Invasion of the Bloopies (1991)
“What is a Bloopy, Grandpa?” asked the little girl to whom this unnerving tale was told by her dissolute Grandfather amid his frequent visits to the drinks cabinet. The Bloopies were pink, they went about in herds and they automatically formed queues behind anyone they found standing still. They lacked all bones, especially spinal bones, and where they once had the power to decide, they had willingly allowed themselves to be reduced to flaccid matter by the ADMEN. A nightmare comedy about consumerism gone mad.
The India Rubber Zoom Lens (1992)
The fabulously famous Brittonioni Brothers’ job in this show was to provide Leonardo da Vinci with a Zoom Lens powerful enough to project them all into Eternity. Among the vital increments on the lens mount was not only the Moebius Loop for Infinity but, a notch further up, the ancient Hindustani symbol for Eternity. It was all a massively prestigious cross-century collaboration of international big-heads Leonardo had gathered from across Time. Some with specific roles aboard the amazing Time Ship, such as Mrs Beeton (ship’s Cook) Marie Curie (ship’s doctor) Grinlin Gibbons (ship’s carpenter) etc.
Part of the original film…
Crossing the Celluloid Divide
As previously mentioned this has become one of the main trademarks of a Forkbeard stage show. In its simplest form it is the trick of merging from stage to screen and vice versa. Here are two examples of the films projected on stage which the performers interact and ‘dissolve’ in to and out of.
In this clip, Tim uses a pair of scissors to ‘cut’ the projection screen and appear on stage, leaving Chris on film…
In this clip, Tim and Chris perform the “Harry Worth” routine by synchronising their ‘on film’ bodies with those on stage (first their arms and legs appear either side of the screen, wine is poured through, and then they both emerge on stage leaving the film to continue…
1994/5: the English Channel Tunnel is opened, riots break out in Brixton, London and the first DVD players are announced.
The Fall of the House of Usherettes
The tale of LIQUID FILM, a long defunct celluloid mixture once sprayed from specialized projectors and formerly produced in the crusty old Empire cinema’s subterranean studios; of leaked liquid ghosts that lurk in the labyrinthine libraries; and of the family of old crones that guards them against tomb-robbers for The National Archive.
Use of Projectors on Stage
The basic set, a 4-sided platform with one end much wider than the other. At the wide end was a 7 foot high screen on which the main events were shown, at the other was a powerful 16mm cine projector with a 10mm lens- (i.e. very wide angle). The platform rotated on rings (pink) that allowed a power cable to the central point where there was a slip ring that fed a 240-v supply to a rotating socket for the projectors on the platform. Also on the platform was a stack of 3 16mm projectors that gave a conjoined image onto Side 2 ).
On the left was a paper screen that showed Earlobe escaping a loop he had been trapped in by swinging out on one of Deirdre’s hairs caught in the ‘gate’ of the projector. He finally bursts through the paper screen and his own film image.
Fellow Forkbeard (Number 4)
Janice May
In the mid-90s we were joined by Janice, who ran The Albany Centre in Bristol with her husband Alan (both formerly Chats Palace, London). Her first mistake was being brilliant at figures – one of our biggest weaknesses. Her second was being a delight for venues to talk to and a superb negotiator. She was doomed – and remains Forkbeard’s Company Manager to this day.
Fellow Forkbeard (Number 5)
Paul Dunaway
As a theatre technician at The Hornpipe, Portsmouth and punk band bass player, Paul also found himself trapped in the Forkbeard pickle jar in the early 90s. He became Forkbeard’s full-time Lighting Technician for many years till he left around “Shooting Shakespeare” in 2007ish.
New Studios!
In 1996 came an Arts Council Lottery Award to buy and develop the site above Penny’s Barn. Our journey from front rooms to chicken sheds to leaky halls to the draughty luxury of Penny’s Barn meant, with this huge dollop of dosh, we’d earnt a custom-built 40 square metre studio space with converted cottage for sound recording and film editing and place for people to stay.
The Barbers of Surreal
For the Barbers business is booming. Their traditional hairdressing skills have been shamelessly extended by recent breakthroughs in Genetic Engineering – an exciting new line in organic toupees is already in production. But the shop’s newly acquired ex-Laboratory chain-smoking rabbit has formed a dangerous liaison with the steamed-up mirror, and also a curiously Alice in Wonderland-like old crone and the egg shampoo is acting funny …..
“The plot draws on the extremes to which people go to mould their appearance, pandered to by the cosmetics industry. Its barbershop location derives from the historic association of barbers with medicine and surgery as well as cosmetic experimentation.” Greg Giesekam writing of ‘Barbers’ in Western European Stages 2003.
The Barber’s Mirror
The film reflection is back-projected onto the mirror-like screen the performers look up at to allow for audience sightlines. The ‘misting-up’ effect disguises the projector being switched on and off. When the film/mirror was not active the ‘alive’ mirror illusion was retained by a flickery shadow effect (the heat of a low voltage light bulb wafting a scrap of foil about). The screen itself is stressed to look like an ancient mirror.
“The Little Match Girl” at the Lyric Hammersmith (1997)
When Neil Bartlett took over The Lyric Hammersmith he got us to join him on his first Christmas Show. Penny designed and built all the sets and costumes while Chris and Tim performed the comic parts – Angels, Knife and Fork, Teddy Bear and many more. For us, more accustomed to life on the road, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience – a brush with ‘straight theatre’, festering Greenrooms and 12 hellish weeks stuck in London.
The Brain
Concerning the uncharted grey matter between our ears, this was a journey through the membranous tendrils to the primordial soup of the ancient lizard brain –where the imagination finds itself deserted and alone in the most haunted house of all.Winner of one of the very first Wellcome Trust Science on Stage and Screen Awards, Forkbeard worked with writer-director Paul B Davies (Radio comedy writer and ex-Crystal Theatre of The Saint) and neuroscientist Emil Toescu. Sponsored by VARI-LITE, who provided all the moving (intellegent) lighting, with additional funding from The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
More and More Exhibitions!
From this time we nearly always had an Exhibition running somewhere in the UK. The longest went on for 2 years from 1999 to 2002 at the V&A’s Theatre Museum, in Covent Garden, attracting over 350,000 visitors. Technically very innovative compared to exhibitions of the time – sound, moving image, animated objects and intelligent lighting (provided by VariLite).