Beauty & the Beast & Norwich Puppet Theatre

This month marks the Norwich Puppet Theatre’s 35th anniversary. That’s right they’re a complete adult old, not just a “now I’ve turned 21, I’m an adult” adult, a proper adult! So of course celebrating this momentous achievement aptly would take more than just getting The Puppet Man in for a few performances, although the amazing potential of that has been out-done times X 35 with this celebratory production of Beauty And The Beast. Their reimagining of the traditional Beauty And The Beast fairytale places the audience in the good old golden years of the 1920’s-30’s Americana movie era. Director Gavin Glover and his team have been fine-tuning this mixed media production for three years now and it shows, with the collaboration of traditional rod marionettes (puppets) with elements of physical performance, film and an original musical score, as well as the dusting off of the theatre’s marionette bridge for the first time in over 20 years. This production aims to please all 5-95 year olds, but it seems to be perfect for your average 5-10 year old. I’d never been to a puppet show before myself, but within seconds of my introduction to this method of story telling the basic essence of this sadly fading art-form seemed to encapsulate the very nature of a 5-10 year olds creative mind, as the performers are visually speaking ‘playing-at-pretend’ with the puppets. The only issue with this exhibitionist inspiriting of the child like creativity of imagination, is that your ‘child’ ,whether young or old, may need restraining from trying to take part in the fun of play with all of the performers and puppets…and the horse, of course.