A Guide to Kneehigh

by Jeni Whittaker

This Digital Theatre+ and DramaWorks guide provides a useful

introduction to British theatre company Kneehigh. Covering their key
productions, history and unique style, this invaluable resource also
offers practical-based exercises using Kneehigh techniques which can
be adapted and used in the classroom to inspire teamwork,
experimentation and improvisation.

CONTENTS

Introduction 2
Section one: key elements of the Kneehigh style 3
Section two: history 8
Section three: key plays 15
Section four: select list of productions 27

Exercises 30
Building group awareness 31
Speed of reaction 34
Projecting emotions 39
‘Clocking’ and mask-work 46
Larger-than-life work/performance outdoors 52
Engaging the audience & comedy 57
Working with music 63
Putting on your own play 66
 INTRODUCTION

Kneehigh Theatre Company was founded in Cornwall in 1980 by Mike

Shepherd, who has continued to be its Artistic Director to this day.
Kneehigh has gained an international reputation for its unique theatrical
style under Shepherd’s leadership. With its strong emphasis on physical
theatre, combining comedy and burlesque with dance and music, unusual
– often outdoor – sets, the use of masks and puppetry, and its deep
rootedness in culture and landscape of Cornwall, Kneehigh has developed
a style all of its own.

The name refers to the supposed height of a child – “knee-high to a

grasshopper” – but Kneehigh’s theatrical style is designed to appeal to
both adults and children, without talking down to either.

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 SECTION ONE:
KEY ELEMENTS OF THE KNEEHIGH STYLE

PRE-SHOW
The pre-show is a way of ‘softening up’ the audience. It may involve the
actors and musicians interacting with audience members, giving them
things or involving them in actions. This precursor to the show itself
establishes a close connection with the audience, which is maintained
throughout the main play.

PHYSICAL THEATRE
Physical Theatre, often of a grotesque and comical kind, is a key element
of the Kneehigh style. This is closely linked to Antonin Artaud’s ethos that
that theatre should communicate with its own physical language. This
might take the form of swordplay, for example in The Further Adventures
of the Three Musketeers, or actors wearing huge padded stomachs and
bottoms to become sumo wrestlers in Around the World in Eighty Days
[Minutes].

LIVE MUSIC
Music is often used at points throughout each play – to set the mood or
build tension, for example – and is often composed especially for the
performance. Kneehigh favour folk music, often Eastern European, Jewish
or Gypsy, frequently using accordion, drums and stringed instruments.

Kneehigh musicians are often also actors, and actors may play instruments
or sing. The two roles are interchangeable and deeply involved. Actor-
musicians are part of the action at times and visible at all times.

DANCE
At least one big number, involving all or most of the cast, sets the mood of
that moment. Often this is in the form of a folk dance with plenty of
stamping and heel-and-toeing, rather than being balletic. During the
course of the play, expressive dance may be used to indicate a central
character's inner mood or personality.

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IMPROVISATION AND REINVENTION
Improvised scenes, usually involving some element of audience
participation, can feature in any Kneehigh performance. Each show is
therefore unique and different. Shows are also often reinvented many
times. They are always new versions – nothing is allowed to be stale.
Sometimes, this may be achieved by swapping characters, sometimes by
approaching the whole story afresh. A good example of this is the three
very different versions of Tregeagle performed during the late 1980s and
early 1990s.

ARCHETYPES
Characters are played ‘larger than life’, particularly in shows based on
folktales and fairy tales. Emphasising particular character types – the
wicked stepmother, the overbearing bully, the brave warrior and so on –
has its roots in commedia dell’arte and pantomime traditions and is used
often to great comic effect.

MASKS
Actors often wear masks in Kneehigh performances. This is closely linked
to the company’s emphasis on character types or archetypes, and the large
gestures and clear movements (associated with physical theatre) to convey
heightened emotional states often in outdoor settings.

‘CLOCKING’
‘Clocking’ involves showing an audience on entry who you are – indicating,
through gesture or expression, the character’s role or mood. It is also used
any time you want the audience to notice something in particular.

