Puppets, as has been known for a long time now, are not just for children. We had Spitting Image on TV all those years ago and the theatre has seen War Horse, Life of Pi and the notorious Avenue Q. The Southwark Playhouse is, though, currently reviving a puppet show that is most definitely for adults – rude, hilarious, moving and sometimes dark.
The Sex Lives of Puppets was first seen here at the start of the year but it’s also been on tour and at various festivals where its company, Blind Summit, have established quite a name for themselves. And this is well deserved. The team of four puppeteers – Isobel Griffiths, Briony O’Callaghan, Dale Wylde and Mark Down – are so skilled at their craft, your eyes are glued to the puppets, convincingly and finely characterised as they are. Raise your eyes for a moment to their controllers, though, and you see such extraordinary level of oneness with their charges, their thoughts and feelings. These puppets are such believable characters for a reason.
The script, written by Mark Down and Ben Keaton, is loosely based on a survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles, and is formed as a series of unconnected scenes where different individuals and couples express their experiences and feelings about sex. There’s a lesbian couple; a pair who could have emerged from the pages of a Jilly Cooper novel who are both happily married but having an affair; two gay men in a care home, thrilled that there’s more sex there than bingo; an actress who becomes murderous if you don’t find her attractive.
The puppets themselves sit on a table against a white background, the black-clad puppeteers behind them. Their faces are enlarged, caricatured and yet strangely and convincingly real – indeed human. Their bodies are soft, endlessly pliable and capable of everything from full-on sex to the most tiny, telling gestures. Their clothes and styling (Mark Down, Charlina Lucas, Russell Dean) immediately tell you all about them and the voices given them by their controllers are absolutely spot on – many stage actors would envy their timing. When these puppets appear to cast their gaze on you, it’s a searching one – and distinctly unnerving.
There are some truly hilarious moments and the packed audience was laughing most of the time. My favourite was the woman who decided she was probably the next Virgin Mary and had already produced the next Jesus (in a form somewhat like a jellyfish). There are some dark moments, too, particularly the “avant garde monologue” which was probably the least successful scene though the shadow puppets would also be on my list of what to cut here – and it would work better without the brief interval, too, there’s no need to break the momentum.
Funny, moving and beautifully performed, it’s a show that will change your ideas about puppets forever.
The Sex Lives of Puppets runs at Southwark Playhouse until 28th September. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.
