Peter Morton takes us on a tour of Tiny Planet
Half a String make brilliant shows for young people, combining stylish puppetry, impressive live music and wonderful storytelling. ET was there for their amazing production of Breathe a couple of years ago, which received a full five stars from us and went on to further success in the Etties and beyond. They have now added another string to their bow, with Tiny Planet currently touring the UK. We were keen to hear about this latest show, so caught up with director and designer Peter Morton for a chat.
Hi Peter. Thanks so much for stopping by to talk about Tiny Planet. Firstly, can you tell us what it is about?
Tiny Planet follows a busy intergalactic baker called Alma who is delivering cakes across a galaxy, when they crash land on a distant tiny planet. They are forced to slow down, learn about themselves, and uncover the secrets held within the Tiny Planet. The Tiny Planet very much becomes a central character in the story and part of the challenge was getting the planet itself to be interesting, be able to morph and change and feed the story.
Who is in the cast for the show?
We have two hugely talented industry leading puppeteers:
Emily Essery is a theatre-maker and performer, specialising in puppetry and movement. She performed with us in Breathe but has also appeared on the West End in Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical (Birmingham Rep/Avalon, West End) and is no stranger to Shakespeare, working on Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet for 440 Theatre’s UK Tour.
Then there’s Sean Garratt who is making his Half a String debut. He has performed around the world for the last two decades as a stage, audio, screen actor and puppeteer, working with prestigious companies such as the National Theatre of Scotland The Lyric Chicago, The Globe and Theatre Rites. Sean is constantly honing his craft and recently graduated from the highly acclaimed Curious School of Puppetry. His puppetry performance credits are impressive, including The Table (Blind Summit), Tao of Glass (Improbable), Boris and Sergey (Flabbergast Theatre), and the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, directed by Danny Boyle.
Alongside them we have Darcey O’Rourke, an actor/musician who brings their beautiful voice and storytelling to the songs. Darcey has worked with Half a String on Breathe, The Snowsmith and Under the Frozen Moon but elsewhere she’s also recently appeared in Pebble Road (Spun Glass Theatre), Chrimblesense (Embracing Arts) and The Littlest Yak (LAStheatre). She also regularly works as a theatre, music and sensory facilitator for organisations across London
Can you tell us about the process of designing the set and puppets?
The design process took a long time over quite a few months. The first main challenge was that the centre of gravity for the show is the centre of our planet rather than the centre of the Earth! That meant every prop and puppet needed to ‘defy’ Earth’s gravity and stick to our planet, which in turn involved hiding lots of metal plates within the planet and a lot of magnets. This then informed the puppet design, enabling us to have the puppet floating through the space, standing upside down and the right way up and to work similarly in all those different directions. The planet itself is designed to move and shake and doesn’t stop turning on its axis for the entire show. Always with our shows, the set pieces hold secrets and stories within them, so it has been a really fun process designing a 360 degree self-contained planet for our puppet to play on. It also evolves through the show – clouds appear and plants start to grow and the inside had to be designed also. So a big process!
Talk us through the technology involved in the performance and how it adds to the storytelling.
We use live cameras in the show and they are streamed to a screen on stage. This adds a whole new dimension to the puppetry and what we can show our audience. The cameras are bits of space technology in the world and story, for example a dash cam on the space scooter and a transmitter that our space baker calls for help on. With these we are able to give different perspectives on the planet, show our audience a brilliant sunrise on the tiny planet, get our audience really close to the puppets, and also show you what’s going on over on the dark side of the planet. It’s been a really fun process experimenting with this form of storytelling.
Will you be having incredible live music once again?
Yes! The music has been written by the same team as Breathe. We have Avi Simmons bringing her atmospheric song-writing and epic melodies to the piece. Then there’s Suitman Jungle fusing these folk songs with drum & bass, 90s rave bringing the space world alive. The music brings so much energy and emotion to the piece. We love working with musicians who bring their own styles and energy to a theatre show, which makes the music personal and more like a gig than a musical.
Why is it important to put themes like this one in work for young people?
Tiny Planet is quite a mature show for ages 5+ – it demands a lot from our audience’s attention. The fact it’s largely non-verbal means you have to pay attention to the action and lock into what the puppet is doing. It’s really great to see 120 children and their adults all hooked on our original story, all invested in Alma’s journey. I think it’s really important to have that collective experience between the children and adults – to enjoy the show together, talk about it afterwards. The story is a simple one but deeply explores themes of finding space, reflection and the way changing your perspective can mean you can enjoy and find play again even in stressful situations. I think these are universal and Tiny Planet explores these in a gentle way through the songs and action.
Tiny Planet is currently touring around the UK. What have the responses to the show been like so far?
We have had absolutely lovely audiences and have been largely sold out everywhere we go, which is very exciting! People are responding really well to the story, puppets and music. There are parts that totally surprise our audience and these have been totally delightful moments. It has already started to evolve in front of our live audiences, as the performers respond and find little bits of audience interactions and connection.
Thanks very much to Peter for giving us an insider look at what promises to be a fabulous show.
Tiny Planet is aimed at ages 5+ and tours until Sunday 26 April.
