A case study of an approach to public awareness of biodiversity and conservation in a National
Park - Nutmeg Puppet Company's shows for the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads.
I started working in the Broads, in the East of England in 1985. The Broads Authority had just been set
up and were looking for unusual ways of informing the general public about the region. The then Chief
Executive, Aitken Clark, firmly believed, as I do, in the power of the arts to educate and inspire, and the
value of using humour to present what could be serious messages while entertaining and engrossing
an audience.
I live 10 miles from the Broads, but until I started working there I had very little knowledge of the area.
Being a wetland, there are few roads and bridges, and not many places where you can get a view over
lakes, rivers and marshes, unless, that is, you are on board a boat. Producing the Broads shows has
given me a reason to explore and discover a place I hardly knew, and after 18 years I am still
discovering new places, people, stories, plants and animals. Working there has educated me and the
people I work with, opening our eyes to a secret and extraordinary place most people just whisk past in
their cars without noticing.
My company, Nutmeg, had been working in the area for several years. We performed in schools and
theatres, and out-of-doors in the summer, touring puppet shows about the local environment, history
and folk-tales. We were working on the beach in Southwold in 1984, doing a show about a pirate, a
mermaid, some rubbish, and the 'last herring left alive in the North Sea', to large family audiences.
Diana Shipp from the Broads Authority came to check us out, and that was the start of a long and
fruitful relationship, which has seen us performing every year since then to thousands of visitors, local
people, and children in schools, spreading the Broads message as far afield as the Danube Delta,
Romania.
At the beginning, the BA paid for my colleague, Nico Brown, and I to perform 8 shows one week in
August. Nico had recently spent an eventful week on a Broads hire-cruiser boat - not an experience he
had enjoyed, but full of rich material for a writer. He wrote a hilarious script about an unscrupulous
holiday developer introducing crocodiles into the Broads, and the effects this had on local wild-life and
people. I made the puppets and costumes for the live characters. We were only paid for the
performances. (We were young and daily life was a lot cheaper then.) The shows were popular, but as
the audience was asked to pay a small fee, parents would only pay for their children to watch, and then
sat at a distance. We noticed however that they were just close enough to hear and avidly watched the
show all the way through. When a second tour was arranged, we suggested asking for voluntary
donations instead. Audience figures doubled, and at least as much money came in. This has been our
formula ever since.
The shows are aimed at people of all ages. Adults and children learn from each other. The adults get
all the jokes, learn about the Broads themselves, and rediscover their own childhoods watching the
children's response. There are no long didactic sequences. The puppets can and do speak, though not
at any length, but they also have the ability (as all puppets do) to speak eloquently through action.
There are usually several main characters and many extras, and lots of theatrical surprises and
changes of scale to keep the attention of even the youngest children. The puppets can represent
animals, plants, magical beings or people - even minute things like bacteria or huge concepts like The
Mud. No creature is too big or too small for our stories, and puppets have the advantage over real life
of being able to be made any size the designer wants. Audiences are remarkably unfazed by the sight
of tiny water fleas (Daphnaea) scaled up x100 confronting a marauding fish, which is not much bigger
than life-size. The Daphnaea (originally 10, now 20 finger puppets) have featured as the heroines of
several shows for their useful algae-eating activities.
I take great care that the characters remain true to their nature. For example, a common nettle (urtica
urens), called Stinger appropriately, has a sharp spiky character and voice, and a pushy invasive
attitude towards other more delicate plants. However, Stinger resolves a tricky situation by stinging a
greedy human and thus preventing her from capturing an endangered butterfly.
It's important for the audience to be able to empathise with the main characters, but they should not be
presented whimsically or sentimentally. For instance, a conversation between a local mollusc and an
invasive clam [that has claimed our sympathy by telling of her terrible journey across the oceans to
escape from her enemies (clam-eating humans)], is cut short by the grumpy old otter gobbling them
both up - "Mm! Soft centres!". What eats who in order to survive is a common theme in our shows. The
second year we worked for the BA we toured a show on a more general environmental theme (a
recurrent one for me) - the loss of contact between contemporary children and the wild. The audience
liked the show but the BA wanted something more closely related to the Broads. We were happy to do
this but only if they would commission us properly and pay for the show to be made. Fortunately this
coincided with their expansion and a big increase of funding. Since 1987 we have worked closely with
them on the subject matter, consulting their conservation and navigation officers, and academic and
local contacts.
