ABOUT THE COMPANY

We are a family run theatre company specialising in creating engaging and enchanting visual theatre for family audiences. We aim to combine physical theatre, puppetry, clowning and live music with a strong narative to produce theatre that is both carefully crafted and emotionally engaging.

The Company is based on the edge of the New Forest on the Hampshire Dorset border and from our rural base we tour nationally and internationally to theatres, arts centres and festivals.

We work with a range of artists to produce theatre of a high quality. These artists include directors, designers, makers, writers and musicians. We are always on the look out for interesting people to work with and for unusual places to take our work.

We run our business sustainably with a strong environmental awareness. All our electricity is powered by the wind and sun, materials are recycled where possible and our van runs on bio-diesel.

If you would like to find out more then do explore this website or give us a call on...

(00 44) 1425 472867

Or email us by clicking here. We look forward to hearing from you.

Kaohsiung International Puppet Festival Taiwan

It was with great pleasure that we were invited to represent the UK at this wonderful Puppet festival in the south of Taiwan. We performed alongside groups from Italy, Brazil, Mexico, India, andJapan as well as local groups. We particularly enjoyed the work of Brujerias de Papel (see picture below). The show was extremely popular and we had audiences that reached 500 people of all generations. It was a joy to be in a country where puppetry is revered as much as it is in Taiwan. We were treated like Kings by our guests and as well as seeing some great puppetry we were treated to some superb sightseeing and New Year celebrations.

We received an invitation to a Festival in Mexico and were invited to return next year with 'Bird in the Hand'. We are also in discussion with our hosts about touring 'Puck's Bottom' back to East Asia as a tool for teaching English! Watch this space!

More pictures on the 'Puck's Bottom' page.

THE JABBERWOCKY

This exciting project involved students from the Ringwood Waldorf Steiner School in the New Forest. They devised and made puppets for their own show for special needs children based on the poem by CS Lewis.

The 2 weeks culminated in 2 performances in a beautiful woodland amphitheatre for an audience of Special Needs children.

"It has been really fun and magical. A great way to finish our last term. Thank you very much." Saffron

Rural and inner city children come together in a day of theatre, play and food.

Children from Mount Pleasant Junior School in Southampton visited Hale school in the New Forest. Both schools have been involved in a series of workshops with Josh Elwell & Company to develop the new show - 'Storm in a Teacup'.

Mount Pleasant is a very multi cultural school with a large number of refugee families. The children contributed with recordings of themselves speaking in their native tongue. Children were encouraged to share stories, nursery rhymes and songs. These recordings were used in the sound track for the show. Hale, on the other hand, is a very rural school in the New Forest. The children took part in drama sessions exploring the themes of the show.

The project culminated in a day of activities including; playing Kabaddi (an ancient Indian team game) on the village green, sharing a wonderful banquet and watching the premiere of the show they helped to develop.

It was an absolute joy watching children from such different backgrounds enjoying each others company so much. The 2 schools are only half an hour away from each other but are set in entirely different environments.

We were also joined by BBC South who are making a short film about the project.

This project was made possible with the support of The Children's Fund - 'Hello Too Project' and Hampshire Count Council.