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The poster for our performance made by Maria 

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The poster for our performance made by Maria 

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Book I painted, we came up with idea to use in opening movement sequence , to open up as the story begins , and close as it ends 

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Book I painted, we came up with idea to use in opening movement sequence , to open up as the story begins , and close as it ends 

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Cues and time stamps for wave performers 

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Cues and time stamps for wave performers 

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key aspects from the book / initial ideas

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key aspects from the book / initial ideas

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teamwork lecture notes - USEFUL FOR OUR TEAM

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teamwork lecture notes - USEFUL FOR OUR TEAM

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making origami for the Genies little Hoopoe bird

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making origami for the Genies little Hoopoe bird

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- Shirt and trousers sourced by us , collaborated with Giovanna who made the wings

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more wave materials- sourced by Jack and Emily

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more wave materials- sourced by Jack and Emily

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'extraordinary big puppets, animating public spaces with spectacular shows that illuminate contemporary society.'

WHERE IT HAPPENS

From greenfield festivals and urban parades, to heritage attractions and town halls, botanic gardens, forests, theatres and film sets, our shows excel at transforming spaces with our audacious and subversive style of performance.

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Past Performances

Gnomus was first commissioned for the BBC Ten Pieces Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 2017, a classical and contemporary new music initiative that has engaged four million young people around the UK over four years. Nick Barnes Puppets asked Puppets with Guts to collaborate on developing Gnomus, a response to a Mussorgsky piece of the same name.

During this initial commission process, an educational and engagement project was delivered to young people at Fox Primary School - located a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall. The pupils contributed to initial designs and performance ideas, helping to bring Gnomus to life.

Following on from the BBC commission, in 2018 Gnomus was further developed from a two to four-person puppet for a summer commission at Kew Gardens, delivering 52 continuous days of performances. Gnomus led a characterful and dynamic big puppetry performance to a diverse family audience, exploring the Temperate House collection and highlighting the issues facing plants and fungi. The result was a fun and informative puppet spectacle, through which different narratives were told.

Gnomus has since appeared at a variety of events and festivals including Enchanted Horsham, Imagine Watford, Happy Streets Festival and held short-term residencies in London Bridge and Weston-super-Mare's Old Town Quarry.

What's Next for Gnomus?

We are seeking conversations with programmers about Gnomus and how he might engage with local landmarks, historic buildings, heritage sites, botanic gardens, and similar locations as a site-responsive work with a focus on the environment.

Before performances, we consult with local experts about the chosen site and devise a responsive script. The performance outcome can be up to 6 x 15min walking tours of a site during a festival or event. This can engage up to 150 audience members per performance and many more indirectly. We seek to find interesting and unknown ideas about the site's past and present - how and why it was built, interweaving stories of how the site has been used, and finding a contemporary context for the work.

Each site-responsive commission requires preparation time - consulting, devising & writing, and a few days of rehearsal with puppeteers and the creative team. Ideally, we are seeking longer presentation residencies at historic or conservation sites.

If you are interested in booking Gnomus for your project or event, we'd love to hear from you! Please get in touch

"Very interesting and thought-provoking"

"Great! An amazing and simple way for kids to learn about the environment and how important it is to us"

"Brilliant, really great for the kids and a good message. Also fantastic for adults, fantastic for everyone"

"A really good show, educationally for the kids teaching them all about the nature that's around them, even in an urban environment"

Artistic Director: Ivan Thorley
Designer: Nick Barnes Puppets
Director: Andrew Dawson / Finn Caldwell
Writer: Andrew McCaldon
Costume Designer: Alison Alexander
Cast: Sam Clark, Iskandar Sharazuddin, Katrina Wesseling, Richard Booth, Bertie Harris and Ethan Catchpole
Puppet Makers: Charlie Tymms, Maia Kirkman-Richards, Oli Simonon, Seb Mayer, Jo May and Caroline Bowman
Consultant Producer: Robin Morley
Consultant Director: Claire Rafferty

Find out more about Our People

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Gnomus was first commissioned for the BBC Ten Pieces Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 2017, a classical and contemporary new music initiative that has engaged four million young people around the UK over four years. Nick Barnes Puppets asked Puppets with Guts to collaborate on developing Gnomus, a response to a Mussorgsky piece of the same name.

