Marcus Clarke
&
Hands up Productions Limited
Presents
Marcus
Clarke
is
The Puppet
Maker
An Adult
Stand up Comedy Act with Puppets.
Developed
and Performed at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Contact
here
Listen to Edinburgh
Festival Radio Interview with Kiran Gouda
Click here
About The
Puppet Maker Show A Live half
hour quirky mix of Novelty, Puppetry, Stand up Comedy
and Cod Ventriloquism.
The plan
was to develop and experiment with an Adult Stand Up Comedy
Act and Show featuring Puppets, incorporating various adult
Puppet Comedy ideas I had been developing. It was to be provisionally
entitled, Marcus Clarke is 'The Puppet Maker'.
It would be a Show that would develop what Adult Comedy writing,
performing and producing talents I had and Showcase
them during The Edinburgh International Film Festival and
GEITF. Forming a tangible foundation for a move into adult TV
Comedy with my long-standing specialty of Puppet characters.
The Show
would also be a marketing signpost of this development
and be available for media marketing opportunities
in part or whole supported by the distribution of edited recordings
from the Show. Talent Development, Product Development and Marketing primarily.
Pre -Production.
Being for
want of a better description a Novelty Act
the running time I felt had to be no more than a half hour.
Most Stand up
Comedy Acts are at least an
hour. And the Show once written had to be developed and
honed before a real audience. Half a dozen Puppet characters
seemed about right with a mix of Audience Interaction,
Story and Gag led comedy material combined with some Novelty
and Cod Ventriloquism.
Cod Ventriloquism is that done deliberately very badly for
wholly comedy effect.
Venue
The Free
festival The Laughing Horse at the 2007 Edinburgh
Festival was decided upon with a Half hour slot and
all booked and arranged in February 2007 along with the
associated advertising.
Production
First performance
6.10pm on 4th August at 'Berlin' a nightclub and
new Fringe Venue started off a pattern that repeated itself
over the next 3 weeks and 19 performances. I performed the
Act, always testing out new things and with each Show I
gained in confidence, getting ever better at dealing with
my stage fright and improving my comedy timings. The Act was
then re-written starting every evening after the show then
re-learnt the next day and performed again that evening.
I wrote quite a few new short or one liner jokes on the fly which
I was able to put straight in to the Act and test out. Most had
a strong visual element as in this early example delivered by
Cheesy Puppet.
Cheesy Joke
Outcome
Creating
this Show in this way, has been both one of the hardest
things I've ever done and one of the most rewarding.
Throughout
all of the Shows I performed my audiences laughed
and reacted with great generosity. They applauded well
and always commented on the Show favorably afterwards
to me. I enjoyed creating the Show and performing it
for them and I learnt a great deal about Comedy too.
By the
last week I think I had a rock steady and very funny
Adult Comedy Stand up Show featuring Puppets.
Which is what I had set out to achieve.
What I learnt from doing this will definitely inform
positively all of my future Adult Comedy TV writing, production
and development work and some solid Media Products resulted directly
from it.
1/A TV Series and a Feature Film, which I am currently writing, have
grown directly out of the 'Puppet Maker' Show and the many ideas experimented
and tested in it, along with the Industry contacts to pitch it to.
2/A Series of University Lectures were also developed following the same
development process I had blue printed for the 'Puppet Maker' Show.
This combined with my adoption of the coping mechanisms, to
deal with my longstanding stage fright, that I tested during my Edinburgh
performances, have enabled me to successfully deliver them. Click the image
right for information.
There have been other benefits in terms of the Industry perception
of us and our work and some kudos gained in actually trying to do something
different.
I'm sure further media marketing benefits will accrue too.
The Show itself is novel, innovative and very entertaining though
being only 30 minutes it has no practical Market as a Stand up Act on
the Comedy circuit.
Recommended
?