PUPPETRY
Unlike most puppetry, where companies make every effort to hide the fact
that something is being manipulated, Kneehigh share their – and the
audience’s - joy in what is going on quite openly. There is no pretence that
the puppet manipulator is not really there. Along with masks and working
models, puppets are a common feature of Kneehigh performances in plays
for both adults and children.

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CLOWNING
Humour is important to Kneehigh. Physical clowning - falling about,
trampolining on to the stage, and so on – is a large part of the actors’
training, and is put to hilarious and sometime breath-taking effect. Jon
Oram, who joined Kneehigh in the 1980s, trained with Marcel Marceau and
passed on many skills from the mime artist to the company.

DIRECT ADDRESS & AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

Direct address is often used at points throughout the play as well as in the
pre-show. Some characters, the more comic ones, or the evil ones, tend to
share almost all their thoughts and plans with the audience. Audience
participation, such as the countdown of the last 80 minutes in Around the
World…, is a main feature of every Kneehigh show.

CHORUS
Actors used as the main characters in the play, but wearing masks or other
costuming, are often used in Kneehigh performances as a chorus. They are
often both outside (commenting) and inside (performing) the show, and are
a crucial element in communicating directly with the audience. This use of
a chorus began with the Chorus of Old Bores in Around the World…and is
central as the Chorus of the Unloved in the much later Tristan and Yseult.

MOOD CHANGES
The mood from one scene to the next, and often even one moment to the
next, can change radically. Kneehigh are known for puncturing moments
of high seriousness with a moment of wicked comedy, of exploring the
knife-edge between laughter and horror, and so on. Strangely, this
juxtaposition tends to enhance rather than destroy each of the elements.

COSTUMES
Kneehigh costumes are often quirky, and sometimes wilfully ugly, chosen
to say something about a character type. Wigs, often outrageous in size
and colour, are frequently used, as are masks. Dramatic or over-the-top
costumes and make-up are necessary to communicate emotions, ideas
and moods with the audience in Kneehigh’s large, usually outdoor,
performance spaces.

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SETS
Kneehigh sets have a pleasing way of knitting themes together through
the design. For example, the set for The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk , about
the artist Marc Chagall and his wife, had sloping floors and off-kilter
buildings like a Chagall painting. Very many sets use scaffolding, ladders
and platforms, which allow for many heights and different acting areas.

ACTORS
As Bertolt Brecht argued, actors should be chosen for their ability rather
than their looks. Brecht constantly cast actors against type: “Not all cooks
are fat.” This is also true of Kneehigh. Actors who are not obvious hero or
heroine material are cast for their ability. The beauty of their voice and the
intensity of their acting sweeps the audience away so that they see them
as beautiful. In addition, there is a habit Kneehigh has of costuming to make
the human body more rather than less ridiculous or ugly, as if to cock a
snook at accepted ideas of character enhancement through costume.
Instead, they choose to costume across the characters, to emphasise the
ensemble, or to make a character grotesque.

GENDER SWAPPING
This has always been, and still is, a feature of the Kneehigh style. Men
frequently play women and vice versa. Instead of trying to make men
appear more feminine, or women appear more masculine, a spirit of
buffoonery or grotesqueness is the key to gender swapping the Kneehigh
way. Male actors dressed in tutus and white vests play the female Bacchae
in the play of that name, for example.

WILD WALKS/LANDSCAPE THEATRE

Wild Walks (or what are now called ‘Rambles’) was a form of community-
based theatre developed by Kneehigh in the 1990s. Audiences walked
through a carefully chosen landscape, experiencing en route snippets of
poetry or text, objects or vignettes, created by the actors. Artistic director,
Bill Mitchell, along with sculptor David Kemp, was instrumental in
developing this strand of Kneehigh’s work, with pieces such as The Woman
Who Threw the Day Away and Ghost Nets .

