Latest news with #puppetshow
BBC News
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Gerds: Full guide to the giant wooden puppet show
A herd of life-sized wooden safari animal puppets will pass though Greater Manchester this week as part of an international tour. Called The Herds, the animals began their 12,400m (20,000km) journey in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in April and are now moving north through European towns and elephants, giraffes, antelope, and lions are made from upscaled or recyclable cardboard and plywood and are intended to highlight the dangers of climate is all you need to know for those planning to see the spectacle, including start times and road closures. When does the puppet show start? The Herd will arrive first in Manchester city centre at 18:00 BST on Thursday as part of the opening events for Manchester International will make its way through Cathedral Gardens, Corporation Street and Market Street until around 19:15. Festival organisers are advising people to watch from Cathedral Gardens, Corporation Street and the Arndale Centre's Exchange Court in order to get the best views. Where else can I see the puppets? On Friday, the puppets will move on to Heywood, Rochdale, with the show focused around Aspinall Street from 19: being recommended for spectators include Aspinall Street, the corner where Miller Street, Aspinall Street and Mutal Street meet, Miller Street, Starkie Street and around the lake at Queen's will also be a free live music performance on stage at the park's outdoor theatre, with food and drink available between 19:00 and 21: Smith, cabinet member for communities and co-operation at Rochdale Borough Council, said: "Seeing The Herds in Heywood is a once in a lifetime opportunity, a combination of dance-theatre, awe-inspiring life-size puppets creating something very powerful and moving."The puppets will make their final stop in Greater Manchester at Pennington Flash Country Park in Leigh on Saturday. The show will be at the park from 13:00-16:00 before the animals continue their journey northwards to the Arctic. How much is it? The event is free to attend, and no bookings are required. Spectators are able to arrive and leave at any time throughout the performances. Road closures Although The Herds will not affect roads open to traffic in Manchester city centre, organisers have warned that the performances will be very busy and attract large crowds. Trams between St Peter's Square and Exchange Square will be stopped between 17:00-19:30 throughout Thursday to allow the puppets to make their way through the streets. Services operating on the Rochdale Town Centre/Shaw & Crompton and East Didsbury lines will operate from Shudehill and Market Street instead of Exchange Square during this time, Transport for Greater Manchester said. In Heywood, Rochdale Borough Council is set to close various streets around the performance from 18:00 to 20:00 BST on 4 July. Waiting will also be temporarily prohibited on several nearby streets. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Stampede in Soho: puppet animals on an epic trek bring wonder and warning to London streets
The animals went into the West End, not quite two by two, from the direction of Soho Square. Monkeys ran ahead, gorillas bounded behind and bringing up the rear were a pair of handsome, ambling giraffes. Down Greek Street they marched, past pubs and cafes, resulting in an actual zebra crossing as the pack moved across Cambridge Circus, passing in front of bemused drivers, and on through lanes of shoppers in Covent Garden. This was central London on late Friday afternoon: streets overrun not by tourists but by The Herds, a staggeringly ambitious public art project. In April, a menagerie of lifesize puppet animals began a 20,000km route from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle, signifying the displacement of animals and humans caused by the climate crisis. This weekend they are in London; next week they travel north for the Manchester international festival. I spent an hour following the herd on their journey from Soho to Somerset House, during which the puppets either joined in a series of performances – or watched them along with the rest of us. First up, the animals (made by the South African collective Ukwanda) circled the sundial pillar at Seven Dials during a performance of When I Grow Up from Matilda, the musical hit at the Cambridge theatre opposite. An anthem from one of London's most popular shows, it served as more than just a quick crowd pleaser as it fitted the future-facing project. Watching them brought to mind Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN climate summit in 2019: 'The eyes of all future generations are upon you.' There was humour in seeing the giraffes amid the trees of Covent Garden, with the musical's lyrics about growing 'tall enough to reach the branches'. But during London's sustained heatwave it was disquieting, too, to hear the lines: 'I will spend all day just lying in the sun / And I won't burn cause I'll be all grown up.' Approaching the market, an area traditionally popular with acrobats, magicians and mimes, the puppets rested before a particularly illustrious street performer: Juliet Stevenson, who has a long history of raising climate awareness. Evoking a kind of animal whisperer, Stevenson stroked one of the creatures tenderly while giving a speech, delivered as if amid dystopia, about trees that lost their will, animals 'screaming their pain' and 'a desert forming inside me and outside'. We walked on and, within the crowd, a woman discussed the puppets with her child: how thirsty and dry the animals looked, with their corrugated cardboard bodies. The design, with material fraying and the inner frames exposed in places, makes them seem fragile despite their robustness. Another crowd member waved her family's own homemade turtle, recycled from similar materials. In such close quarters, you could feel the strain on the puppeteers and their skill at bringing the creatures to life, not just through movements but vocal exhalations too. The project smartly mirrors the importance of collective action: three people control each gorilla, another trio handle each giraffe (two from beneath supporting the body and one with a pole operating the head). I've always loved watching the care in the eyes of performers when they are manipulating puppets – here, it was often incredibly moving to witness. The creatures would momentarily pause, survey their surroundings, rise on their back feet and stampede. Throughout the hour, this herd grew as more passersby joined in. 'We are the ones we've been waiting for,' actor Chipo Chung told the crowd in a speech beside the market before the journey snaked around the corner and stopped outside the Royal Opera House where tenor Ryan Vaughan Davies appeared on the balcony to sing from The Magic Flute. The giraffes leaned in to listen. This West End leg of the journey was co-curated by Amir Nizar Zuabi (artistic director of The Herds) and theatre and opera director Joe Hill-Gibbins, who staged a particularly muddy version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Young Vic in 2017. (That venue's former artistic director, David Lan, is one of the chief producers on The Herds.) Shakespeare's 'forgeries of jealousy' speech, increasingly used to reflect our own climate disruption, was performed by Zubin Varla as Oberon and Hattie Morahan as Titania. (A gorilla rested its paws on Varla; a monkey nuzzled Morahan.) The route ended in the courtyard of Somerset House, with blistering drumming by Andy Gangadeen who was circled by the animals. The creatures were laid to rest in the scorching heat, their fragmented design now disturbingly evoking carcasses. Outdoor art disruptions, like the journey of the puppet pachyderm and giant friend in The Sultan's Elephant by Royal de Luxe in London in 2006, usually leave joy in their wake. After such performances, the spaces feel charged with a sense of wonder at the memory. Leaving The Herds and retracing the animals' route back through to Soho, I felt anguish at their absence but a galvanising urge that brought me back to Matilda's defiant lyrics. Just because we find ourselves in this story, it doesn't mean that everything is written for us. The Herds is in London until 29 June, and across Greater Manchester 3-5 July, as part of Manchester international festival. Its global journey continues until August.
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Tornado' Review: She Wants Revenge
This crackling movie begins with what some might take for a bit of misdirection: a quotation from a poem by Arseny Tarkovsky, the father of the great filmmaker Andrei. 'I would readily pay with my life / For a safe place with constant warmth / Were it not that life's flying needle / Leads me on through the world like a thread.' Given that the movie concerns Tornado, a young swordswoman who has to make her way through a hostile British countryside after wastrels kill her father, one might wonder what Tarkovsky has to do with it. But first consider the statement rather than its origin. Tornado (Koki) has been touring with her samurai father (Takehiro Hira) through rural England, performing a charming puppet show. An initially prankish bit of business involving two sacks of stolen gold gets the duo in big trouble with a pack of thieves led by Sugarman (Tim Roth). The writer-director John Maclean, who deftly played with genre in his 2015 feature debut 'Slow West,' is similarly sure-handed here. The movie quickly establishes itself as a revenge narrative, and each bad guy goes down in a way designed to suit the viewer's justified bloodlust. In the title role, the singer-songwriter Koki is both charming and indomitable; when she announces 'I am Tornado,' you feel your internal applause sign light up. And Nathan Malone, who plays the little boy following Tornado as she eludes the bad guys, is reminiscent of the nervy star of Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Ivan's Childhood.'