I would
do it again and recommend putting together a 'Stand
Up Show' to anyone serious about Writing, Performing
and Producing Adult Comedy in Film, Television, Games or Interactive
Media. But its not suited to everyone and really not for the faint
hearted.
| Funding |
I've never
been offered or received funding for anything, let alone my Media
Project development. So I researched and made applications. I live in
Nottingham in the East Midlands Region. |
| Arts Council England ( East Midlands) |
Turned
me down as "not a priority". |
| EMMedia ( My Regional Screen Agency) |
Turned me
down initially on the grounds that it fell "outside of EMMedia's
stated areas of investment" By referring to their Guidelines I was
able to show that my application did actually fall within their stated
areas of investment and appealed. I then received a second explanation that, "the Board declined your application on creative grounds." And that "There is no appeal against a decision taken on creative grounds." |
| So I had to self
fund again which has put me back bit. |
|
copyright august 2007
Some received so far -
Venue Berlin Queensferry Street Lane at 6.10pm Daily 4th-25th August (Not Mondays) 30 Minute Show.
A Show Quote, "I'm not suffering from Ventriloquism, this is something else"
Puppeteer and Puppet Maker Marcus Clarke has been creating Puppet characters for Television for over 20 years. His other great passion is Comedy and he has long wanted to bring the two together in a totally modern re-invention of the Classic 'Cod Ventí Stage Act. A Cod Ventriloquist is one who deliberately performs badly for comic effect. I had seen ëSandy Powell a great exponent of the Cod Vent Act while a youthful Follow Spot Operator at my local Theatre Royal. The sheer quirkiness of the relationship between Puppet, Puppeteer and Audience made a long lasting impression on me. In the Puppet Maker I play a delusional Puppet Maker who believes his Puppets come to life and talk to him. The Illusion of life and Comedy have long been a fascination and this Act is a great way to enjoy putting the two together. To also bring an Old style Act, with a new premise, to a new audience and to try out a swathe of fresh, original and quirky new Comedy material.
Background to this Act
A few years ago Marcus tried out a Puppet and Man TV Double Act Performing both as himself and the Puppet on the premise of a Big Issue Seller with his talking Dog. The Dog, in a bag on his shoulder told jokes and Marcus was the straight Man, íDoogy and Stainsí. The Puppet was created as a totally believable Animatronic with help from a longstanding Friend, the Movie special FX wizard, Dave Barclay. (Star Wars to Cats and Dogs.) A test was Shot doing several passes with Marcus pre-recording the Puppets vocal track and then miming the Dogs lines to camera while in vision. (Marcus running the lines in his head) The Puppet sound track was then added back again later in the edit. The result was the convincing illusion of a Man with his talking Dog. By a convoluted route Doogy ended up as a conventional Puppet in CBeebies Hit TV Show SMarteenies, where he works very well.
Recently Marcus had begun to learn Ventriloquism proper, so that he could then ëCod ití. (Do it badly.) "Geoff Felix the well known Puppeteer and traditional Ventriloquist Doll Maker is a longstanding friend so I got some good advice and some books to learn from. (Thanks Carl Durbin) Then the idea of The Puppet Maker as a Cod Vent Act just dropped into my head. A delusional Puppet Maker who simply believes his Puppets come to life and talk to him. It's something I'm surprised I hadnít thought of much earlier. I spend so much of my time getting Puppets to come to life and talk to me. In a manner of speaking. But after having worked for so long within the convention of the hidden Puppeteer I suppose you just come to believe the Audience wouldnít accept seeing the Puppet and the Puppeteer both performing together in vision. Judging from the popularity of recent Shows like Avenue Q and Jim Henson's Puppet Up, with whom I performed at last years Edinburgh Fringe, (working again with my longstanding friend, the extremely talented and hard working, Brian Henson,) it seems people are willing to embrace it for a laugh. Maybe they enjoy seeing the Puppeteers creative process too. I hope so?
Marcus Clarke
copyright 2007.