PRESS REVIEWS FOR BUNK PUPPETS

“A real gem” - Swamp Juice in ‘What’s on the Fringe’

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:23:22 +0100

It is the worst feeling in the world when you sit through a show and at the end you come to the conclusion, “I should have brought my nephew with me.” Not so much for my sake – I very much enjoyed it, but more for his sake: the fact he missed out on such an entertaining piece of work.

A man grunts and groans on a dimly-greenly-lit stage, tearing small pieces of foam and cardboard onto what we must imagine to be a campfire as the audience enter the auditorium and take their seats. Surrounding him,miscellaneous shapes made out of cardboard and fabric, bits of old rubbish really, hung on a washing line the length of the stage. His instruments of choice.

Jeff Achtem, the Canadian puppeteer, and quite simply the genius behind Bunk Puppet’s Swamp Juice, manages to captivate the audience in this magical journey of a grumpy man in a swamp. The pure joy of discovering that that bit of card is going to be a snail and that old glove a bird is next to none. It’s a real gem of its kind, inspiring the possibilities of everything that surrounds us.

What really does it for me, however, is his ability to broaden the medium of shadow puppetry. With each consecutive scene he inserts a new element – the puppets are able to exist not just on the stage, but on the ceiling, in the auditorium. It contains bounds of imagination, creativity, and innovation which culminates in a finale that actually blows the mind away. If I tell you about it you won’t believe it.

You have many opportunities to see this clever little show and discover the magical finale for yourself. It is touring pretty much the four corners of the UK, but do go and see it at the Soho Theatre until 5th May. It’s definitely a show that children will enjoy, with lots of funny voices and movements, but the adults are entertained as well by Jeff Achtem’s innovativeness and his theatricality.

Take your children. But be warned: some scenes might be a bit scary for viewers under 7 years of age. My 3 year old nephew was probably a bit too young to sit all the way through it, but it is a spectacle not to be missed.

Swamp Juice in ‘What’s on the Fringe’ April 22, 2012

To read the original review on-line, click HERE.

“Wonderfully enchanting ... breathtaking moments! ‘Swamp Juice’ in the Evening Standard ✭✭✭✭

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:18:00 +0100

SWAMP JUICE at London Soho Theatre
Canadian shadow puppeteer Jeff Achtem says he spends a lot of time in a dark room in Montreal. Thank goodness this eccentric boffin ventures out, because his current show is an absolute delight. It is as child friendly as a bag of sweets and occasionally as sugary, but also wonderfully enchanting.
The narrative is quite simple. An evil imp is pursuing a bird, as snakes, puffer fish and yawning snails all chip in. The fun is in watching this unfold onscreen while simultaneously seeing the ingenious process.
The scampering mini-skirted puppet master works visibly onstage, a character himself in all senses. Aided by cutouts, Heath Robinson gadgetry and very mobile hands — nothing as trite as bunny ears here — the chase moves from sea to sky, with Achtem adding excitable live squawking.
While the plot is thin it builds to two breathtaking moments. Firstly when the audience joins in to create a cinematic underwater seascape, waving reeds and rubbery creatures, and finally, in a gasp-inducing climax, when Achtem — “eat your heart out Avatar” — delivers a 3D finale that lives up to its ambitious billing.
A heartwarming, funny show for children of all ages.

Swamp Juice runs until May 5 (020 7478 0100, sohotheatre.com)
- Bruce Dessau in ‘The Evening Standard (London) - April 23, 2012’
To read the original review on-line, click HERE.

“Innovative, memorable, fun.” ‘Swamp Juice’ in The Times ✭✭✭✭

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:10:21 +0100

Swamp Juice * * * * (Soho Theatre, London)

Shadow puppetry it may be, but there’s nothing two-dimensional about this short but scintillating show from the Montreal puppeteer Jeff Achtem. There’s a touch of the carnivalesque about this self-deprecating Canadian who stalks his stage in waistcoat, bow tie, purple leggings and a red mini-kilt. He offers close-miked, Muppety gurgles as his small but perfectly formed cast of silhouettes stalk each other in a swamp in which you’re either predator or prey. Although there are some slow moments as we get to grips with the craftsmanship and wait for the story to start, any patience required more than pays off as we take to the water and then to the air.

So: THRILL! as you see one man’s hand, a spotlight, a screen and a chunk of cardboard form a cheeky snail, a growly man, spiny marine life. MARVEL! as Achtem uses different lights to cross-cut between man and mollusc, as he keeps all his characters lively with the astute use of ever-expressive eyeballs. SWOON! to a Bayou soundtrack (by David Henry, Nick Carver and Tristan Kelly) that gives the right woozy context for Achtem’s cut-outs, all of which he makes from rubbish. And GASP! as the swamp leaves the screen and comes into the auditorium in a real fairground ride of a closing sequence that makes you jump in your seat as you try to avoid being stung by a jellyfish or thwacked by a propeller.

“Eat your heart out, Avatar,” mumbles Achtem, as he concludes a story that doesn’t look like much written down — man taunts snails and hunts bird, complications ensue — but offers plenty enough beautiful little surprises for the 55 minutes to whizz by.

At the end he asks the audience not to tell their friends about the 3-D sequence. But because that set of words does little to summon up just what much fun it is, and because the show is advertising itself as “a shadow puppet menagerie with a jaw-dropping 3-D finale!”, then I hope he’ll forgive the slight spoiler.

He warns off the under-7s — there are a few dark moments — but otherwise this is for everybody. Bring the kids, absolutely, but unaccompanied adults won’t be ashamed to be first intrigued and then thrilled by this vivid shadowplay. Achtem’s creations travel from the stage to the stalls, to the walls, to the ceiling and right into your head. Innovative, memorable, fun.

