Spinning Plates

Last night I did a show with Glitch: The Improvised Puppet Show. We were supporting Joystick in their Edinburgh preview.

Glitch shows are always fun and silly. But this one especially so. Doing a Glitch show often feels like spinning a lot of plates at once, as well as the usual good improv practices you also have to think about long-form story structure, the narration and the little furry things on your hands. Especially for someone like me who is new to puppetry, constantly thinking about how the puppet looks to the audience, and whether my fellow puppeteers are doing what I want (or vice-versa) is a whole new part of my brain. But in this show we only had 15 minutes, so we scrapped the narrator went out there and just had fun. The plot was not as great as it could have been, but who cares? It was a fun, funny and very silly show, and that’s exactly what we needed to deliver.

Glitch is one of the most rewarding shows you can do because when everything works the way it should you have a real sense of achievement, but sometimes it’s easy for me to get myself down by focusing on the plates when I should be reminding myself why I am juggling them in the first place… for the sheer fun of it.

Improv is fun, I need to remind myself of this every now and again, and last night was one of the best reminders I have had in a while!