02:52though he's doing nothing you can keep him emotional.

02:54Yeah so it's a lot to think about when you've got him on stage.

02:57Yeah you have to plan it all out in advance to make it look natural.

03:03So this is his feet that can go up so he can kind of sit down.

03:06He can sit down, there's little feet.

03:11And yeah, you like to scratch don't you?

03:13Oh that's good, that's good.

03:19Yes he's very much inspired by my dog actually.

03:23So you've been watching your dog and getting ideas for...

03:25Yeah I should really be watching lots of videos but my dog's a good prototype.

03:30That's absolutely great, well thank you so much and thank you to all of you.

03:36So I'm here with Alison Orr who is playing the part of Heather, Heather the Heron,

03:42among a number of other parts in the show.

03:44So yeah can you show me a little bit about how Heather works?

03:47Sure, so mainly she's just doing a bit of a neck and a side movement that's coming from

03:52his ribcage, she's very graceful and she's doing lots of nice movements, she can have

03:55a little bit of a bow and then she can also have a look, maybe try to find the fish in

04:01there maybe and she can also do quite sudden movements if she sees something,

04:05oh I've seen that, she can be quite sudden as well.

04:08Like a real heron she's quite stationary most of the time and they don't do a lot

04:12of big moves, it tends to be more sort of gliding moves or they do something

04:16fussily as well but they're facing different directions.

04:19She has a little bit of movement in her feet here as well where she's

04:22passing so that the wheels can bend.

04:23It can take a lot of rolling because they are dumped in the water.

04:26There we go.

04:27She's got a lot of movement that's going on.

04:30That's brilliant, would you mind if I have a go?

04:33Are you not involved at all?

04:34No, I'm having a lot of fun to move them around.

04:35Do you want me to put your right hand in here?

04:37Yeah.

04:37Can I get a big hand in here?

04:40Yeah and then you hold with one hand and then inside your lap there's two levers,

04:44if you want to put your fingers over them and pull them up the way and then

04:47Like that, I can make a kick.

04:49Absolutely, she can dance and all sorts of things.

04:55That is absolutely great, she's brilliant.

04:57And I think you mentioned there's one scene where she flies as well, is that right?

05:00Well, she can fly so we're not quite sure how that has been done yet but you know

05:06she can fly and this comes from this thing here so bring that out and then this would

05:11need a two-person job but we could do this together.

05:14There we go.

05:20And are you singing while you're operating the puppet?

05:22Yes, I'm singing and also doing the voice for Heather as well.

05:27So that must be quite a different experience to what you've done before.

05:30Yes, I've never done any work with puppets before so yeah it's been really interesting

05:35and fun, yeah.

05:36And how have you managed to learn the technique?

05:39Because it's quite difficult to make the puppet move gracefully.

05:42Well, we had some help.

05:43We had a lovely puppeteer in called Ross and she spent the day with us just showing us

05:48how to make the puppets move, bring them to life, give them some personality.

05:53Yeah, so that was really helpful and again just had to go through what the making is

05:57and start to operate the puppet as well.

06:00That's absolutely great, well thank you so much.

06:05Nessie, which is the first show to come out of the musical commissioning hub project between

06:10Pittlockery Festival Theatre and Edinburgh's Capital Theatres, is coming to Edinburgh Studio

06:15Theatre on Friday March 28th and will run until 5th April.

06:19After that it'll head to Pittlockery Festival Theatre's studio from 9th July to 16th August.

Nessie - Coming soon to Edinburgh Community and Pitlochry Festival theatre

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