Each year, costs increase and so do the budgets. Our tour takes a sizeable chunk out of the events
budget, but it is acknowledged by the BA that we consistently draw a big audience, with the added
advantage that the shows can be taken to other public events and venues such as county agricultural
shows, environmental conferences, and special events attached to projects, such as the Barton Broad
Clear Water 2000 project. For the past two years we have also taken the shows to local schools in
deprived urban areas adjacent to the Broads, where there is a programme of environmental education
with the BA. Outside the summer touring season, we are also allowed to take the shows anywhere we
are invited, such as other schools, small theatres, rural events, and community centres. These tours
are funded independently by the venues, but often subsidised by grants from charitable trusts or local
councils, to enable better access to the arts by isolated rural communities.
In a typical year, I start working on a show after Christmas, discussing possible subjects with my main
contact at the BA (currently events- ranger Rachael Miller). It's important to note here that most of my
work is subject led. The state of the environment is something that concerns me deeply. The medium of
puppetry is for me a means to an end - that of informing, educating and communicating my passion to
the audience. Some years the BA has a particular topic they are promoting. For example the Barton
project, (which aimed to clear the metres deep layer of mud from the bottom of the Broad and improve
the water quality, wild-life, and recreational facilities), inspired our show The Menace of the Mud
Monster.
A few years ago a very rare waterplant (chara intermedia) invaded Hickling Broad, causing a huge and
acrimonious debate between sailors, fisherman, electric-boat-hire companies and conservationists.
Tempers were very high, and people who normally found themselves in agreement were at each
others' throats. The BA were anxious not to inflame the argument (which they were at the centre of),
any further by letting us make the plant the subject of our show. In the end they relented. It was just too
topical a subject to be avoided, but very sensitive. I was therefore careful to talk to people representing
as many different sides of the debate as possible in my research for the show. In fact, by the time "The
Blooming Weed" went on tour, the situation had changed. The plant was no longer a problem, but we
had some good discussions with audiences around the Hickling area about what could or should be
done in future.
This year we were asked to make a show about the effects of climate change on a wetland, to fit in with
an international conference they were hosting on the subject. Entitled "Heatwave", the show turned out
to be only too topical as Europe sweltered in relentless heat.
Once the show-topic has been agreed, I then spend about a month researching. I read books and
newspaper articles, find picture references, talk to local farmers and water-folk, scientists, folklorists,
and field workers, and visit places. Though not all our shows are set in a specific spot, I need to know
in my mind where the action is happening. I take photos and do sketches, often with our regular set
painter, landscape artist Jayne Ivimey. Then I have to put all the material together for the most difficult
part; writing a story that will entertain and hold the attention of the audience for 45 minutes to an hour. I
also have to be sure that there are only as many characters and scenes as two performers can
physically cope with.
Once the story is more or less right, in the early summer, I get together with my co-performer and the
director we have chosen for the show for the devising week. We thrash out, through improvisation and
with substitute puppets, the script, the songs, and basic stage business, and make decisions about
staging and the types of puppets we shall use. If there's time, we also go on a field trip, on foot or by
boat, so that we all get a better feel of the setting. Jayne and I sort out the design and I make a scale
model of the set, which helps me decide what size to make the puppets. Then comes further research.
I try to observe the animals and plants that will become puppet characters in the wild, or in some cases
in wild-life parks. The otter (lutra lutra) has featured in several shows, and the local Otter Trust (which
has been breeding and re-introducing otters to the wild for many years and helped to reinstate the
species from near local extinction) was a very useful resource. It's important to know how an animal
moves before you can make a believable puppet. Photos or drawings are not enough, though Edweard
Muybridge's classic photographic study "Animals in Motion" continues to be invaluable. Finding out
about invasive clams and local mussels involved a trip with a research graduate to the river Chet this
summer to check on mollusc populations, and my discovery of the adventurous history of the asiatic
clam (corbicula fluminea).