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Punch Drunk
-immersive theatre company
- mix of tv and theatre
- interesting and unique adaptations from perspectives not seen before - trying to adapt our book and re-write it
- 'places the audience at the very heart of the action'- importance of engaging and including audience
- 'developing new ways to experience sound' 'augmenting real world spaces'

'we want to create work that leaves you spinning and seeing stars'

https://www.punchdrunk.com

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Cloak costumes - collaborated with Emily to design and make these

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Cloak costumes - collaborated with Emily to design and make these

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Outline for Performance:

Dancers as waves

Guitar music and wave sfx

Narration

Genie and Haroun

First song

Gardner entrance

Conversation with Gardner

Fish entrance

Dark song

Pollution warning

End song

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Conclusion:

P192

Iff was named Chief Water Genie, Mali the Head Floating Gardner and Goopy and Bagha appointed Leaders of all the Plentimaw Fishes in the sea. These four were given the joint responsibility for the very large Cleaning Up operation which would begin at once across the length and breadth of the Ocean of the Streams of Story. They announced they were especially anxious to restore the Old Zone asap so that these ancient tales could be fresh and new once more.

Rashid Khalifa given back Story Water facilities and awarded the Order of the Open Mouth (Land of Gups highest decoration)

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Chapter 10 notes and quotes

P160-161 cultmaster explains why he is poisoning the ocean. He is blending negatives, to cancel out stories, sending the toxic blended streams into the streams of story to negate them and destroy the ocean

161 the Plug. Chains going into the waters from the huge crane. They’re going to plug the Wellspring itself

163 mali reappears. He had changed shape back to roots to escape capture and returns, climbing the Dark Ship. We could describe his movement and transformation. He leapt into the air and flung roots at the generator, circuits blew and cog wheels broke and it came to a mighty halt

OR we could have sounds for this machine which stop once Mali deals with them

He holds onto the generator despite being hacked at by chupwala swords and sings a rhyming tune

‘You can chop….’ P164/165 we could read this as it’s a nice end

At this point Haroun takes out the Bite A lite and blinds the chupwalas. He runs and grabs the Hoopoe’s brain box and then gets a protective suit. He notices Iff has been grabbed by the whiskers by the cultmaster, and that everything on the ship including the chupwalas are shadows. They have all been detached. The light was causing them to quiver. They’d melt under the sun.

167 He puts on the suit and dives into the water. He understood he could save the ocean if he could stop the plug. The source was like a huge underwater fountain of shining white light.

He reasserts the Hoopoes brain. Connecting it wrong the first two times. Hoopoe probably has to be played by someone else not a boat to sit in, and could be metal coloured.

170 he still has the golden bottle of wishwater from Iff and it’s half full. He drinks it down and wishes:

‘I wish this moon Kahani to turn so that it’s no longer half in light and half in darkness…I wish it to turn this very instant in such a way that the sun shines down on the Dark Ship the full hot noonday sun’

P171 Chupwalas eventually shone their dark light torches on Haroun and gallop towards him on their seahorses and then with a mighty shuddering and a mighty juddering his wish came true. The sun rose at high speed and zoomed up into the sky until it was directly overhead where it remained

The chupwalas and dark ship melt dissolving into Pools of shadow. Poison was evaporating from the tanks, the tanks melting like dark butter. And the genie and mali were woven out of shadows too by the ropes which had suspended them

P174 they all climb aboard Butt and fly towards the channel mali had cut in the weed jungle but but but the Hoopoe blows a fuse and they can go no further despite in the distance the dark ship with a sad sucking sound melted into oblivion. And so one day The ocean would be clean again and all the stories even the oldest ones would taste good as new.

P175/176 Mali could push the broken bird no further. BUT the plentimaw fishes with a bubble and froth return beside them!

‘Have no worries! Have no fear!

We’ll soon get you out of hear!

They take the reins of the Hoopoe in their mouths and towe their companions out of the old zone

‘I wonder what became of Khattam shud.

‘Done for. No escape for the cultmaster. He melted away like the rest of them. It’s curtains for him, he’s history. Goodnight Charlie. He’s Khattam-Shud!

