Fleur's Silver Arts Award Review

Dear “Folded Feather” company,

Please find below a review that I have written on what I thought of your wonderful puppet show, The Suitcase Circus:

On Thursday 15th March 2012 at the Bradon Forest School Theatre I saw Suitcase Circus, which is a puppet circus show. The puppets were made out of everyday objects but still looked amazing!

They had many different puppets doing different circus acts. There was a sock puppet which was the ring man; a dancing straw, a singing tea pot, the hypnotist tie snake, some talking shoes, a frog, a high rope walker glove, a gymnastic potato sack and a glove cannon ball!

I liked the whole show but if I was going to pick my favourite bits I would chose the singing tea pot and the glove cannon ball. The singing tea pot was an upside down tea pot with a black dress and a feather bower. I liked this bit because it reminded me of my friend; the way she sang and danced, she moved like a real person and had movements like a pop star like lying on her back. I liked the cannon ball glove because when he came on the music was very dramatic. His head was made out of a base ball so when he came out of the cannon in slow motion, another man got a baseball glove and caught him! It was very funny and I enjoyed it very much.

There were no bits I completely disliked but I thought the talking shoes weren’t that good. At at times they were funny and it was interesting to see how they made the shoes in to puppets too.

I would recommend this play to everyone who loves the Muppets. I would recommend the people who make the Muppets to see if they could make a puppet like that, and I would also recommend it to young children because I think that they will find it very funny and enjoy it very much.

When I was younger I saw a two plays a bit like Suitcase Circus where there were small puppets and life sized puppets. The company was called Pickled Image. The plays I saw were the Chatter Box and Houdini’s Suitcase. Houdini’s Suitcase was very much like Suitcase Circus because they were both about the circus but in Suitcase Circus they had audience participation but in Houdini’s suitcase there was the forth wall which means they act without seeing the audience.

To improve this play I wouldn’t change any of the other acts, but I would put more puppets and acts on because it was all so good and I just wanted to see more!

Watching this play has inspired me to make puppets for Unit 1 Part B of my silver arts award. At first I thought that I would make puppets out of materials, but I think I might try to make puppets out of some shoes or a tie.

So Folded Feature I hope that you think my comments were good and fair and I would love to see you more of your work again.

From Fleur Calder