Back to RWCMD main site

Could a Puppet Save a Life?

8 July 2014

Filed Under:

Production and Design

Working in partnership with gas distribution company Wales & West Utilities, the Royal Welsh College has employed three recent theatre design graduates on a creative project to illustrate the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning.

In the first outreach initiative delivered by the Theatre Design department, the graduates, Jess Jones, Eleri Lloyd and Millie Else  have designed a giant puppet to represent the poison. They’ll also design and deliver puppetry workshops for 11-18 year olds, which will be delivered in schools, colleges and public events in Wales and South West England over the next 18 months,  demonstrating basic puppetry skills while drawing attention to the danger of this invisible gas.

WALES&WEST022

Lecturer in Design, Bettina Reeves explains how it all happened: “Jess and Eleri wanted to set up their own puppetry company when they graduated. We focus so much on puppetry and the students do so well that there are always some students who choose to pursue it as the main thread of their career. I suggested they should build up their portfolio because they’ll need to have a proven track record to get any funding. What we proposed to Wales & West initially was using current students, but their timetable is so intensive I thought it would be better to employ recent graduates who would really benefit from the project. “

Theatre designer and puppeteer Jess Jones talks us through the creative process:

“The main challenge was how to create a shocking, memorable puppet that conveys a gas that’s invisible.  We decided to create a massive puppet that is about 10 ft tall, has fingers that move to point at people, floats around, breathes on people (air is pumped through its mouth)  and can move completely, like something that has a real soul.

A key aspect of the design is that it’ll have a glowing heart, which, when blue, means it is inactive (blue burning flames are CO safe) and when orange, means it will become aggressive (orange burning flame represents a potentially fatal build up of CO). It is also covered in soot – another sign that CO is being produced.

Design sketches from the student's notebook

Design sketches from the student’s notebook

The ‘skeleton’ of the puppet was made from  gas piping  – which seemed very fitting –   then we built on top of that with dense foam and carved into it using machinery and sculpting tools. This was then covered with Scrim –a latex and PVA covered muslin material –which allowed us to neaten and paint it.

It took me three solid days work to sculpt the clay head and cast it in renoflox  – a plastic material used for creating strong puppet heads –  but sculpture is one of my favourite things to do and I loved every minute of it. The character of a puppet is always in the face, where there is eye contact and it conveys the personality of the puppet, the eyes are windows to his soul. We used muslin material dyed with paints and spraying it with muddy water, and scratched into the material using saws and carving tools- this created the worn look and sooty black stains into the cotsume of the puppet. It was difficult to design but I think we’ve produced something that will not only  inspire others not only to take in the message of CO emmisions but in to thinking about the potentials in puppetry!

Wales&West-puppetry2

I was pleased to hear from people that the puppet looked like a woman who had lost her children, the skeleton head was sad looking not scary, like she was trying to warn others not kill them. This is what we were going for, we didn’t want it to just be scary we wanted it to look like it has a story behind it not just an empty shell.”

WALES&WEST003

The graduates will be taking the puppet to the IGEM (Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers) Carbon Monoxide conference at Queen Elizabeth II Centre on 9th July.