Could have someone playing the cultmaster melting away in a black cloak like the wicked witch

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Chapter 9 notes and quotes

They move forwards, the web drawn along by powerful invisible string

Iff p145 ‘up the creek, pretty pickle, had our chips’ 😧

Hoopoe: To Khattam shud we go

They say he sits at the bottom of a black hole, eating light and words raw with his bear hands and letting none of it escape!

Haroun: pull yourselves together, your eating up the fear.

Hoopoe: but we’re being pulled in all sorts of directions

P146 Great for Water Genie dialogue and their despair having not saved the ocean properly letting it get to this state

Haroun : the poison is so concentrated here that it behaves like a powerful acid

Chupwala guards surround genie and Haroun - could we use the 4 performers as them?

Haroun realises the Perpetual Darkness was in fact a large ship they were being taken to, a ship of the cultmaster. He tries to speak but can only say Ark now!

149 chupwalas  remove Hoopoes brain (a metal box) a broken machine

Iff sneaks something into Haroun’s hand courtesy of p2c2e and says ‘maybe you’ll get chance to use it. Bite the end off and it gives you a full two minutes of light. It’s a bite a lite’ (could use a torch)

The chupwalas has invented artificial darkness

151 they observe gigantic blank tanks, pipes and ducts leading to ladders. Each mechanical crane to a cauldron with buckets hanging from maliciously sharp hooks ‘those must be poison tanks! Its a factory ship! It is far far worse than the sadness factory back home’

P152 Everything was made of shadows. They have fuzzy edges

‘How weird that the worst thing of all can look so normal and dull’ with these cloaked Weasley looking chupwalas performing a series of routine jobs, checking dials, tightening joints. It was all as boring as ever but was killing the ocean!

They come face to face with the cultmaster and Haroun determines it’s the shadow version

P156 cultmaster: stories have made you incapable of seeing who stands before you. That I ought to look like this!’ He then changes shape to a horrific 101 feet tall figure with 101 heads

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Khattam-shud is in two places at once for his shadow and he are no longer joined at the foot. One is plotting the ruination of the ocean of the streams of story

Bottom p136, top 137 Haroun quotes for why he wants to save the Ocean.

Also we must decide on whether to include the juncture about Batcheat, Bolo, the ‘decision’

Particularly p137 ‘I only just started believing in the ocean but maybe it isn’t too late for me to do my bit

Journey to the old zone through twilight strip

P139 By time they reach Southern polar ocean temps drop even lower and water loses even more colour

G and B ‘we’re going the right way we can tell!

Before it was filthy now it’s hell!

Doesn’t the poison hurt your feet Gardner? No? It won’t stop you you say? It’ll take more than that?

Or hahaha he says ‘you can stop a cheque, you can stop a leak or three, you can stop traffic, but you can’t stop me!’

Iff p140

‘If it’s true there’s a Wellspring or source of stories near the South Pole, that’s where Khattam shud will be, you can be sure of that

Goopy and bagha can go no further and do their little rhyme off.

How do they exit?

The waters are getting thicker by the mile. Many of the streams of story are full of a dark slow moving substance that looks like molasses. Whatever is doing this dreaded thing can’t be far. (To the fishes) go no further you two, stay here and keep watch.

Near the hemisphere of perpetual darkness it was hard to see anything.

They reach overgrown neglected waters, what looks like A forest, as there is nobody to keep the place in trim. Grander is deeply upset. He says give him a year and the whole place would look like new.

Gardener: I’ll clear a way (and floats off)

This seems important. Good chance to separate Haroun and genie from the puppets

Vegetation clumps fly into the air, creatures scurry. Long worms with heads like shovel blades!!

H:What if we see an ichthyosaurs?

G:They’re vegetarians…were. Vegetarians 😬

Grander returns: bit of weeding, pest control. Have a channel ready in no time.

Once channel is clear, butt and the two go in. Haroun calls for Gardner but he is nowhere to be seen.