Over the next two months I make the staging, puppets, props and costumes, with a team of makers,
and often a student assistant. On occasion we also commission a composer to write incidental music.
The week before the tour begins is dedicated to final fixings and rehearsal - never long enough but
director/actor time is very expensive.
We take the show to public spaces beside the rivers and lakes of the Broads. A publicity campaign,
including local press and radio coverage, leaflets placed in shops, pubs and holiday information centres
and sent to our mailing lists, and posters near the venues, alert our audience. We now perform around
23 shows to about 2000 people over a 3 week tour, with an average last year of 97 people per
show/audience. Often people come back to see the show again, bringing their friends and relatives. We
believe that most audiences are almost equally composed of children and adults. There is also a good
mix of local people and families on holiday, from all sections of society. Everyone sits together on the
grass and pays what they can afford. Recurring themes of our shows are: how we as human beings are
to live in our environment: the damaging effect our population is having on the plants and animals we
depend on for our survival: how to respect the needs of other species, and not be greedy in our use of
natural resources: and last but not least, the marvellous beauty and wonder of the natural world.
Children are great believers in justice and empathise with the young, the small and the oppressed. We
try to to encourage this and present the case for a fairer and more honest relationship between human
beings and the rest of creation, through our characters and stories. We know, however, that there is no
point in being didactic, reeling out strings of indigestible facts, or presenting one point-of-view as the
irrefutable truth. Our shows are full of humour, scary moments, exciting rescues and silly diversions,
but vital questions are presented, if not answered, and useful and interesting information slips in almost
undetected behind the jokes.
So as not to waste all the fascinating research material we've accumulated, the show publicity-leaflet
contains background information about the subject and characters. Parents can read and explain the
story to the younger children, and the family takes the leaflet away as a souvenir. Hopefully the show
will have aroused their interest so they'll read it more closely later on. Also, it provides useful resource
material for teachers for follow-up work in schools. Does our work make any difference? Possibly not at
all, though I'd like to think that people leave our shows more aware and attuned to the natural world so
they will treat it better. Like most education it's an act of faith. The practice I have developed in the UK
has been dependant on a very particular environment and culture, (and a remarkable sponsor in the
form of the BA). I know from experience it may not necessarily be applicable elsewhere. Our most
ambitious act of faith yet took place in the Danube Delta between 1995 - 99. A visit to a European
Nature-Park conference in Hungary in 1991,to talk about our work with the BA, had opened up a wider
world for me. The Iron Curtain had just fallen and environmentalists in the former Soviet Bloc countries
were desperate for contact and help from the west. Aitken Clark was involved in setting up the new
International Biosphere Reserve in the Danube Delta, Romania, and had made good friends in the
Reserve Authority. He was aware of the enormous problems facing them. He also knew of an
underused source of UK funding - the Environmental Know-How Fund - and was convinced that what
the Delta needed was Nutmeg Puppet Company. I wasn't so sure, but I like a challenge.
I was offered a small grant to go on a "scoping mission". So off I went into the depths of the Romanian
winter as a guest of the DDBRA, to plan a possible project with them and local teachers and fieldworkers. It didn't take long to realise that a show like the ones we do on the Broads was not going to be
viable or appropriate. Communication and transport are difficult, at times non-existent, the geographical
area is so much bigger and more remote, and the cultural differences are equally huge. We needed
something that could involve children in the most isolated villages. In the end we created a project that
used home-made shadow-puppet shows to open the eyes and ears of the children to their remarkable
environment. The method was different but the intention the same. We produced a book with our
Romanian colleagues, about the project - the Eco-Puppets Handbook - in Romanian and English. It is
also a practical guide to all the aspects of making a show, and similar activities. The project still
continues today via a gifted local primary school teacher Nina Sirotencu Mihalcea, and a network of her
colleagues and environmentalists. To our delight, they have taken up our ideas and developed them in
their own new, imaginative and exciting ways.
Meg Amsden. Bulcamp. October 2003.