Convenient delight
The Resident Geek, the Small Persons and I were over in Great Malvern yesterday for the wedding of an ex-colleague of the RG's. As often happens with these affairs, not all guests were invited to all parts of the do - there were a number of "second-tier" guests, including us, who were invited not to the ceremony itself (which was limited in numbers) but to greet the bride and groom as they emerged from the Town Hall, and then had about 3 hours' gap (while the "principal" guests were invited to an early dinner) before we were invited to the evening celebrations. Since we had the chance to catch up with various friends of the RG's, and Great Malvern is well supplied with tea-shops (including icecream for the Small People), this was no great problem, but we did need to keep the little ones entertained - and so I was delighted to discover a small, eccentric gem...
... I had done a bit of research and had come across the Theatre of Small Convenience, which claims to be the smallest theatre in the world, in a little sidestreet. As you'll see if you click on the link, it is a tiny (12-seater) puppet theatre located in a former, converted and decorated, Victorian gentlemen's lavatory!
It's absolutely magical - all gilt and paint and red velvet, beautifully decorated, and the theatre all done by an amateur puppeteer (retired, bearded gentleman with more than a slight air of magic about him) and the tickets sold by his wife. He puts on a different show each summer and clearly spends his winter building the amazing automata, music-boxes and equipment he uses, out of junk, old record players and so on.
The current play is called "The Last Turtle in Cloud Cuckoo Land", and was all about a turtle who is caught by a King and Queen who live in a sky kingdom and who intend to put him in a pie, but who can't then bring themselves to do it, become friends with the turtle instead and thus end up eating a "pie-full-of-sky"! A very sweet little story, all told in rhyme in about 8 minutes, with music and a very endearing turtle puppet.
The Small People - having taken some convincing to finish up their icecreams and hurry to catch the last show of the day - were absolutely entranced. The shows are put on on-demand, as enough people turn up, and so the fact that the performance was done just for them delighted them, as did the building, the atmosphere and the whole show. They gazed open-mouthed and clapped loudly at the end - it is so lovely, in these days of potentially-endless TV and computer, to see them totally enthralled (they always are) by live performance.
And as the Resident Geek said afterwards, "What a wonderful way to spend your retirement - making gadgets out of junk and then delighting small children!" If you are ever passing through Great Malvern in the summer and have ten minutes to spare, I thoroughly recommend it - it's a lovely little piece of English eccentricity.
[cross-posted to LJ and DW - comment in either place]
... I had done a bit of research and had come across the Theatre of Small Convenience, which claims to be the smallest theatre in the world, in a little sidestreet. As you'll see if you click on the link, it is a tiny (12-seater) puppet theatre located in a former, converted and decorated, Victorian gentlemen's lavatory!
It's absolutely magical - all gilt and paint and red velvet, beautifully decorated, and the theatre all done by an amateur puppeteer (retired, bearded gentleman with more than a slight air of magic about him) and the tickets sold by his wife. He puts on a different show each summer and clearly spends his winter building the amazing automata, music-boxes and equipment he uses, out of junk, old record players and so on.
The current play is called "The Last Turtle in Cloud Cuckoo Land", and was all about a turtle who is caught by a King and Queen who live in a sky kingdom and who intend to put him in a pie, but who can't then bring themselves to do it, become friends with the turtle instead and thus end up eating a "pie-full-of-sky"! A very sweet little story, all told in rhyme in about 8 minutes, with music and a very endearing turtle puppet.
The Small People - having taken some convincing to finish up their icecreams and hurry to catch the last show of the day - were absolutely entranced. The shows are put on on-demand, as enough people turn up, and so the fact that the performance was done just for them delighted them, as did the building, the atmosphere and the whole show. They gazed open-mouthed and clapped loudly at the end - it is so lovely, in these days of potentially-endless TV and computer, to see them totally enthralled (they always are) by live performance.
And as the Resident Geek said afterwards, "What a wonderful way to spend your retirement - making gadgets out of junk and then delighting small children!" If you are ever passing through Great Malvern in the summer and have ten minutes to spare, I thoroughly recommend it - it's a lovely little piece of English eccentricity.
[cross-posted to LJ and DW - comment in either place]