Sammy J and The Forest of Dreams
A big sloppy smile, after watching Sammy J and The Forest of Dreams last night with Dave. He enjoyed it too.
It's a sort of attack on the Disney Bildungsroman, as Sammy J, unable to pay his utility bills, is sucked through a portal in the Forest of Dreams, where all the forest critters are forced to pick berries for the king. Sammy J transgresses the rules and then leads a revolution.
Sammy J is a musical comedian, best known for comic songs like Tom Lehrer's, but here he's acting and singing, and I presume occasionally a puppeteer - all the other characters are puppets, mostly played and voiced by Heath McIvor. I'd seen it at Edinburgh last year, but the comedy booker hadn't been sure it would play on the thrust stage of the Gulbenkian. I think they pulled it off.
What amazes me, as it does with muppets, is that uncanny way in which felt can not only come alive, but also, visibly, die. How does this mechanism work? Identification - some residual animism of seeing spirits in trees - a result of gestalt pattern finding? I don't know. There's summat to be written on this by someone.
It's a sort of attack on the Disney Bildungsroman, as Sammy J, unable to pay his utility bills, is sucked through a portal in the Forest of Dreams, where all the forest critters are forced to pick berries for the king. Sammy J transgresses the rules and then leads a revolution.
Sammy J is a musical comedian, best known for comic songs like Tom Lehrer's, but here he's acting and singing, and I presume occasionally a puppeteer - all the other characters are puppets, mostly played and voiced by Heath McIvor. I'd seen it at Edinburgh last year, but the comedy booker hadn't been sure it would play on the thrust stage of the Gulbenkian. I think they pulled it off.
What amazes me, as it does with muppets, is that uncanny way in which felt can not only come alive, but also, visibly, die. How does this mechanism work? Identification - some residual animism of seeing spirits in trees - a result of gestalt pattern finding? I don't know. There's summat to be written on this by someone.