the voyage | The Dinosaur Show

The Dinosaur Show

by Charlie Tymms

The anticipation of a week exploring ideas with three theatre folk I had never met especially after our lonely isolation over the last year was quite nerve racking.

The first day spent with the writer, director and performer were in the Blue Orange Theatre in Birmingham where it will be showing from 4th August 2021. This was incredibly useful to see how the puppets might occupy the stage area and to start the collaborative process of theatre making. Lots of ideas were discussed and playful discoveries made including letting the Brachiosaurus wonder up the into the auditorium to eat. The following days were spent in Art in the Docks space where we were able to recreate the stage area and fully immerse ourselves in our puppet action. There was lots of curiousity from passers by and a daily visit from a 4 yr old boy clutching a toy dinosaur, our target audience!

The big delight that came from this residency is how the puppets ended up leading the story lines which almost became The Dinosaur Show that Went Wrong. There was much hilarity with Charlie Chaplin like comedy scenes when the Paleontologist had to jump to avoid a side swipe from the T-Rex tail, when the Compy was raiding the scientists rucksack for food and the haunting whale like sounds a Brachiosaurus might make. Some or all of these discoveries might make it into the final script so its now wait and see.

This residency for me has been absolutely crucial for the next stage of making the final show puppets where they all have to be robust enough to perform for 3 weeks, safe enough for the puppeteers to operate and of course visually exciting for an audience to watch.