Edward Wren cuts a fine macabre master of ceremonies in The River Peoples Terrible Tales of the Midnight Chorus. Bearded and bedecked with banjo and accompanied by a folk-cum-indie band of guitars and violin, Wren sings and speaks his way through the shows narratives with a sparkling sardonic drawl. The tales of The Vanishing Boy, The Boy Who Became the Willow and The Ordinaries, puppeteered beautifully by Kate Hadley, Claire Harvey, Mandy Travis and Amy Tweed, unfold before us, always with aplomb, charm and intelligence.The River Peoples style has often been compared to Tim Burtons or Neil Gaimans, and the company lists such creators as influences. However, what the company can command in its theatrical medium - and what is thus inevitably missing from is influences - is an appealing conscious artistry which displays delicious relationships between actor/puppeteer and puppet. Terrible Tales features the same basic puppet to which different characters heads are attached. This blank-faced puppet is lifted out of a chest (also the puppets performance platform) at the shows start and immediately starts flailing and attacking Wren - it has a life of its own. Even in such a fictional context, a startling realism is maintained by the puppeteers craft; they move the puppets body and head with exquisite subtlety and care to characterise its different faces.The show perfectly fuses humour and sadness. The vanishing boy is described as the same colour as the wall, and just incase you dont believe it, a tiny portion of wall is held next to him towards which he slouches miserably. The same boy loses his voice (a tiny light on a wire) and chases it madly as it flees, his limbs pounding across the chest - the movement is both hilarious and beautiful. In The Ordinaries, two actors play the mother and father of a hodge-podge family complete with one half-wolf and one knitted child, Sarah. Another actor depicts an amusingly well-observed social worker visiting the family; here the puppets can only look on. In the same story, though, Sarah has her stitches picked at by her wolfish step-brother, and becomes melancholy. She is hidden away in a cabinet to avoid an upset to the happy family. The image of tiny, knitted Sarah sitting in the cabinet is touching, as is her puppeteers distressed stare as the cabinet is removed. Whether human or not, every character in Terrible Tales has a humanity about them.All too soon the company is packing up as Wren makes his farewell, and suddenly Bedlam Theatres curtain is drawn. I walk outside having glimpsed magic.
