Rarely do representations of grief, loss and sadness leave you in fits of giggles. Such is the absurd power of puppets, a power that The Old Trout Puppet Workshop wields in ferociously funny fashion. Famous Puppet Death Scenes is exactly that; a parade of ‘memorable’ puppet demises across ‘famous’ acts of literature and art. It harks back to the golden age of mass puppet entertainment with bizarre contemporary twists (think Punch and Judy with existential angst), culminating in a show that more often than not has plenty of sense hiding beneath the senseless.
The first thing you notice is the production value, which is sensationally high for a strange little puppet show. Featuring an overhead screen, layered sets and a decorated stage, the whole performance is an array of different scenes and actions flying in one after the other. Some of these make clever use of props – a scene involving a magnifying glass is borderline genius – while others just rely on expressive turns by both people and puppets. Famous Puppet Death Scenes is amazingly inventive on a visual and thematic level, approaching subjects of loss and hardship in macabre, often hilarious ways.
Some scenes have strange, heavy feeling of pathos attached, such as when a giant whale eye takes up the whole stage or you witness one character’s final heartbeat. Others are just silly, such as ‘Bipsy’s Mistake’ or the recurring ‘The Feverish Heart.’ Rather than feel out of place, the comedic seems to fit perfectly alongside the tragic, and the show handles its tonal changes with ease. The audience are in stitches, knowing that even in the most solemn moments a peculiar gag is never far away. Yet these scenes never seem to lose their power as a result.
A goofy mixture of mortality and farce, Famous Puppet Death Scenes is a slick, strange wonder to behold. Rarely will you care so much about a strange-looking puppet’s ability to make you laugh, cry, or go numb with silence. The Fringe facilitates the weird and the wonderful above all else, and such an environment allows shows like this to soar to lofty heights… for puppets, at least.