And if, as Achtem puts it at the end, “one shadow puppet show a year isn’t enough”, he’ll be back later in the summer to put shadow puppets in space in a follow-up, Slapdash Galaxy.

Box office: 020-7478 0100, to May 5. Then touring to July 15. Details from bunkpuppets.com

-Dominic Maxwell in THE TIMES (LONDON), April 22, 2012

“The very root of all theatre has been celebrated.” Swamp Juice in ‘What’s On Stage’

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:19:57 +0100

Although Swamp Juice is a shadow puppet play of countless props, brilliant effects and elemental danger, it’s actually put together with all the low-tech ingenuity and low-budget sparseness of a crude home movie, or the sort of parlour game your clever uncle would devise before we all took refuge in computer games.
You enter the theatre to find the Canadian puppeteer Jeff Achtem grunting and scratching himself on a stage full of odd bits and pieces. The scene is like a jumble sale hit by a hurricane. There’s a washing line of stuff, a free-standing easel, a few lights and a white screen.
Out of this, and a clever soundtrack, Achtem devises a black and white animated cartoon featuring a pair of snails, a snake, a bird with a cockatoo hairstyle and a Bart Simpson-ish goofy hunter, all of whom set off in a canoe along a river and are swallowed by a crocodile.
The stroke of genius is that Achtem remains at the centre of the action – “Achtem, achtung” – so that we see him struggling to manipulate his limbs and fingers into position while juggling the cartoon characters, sometimes dropping things and getting his own knickers in a right old twist.
The story accelerates, and Achtem hands out reeds, fronds, wobbly rubbery things and mop-like sea anemones to the audience. When lit from behind by a single torch, these create a living, heaving sea-bed.
Three large screens are deployed in what now becomes a 3-D adventure movie — the glasses have been distributed – and we’re assailed by flying jellyfish and a cascade of bubbles as the bird whizzes round our heads (“Eat your heart out, Avatar!”) pursued by the hunter in an old-fashioned bi-plane.
It’s Blue Peter magic on a shoestring, a crude theatrical budget bean-feast to delight children of all ages; and it sends us home to start pulling out our toy theatres and cardboard boxes, candles and torches, all over again. The very root of all theatre has been celebrated.

- Michael Coveney for ‘What’s On Stage’ , Soho Theatre, London -- 20 April 2012.
To read the original review on-line, click HERE.

“an exemplary specimen of eccentricity” ‘Swamp Juice’ in A younger Theatre

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:13:24 +0100

Canadian performer Jeff Achtem’s Swamp Juice (presented by Bunk Puppets and Scamp Theatre) is a celebration of the bizarre and unheeded imagination. Achtem is entertaining as he blends originality with creativity to conjure an artistic, comic and an intricate shadow-puppet show enjoyed by adults and children alike.

Achtem manages to squeeze every last drop of his bizarre imagination into his swamp which oozes with a very different kind of life and colour. The low-tech production is effectively atmospheric, the set, including Achtem’s costume, is unconventionally ‘home-made’, whilst the scene is surprisingly intimate. As a washing-line of shadow-puppets is strung haphazardly across the stage. Achtem sits quietly just in view of the audience, quite oblivious to the many eyes peering out from the darkness. To the many inquisitive eyes he himself is an exemplary specimen of eccentricity. Achtem’s control over his puppet-creations is masterful, dancing between them, toying with them and personifying them as they take on a dual role of both prop and companion. Yet Swamp Juice’s character comes from Achtem as a performer just as much as from the makeshift but commanding characters he creates.

The adventure in the swamp takes the loose form of a tale of goodies and baddies, ending in a surprising formation of friendship between them. Achtem draws some perceptive parallels on stage, he blurs (quite literally) the defining habits of men and monsters, seen through the menacing, greedy human ‘explorer’ who traverses the swamp determined to catch any creature that comes his way. His prize specimen ‘Birdie’ proves to be an ever-illusive nemesis, a shy but inquisitive bird that also appears to have a natural gift for comic timing.

Lighting illuminates not only the shadow puppets themselves, cast onto screens which at times encompass the whole theatre, but upon Achtem and the props he uses too. It is just as fascinating to watch Achtem weave the storyline through his fingers and his own body. His feet, hair, fingers and arms form his protagonists’ bodies and lips, cleverly synthesising puppet and person. The storyline’s exploration of the ‘unknown’ grips both the young and the old who become intrepid explorers in the swamp’s gloomy underworld. Participation from the audience is successful, funny and visually impressive.

Although Achtem’s movements are sometimes predictable, the effective manipulations of form make up for any slow moving or distracting moments which tend to encumber the plot. One scene involving Birdie’s attempts to escape through the air is very impressive; Birdie not only manages to fly across the stage but across the theatre. There is little doubt that Achtem brings puppetry into new dimensions, and what could be construed as a traditional and limiting platform certainly knows no boundaries in Swamp Juice where the employment of 3D sees jellyfish floating before you amongst other fishy fiends. There are certainly moments when the audience forgets that essentially this production is made entirely of shadows and of light.

“The puppet’s aren’t real but the nightmares are”, Achtem jokes as the slime of the swamp is dredged through and the murky characters emerge onto the screen. Yet although Swamp Juice is gloomy it never becomes unnecessarily frightening; think Tim Burton meets Dr. Zeuss, with all the charm and appeal of a ‘hand-made’ one-man-show. Achtem’s swamp is a breeding ground for the imagination, and his puppets made from bits of rubbish and cardboard are apt examples of how creativity and character can spawn from almost anywhere.

- Katie Angus for ‘A Younger Theatre’ , Soho Theatre, London -- 20 April 2012.
To read the original review on-line, click HERE.