They’re caught in the web of night!! (We should get a net) the more you fight the harder it grips

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Chapter 7 ideas

Gupees and Chupwalas

Could speak really quickly in rhyme to address parts of the story we aren’t performing

‘Laminations’ p116 I could put them on invisibly

Water genie brings for Haroun to stop him ‘freezing solid’

‘All Haroun could make out was a faint gleams sheen on his clothes and skin that hadn’t been there before’

‘You won’t feel this cold now’ - Iff

They leave the Lagoon as Gup City diminishes behind them

P117 Haroun ‘How life does change…I am heading into an ice wilderness on which the sun never shines wearing just my nightclothes and some strange transparent stuff as my only protection from the cold. it’s a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire’

Hoopoe / or Genie could say ‘a case of out of the fridge and into the freezer more like’

Plentimaw: p118

‘What matters is to save the ocean!

That’s the plan to set in motion

Find the source of the Poison Potion

P121 the darkness of the twig light strip looked like a great storm cloud

Heart-shadow

Goopy and Bagha cough and splutter more and more as they near the Coastline of Chup. Colours of these waters were muted and grey and the ocean had lost most of its warmth.

P122 ‘no longer did the waters give off that soft subtle steam that could fill a person with fantastic dreams. Here they were cool to the touch’ the poison was cooling down the ocean

Goopy bagha ‘if this all goes on we’re all lost / the ocean will become a frost

No birds sang, no winds blew no voice spoke the air smelt stale feet falling on shingle made no sound. Trees like sallow ghosts

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Chapter 6

P99

Rapture : a person using certain dietary decisions may take himself wherever he wishes in his sleep and ‘choose to wake up in the place to which the dream takes him, that is to say, inside the dream’

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Chapter 5 notes and quotes

P79 ‘Haroun had not forgotten what his father had said about khattam-shud. ‘Too many fancy notions are turning out to be true’ he thought

Khattam is the ‘Prince of silence and the Foe of speech’

When entering the Twilight strip and Perpetual Night - we need transition with lighting, flooring?

Always the middle of the night in Chup, Gup is bathed in Endless Sunshine. Twilight Strip falls in between the two

Vital Section::::

P81/82 first mention of Floating Gardner

‘Waved vegetable tentacles in the air in a most disturbing fashion’ it winds and nots itself until taking shape of a man

‘Lilac-coloured flower positioned in its head where a mouth should be’

‘He floats he runs he walks he hops’

Speaks soft but abruptly

P83 Gardner explains his job

Hoopoe ‘think of the ocean as a head of hair…the hairdressers of the sea of stories

They speak of the pollution. We could do this part either with someone speaking for the Gardner OR us cupping our ear and repeating the answer

P84 plentimaw fish introduced. Nice descriptions. Haroun’s internal dialogue moves story along to give context to the fishes

P85 Always go in 2s and speak only in ryhme. Someone to speak for them, or audio recordings? Important to catch the rhymes.

Appearance is pink inflamed eyes

‘Green about the gills’

They swallow stories, and miracles occur in their innards. Hence why they’re sick from regurgitation. Might be nice to have one catching a strand of story in its mouth using ribbon

P86 - key quote for story progression

‘Things are worse than we’ve ever known

And the worst place is down in our Old Zone’ - where the old tales are

If the source of stories in the Moon’s South Pole, where the streams of story are believed to have originated, is poisoned what will happen to the ocean? And to all of us!

Iff: ‘We have ignored it for too long, and now we pay the price’ !!!

Haroun reflection p87

The Lagoon and ‘three most important buildings in Gup’ p88 - we could use our surroundings, pointing out to the buildings before us. To the people in them. So that they imagine they’re in this other world.

Or we could use a building window and situate a performer there for this part of the story - should we use it

State of war exists between the lands of Gup and Chup

Iff tells Haroun that the Walrus is too preoccupied with saving the ocean and Batcheat that there will be no time for his request to help his father

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Chapter 4 notes and quotes

P64 ‘the Hoopoe is the bird that leads all other birds through many dangerous places to their ultimate goal

By but but Could I have a costume made around my waist as though I were travelling on the back of the Hoopoe bird?

Does everyone have to be in one area as one party or could we have characters spread out and introduced

Kahani is the Earth’s second moon

P68 ‘and what water it was! It shone with colours everywhere, colours in a brilliant riot… (great descriptive section)

Our journey could be to find the Walrus. Our puppet’s story to find and succeed in the outcome, using the space we are in as the journey to travel

P68, 69 good dialogue between Haroun and Iff

Could lay materials on the floor too, build scenography as we go?

