Written and directed by Ben Keaton and Mark Downin, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, 'Sex Lives of Puppets' is a show that aims to capture the joy of sex, and promote acceptance and diversity – but with puppets!
Described as having a unique take on “verbatim theatre”, the puppets closely (but not entirely) follow the transcripts from the intimate interviews.
There is something surreal about seeing these intricate, expressive, yet somehow hauntingly eerie puppets speak so earnestly about sexual proclivities and peccadillos. And although hilarious, there is also a deeply intimate and sad undercurrent, touching on loneliness and loss, and the human need for touch. It delivered far more emotion than it had any right to.
Like many of the great shows (in my opinion) this isn’t going to be for everyone. Certainly, I saw some people who were most definitely not enjoying themselves. The person in front of me was so disinterested he actually took his phone out and started answering a customer survey email sent from Vision Express. He scored their service a 9 – presumably much higher than he rated the show. And in his defence, even I felt the show slightly overstayed its welcome; the script ran too long, the jokes became predictable, and the show ran nearly 15 minutes over the advertised hour.
It was clear that the puppeteers were having great fun on stage, and were (largely) successful in including the audience in that. However, in a venue that was outrageously hot, those minutes really started to drag and they would have been better finishing on their crescendo sooner.
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