Picture an intimate little room with white curtains all around you. There’s a small round table separating you from a man in tight multi-pastel coloured lycra and elevated electric blue hair. In front of him is an array of socks and brightly coloured decorations. This is the setting for Boogaloo Stu’s ‘Puppet Paramour’.
The room had a fairyland quality to it, especially as I entered the bright space straight from the rain. I had no idea what to expect, sitting in this cosy environment, but within minutes all my nervousness had gone, replaced by the warm comfort of a detour into fantasy land.
This is quirkier than your average fringe event; it is after all, a sock-puppet workshop. Boogaloo Stu asked me to think about my ideal man, or lover and create a sock puppet which would reflect that image and personality.
The great thing was that this artistic task led to a conversation with the kind and gentle man sat across from me, who was bringing to life on his hand the image from my mind. It was a bizarre kind of therapy.
The experience was not quite like anything I’d done before. Since Boogaloo Stu was the one actually creating the puppet, the final product was a direct result of the communication of my ideas to him. Our conversation was fluid and personal and by the end of it I had a character on my hand who represented the ideas that I had shared.
Boogaloo Stu’s friendliness, originality and good humour meant that I pretty much had a smile on my face the whole time I was there. I was also very impressed by the final sock-puppet creation. I had never made one before, but my boggle-eyed sock-date came to life on my hand. For the rest of the day I was taking him out of my bag and showing him to anyone who’d let me. Perhaps they simply felt sorry for the over-enthusiastic sock puppeteer, but they all seemed impressed by him too. I can’t recommend enough a trip to Boogaloo Stu’s eccentric puppet land. You’re given the opportunity to escape reality for a minute and enter the fairyland of your mind to create a funny and adorable little friend.