Theatre company pulls strings

This week’s presentation of Alan Ayckbourn’s classic comedy Season’s Greetings includes a memorable scene in which one of the characters stages a terrible puppet show.

Director Robbie Carnegie exsaid: “As with all Alan Ayckbourn’s plays, he’s very specific about what has to happen on stage. In Season’s Greetings, his character Bernard stages a play which requires three little pigs, a wolf, a postman and a dog!

“Where would we get these puppets, and who would teach our actors how to operate them? I’m always keen to collaborate with other local groups (we brought in local folk musicians for my past show, The Winter’s Tale), so I had the idea of contacting Buxton’s puppet theatre, Funny Wonders, to help us.”

Ali Quas-Cohen from Funny Wonders said: “It is great to link up with other Buxton organisations and we were thrilled to be asked to make Bernard’s puppets. It was initially daunting as marionettes are not something we’ve focussed on in the past but the “they need to look homemade” brief was reassuring!