For me The Troubadour Tales should be a total hit. It has all the elements that tick my boxes. Shadow puppets, Bunraku puppetry, puppets out of everyday things, storytelling, live music and live singing. Exciting! What more can one ask!? I’ll tell you.
The performers arrive and we are treated to a tale of The King (in puppet form) of The World’s Biggest Castle, who demands his castle be built ever bigger – despite this process leading to his kingdom tuning into an ever-growing rubbish heap! Anyone who suggests he rethinks gets thrown down the ‘King’s Well’. Nasty.
Even the King’s afraid of his own power, his own castle. When an ‘elpful and ‘onest otter (played by a transformed ukelele) offers some feedback, the King tries the same trick. But the otter can outrun and outswim him, so the King finally... well, I mustn’t spoil it for you.
We end the first story with some philosophical rhetoric and music. The next tale, of an old professor and his free-spirited daughter Wynn. When the father dies, Wynn, (played by a second nice puppet) becomes a wastrel wondering the streets.
More philosophical rhetoric follows (lost on the toddlers in the space) until a paper blows against her, inviting her to a house. A mirror-bearing man offers a home for the night in exchange for taking a look in his mirror. But, in the process finds she looses her powers, and um... here I honestly lost interest.
Most of the audience had really tried to listen hard to the tales, but the main teller spoke way too quietly for the space. Sadly she doesn’t acknowledge the noise, incorporate it or encourage the audience to come closer. Silent Announcement? Might be too appropriate a name. One player looks bored sometimes or embarrassed, and this added to the slightly anaemic performance. The tale just fails to cross the divide between the cast and the young audience. I like it when performers pitch their 'mental level' high, but the quietly spoken philosophising missed the mark. There were a lot of very small children, so why not risk diverging from the script this time, dropping some of those bits? The Puppets were really lovely, and the shadow puppetry too. My fave part was the transformed cauliflower, though the ukelele could have worked better. With more embellishment, the transformation could be more convincing. Sadly the buses were SO loud, that I found it incredibly hard to concentrate. Even my daughter, usually good at concentrating, was ready to go. All the right elements, but didn’t quite come together. In a quieter, more intimate space, and with just a little more energy from the performers, it definitely could.