P69 ‘look for patches of the ocean that shine with extra brightness…that’s Wishwater’

Maybe Floating Gardner only comes into the space after a certain point of the storytelling

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P70 water genies golden bottle. Stories are drunk up.

‘Just one sip, and he could regain for his father the lost Gift of the Gab

Harouns wish for his mothers return could be directed really nicely in the space. Good part of plot as the wish for his father’s story water fails and they must then go to Gup City

Hoopoe character important to play by a third person with a costume I think.

P72 is Very Useful

‘a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents…weaving in and out of another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity (These were the Streams of Story - Iff explained)

‘Each coloured strand represented a different tale

‘The Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe

‘Because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change’

‘Dip a cup into the Ocean (we could do this) - treating the space around us as the ocean

Could use (from p73-74) as a precursor for our main story before we initialise the puppets. With someone playing Haroun and acting out the changes he is seeing and undergoing whilst someone narrates . How we can get lost even in our own story. The idea of being lost within a story in a story

P75 first mention of poison of the ocean, Cultmaster Khattam-Shud. Good page to read to progress the story and give it a dark twist / began the deeper message

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Ideas For Direction of Puppets and People:

•The people begin as parts of the sea or as different coloured strands of stories. They have long materials attached to them so that they move in a sustained, flowing fashion in the space. They also - whilst doing this - lay down materials on the floor - which will represent ‘Wishwaters’

•The narrators will then enter and recite the introduction as the dancers wash around them

•the puppet will enter once the cup has retrieved it story

•can we have a puppet of the Hoopoe Bird which the characters of Haroun and Iff can step inside at times ? Or at least someone playing the bird, who swoops and back launches its arms, travelling in front of the characters.

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Khattam shud-

The end. The arch enemy of stories, of language itself

P43 floating garden. You weave lotus roots together to make the carpet and then you can grow vegetables right here on the lake

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————

P70 water genies golden bottle. Stories are drunk up.

‘Just one sip, and he could regain for his father the lost Gift of the Gab

Harouns wish for his mothers return could be directed really nicely in the space. Good part of plot as the wish for his father’s story water fails and they must then go to Gup City

Hoopoe character important to play by a third person with a costume I think.

P72 is Very Useful

‘a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents…weaving in and out of another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity (These were the Streams of Story - Iff explained)

‘Each coloured strand represented a different tale

‘The Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe

‘Because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change’

‘Dip a cup into the Ocean (we could do this) - treating the space around us as the ocean

Could use (from p73-74) as a precursor for our main story before we initialise the puppets. With someone playing Haroun and acting out the changes he is seeing and undergoing whimsy someone narrates . How we can get lost even in our own story. The idea of being lost within a story in a story

P75 first mention of poison of the ocean, Cultmaster Khattam-Shud. Good page to read to progress the story and give it a dark twist / began the deeper message

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Working on Logic Pro in the recording studio

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Working on Logic Pro in the recording studio

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Moody land section

Page 48- reflection of London? And peoples behaviour?

P47 you will tell happy stories, praising stories, the people will believe you and vote for me

P49 the water was angrier than ever, slopping over the side of the swan boat and rocking it alarmingly side to side as if it were responding to Buttoo’s fury

The more shrieks and yelps there were the rougher the waters became and the hotter and more violent the wind, flashes of lightning… (we can describe as the puppet lights up etc, directing it with our words)

P49 and onto 50 are really good. I could play Haroun in it - re writing it from his perspective maybe

We have to create weather - this is very important to keep the flow entertaining as there is so much chopping and changing in the weather

P50 the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real. (First time there is a blend of magic in their reality)

Could the puppet take on the shape of a house boat at times? Could we make a head that comes up at times and is a puppet but is sometimes other things?

The Ocean of the streams of story contains many stories to be told

Water genie first encounter p54

He is the ‘supplier of story water from the great story sea’ p57 - there to cut off Rashid khalifas story water supply (The Story Waters)

P2C2E process too complicated to explain

P59 ‘access to Gup City in Kahani by the shores of the ocean of the streams of story is strictly restricted…except to accredited personnel

P60 Haroun sets of with Iff to Gup City to find the Walrus and reverse his fathers Water supply cut off

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- shirt made by Giovanna , Trousers sourced by us