Wild Walks are an important strand in the broader category of Landscape

Theatre, in which the landscape itself suggests and gives rise to the form
and theme of the story. (In 2005, Mitchell and Sue Hill left Kneehigh to

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establish Wildworks, a company focusing entirely on this kind of immersive
outdoor theatre: where “landscapes wear one-off wondertales, woven by
the people that live there.”)

SITE-SPECIFIC WORK
Site-specific work is a very important feature of Kneehigh’s productions. In
some cases, this meant adapting existing sites to create the setting, for
example in the play based on Clive King's Stig of the Dump (Stig, 1988)
building a dump in a corner of the school playing ground or sports field. In
others, it means designing the main show to fit into specific outdoor
settings, such as the Minack Theatre, Restormel Castle and the Eden
Project. This aspect of Kneehigh’s work is closely allied to Landscape
Theatre as discussed above.

FOLKTALES
Folktales and fairy stories are a central part of Kneehigh’s repertoire. The
Ashmaid, based on Cinderella, The Tinderbox, The Red Shoes, Rapunzel,
The Wooden Frock based on an Italian folktale, and others are all good
examples.

CORNWALL
Subjects suggested either by the unique landscape of Cornwall, or by
Cornish subject matter, are intrinsic to Kneehigh’s way of working. Sun and
Shadow (1988), for example, deals with Cornish concerns about the effects
of incomers and the tourist trade. Tregeagle is the story of an 18th-century
Cornish Justice who sold his soul to the devil. Members of Kneehigh’s cast
and crew are predominantly local people, living and working in the
surrounding areas. Kneehigh’s sense of place is an integral part of their
work. As Kneehigh’s Sue Hill puts it, “There are few companies nowadays
that belong somewhere and that are core to a particular place.”

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 SECTION TWO:
HISTORY

1980s

In the early 1980s, theatre in the southwest of England faced severe

funding cuts. The Cornwall County drama department drastically cut its
schools programme at around the same time that local theatre company
Footsbarn closed down in Truro and moved base to France. A local
schoolteacher and aspiring actor, Mike Shepherd, saw the need to fill the
gap with a theatre troupe that catered to both children and adults, and that
was deeply rooted in the local community and the unique landscape and
culture of Cornwall. Enlisting a motley crew of neighbours, friends and
colleagues, none of whom had any formal training in theatre, and in the
spirit of ‘cheerful anarchy’ that the company still holds dear, he founded
Kneehigh in 1980.

The first plays put on by Kneehigh contain elements that would become
part of the company’s signature style. The Adventures of Awful Knawful
was performed in a variety of locations: “fields, quarries, schools, village
halls, tents and preaching pits,” and was loosely based on a script by Mick
Ford and Peter Flannery. The director was called “director, adaptor,
deviser”, which was the usual terminology for many early Kneehigh
directors, indicating how the original script was only the starting point for
physical shenanigans of all kinds. Awful Knawful, for example, opened with
actor John Mergler crashing a bicycle into the side of the raised stage and
being catapulted onto it.

Around the World in Eighty Days [Minutes] (1982) featured the Chorus of
Old Bores. Taken from the ancient Greek theatre, the chorus bridged the
gap between audience and performers, commenting on the action as well
as (sometimes) being part of it. The chorus is a useful theatrical device and
features in many Kneehigh plays. In Tregeagle, for example, which the
company performed in different versions throughout the 1980s, the actors
wore comical, pig-like demon masks when playing the chorus.

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The idea of a ‘pre-show’ – warming up the audience for the main event –
was first developed for Skungpoomery in 1983. This would become a key
part of Kneehigh’s style, and for Skungpoomery it featured two musicians,
Tim Dalling and Jim Carey, playing accordion and guitar to the audience.
Dalling and Carey, along with Steve Betts earlier, helped to establish music
at the heart of Kneehigh’s performance style. The following year, Kneehigh
put on The Jungle Book in which Dalling and Carey featured as monkeys
and by 1985, when a ground-breaking second production of Tregeagle
was performed, musicians had become an integral part of the acting cast.

Skungpoomery was an off-the-shelf play by Ken Campbell rather than an

adaptation and was performed, like almost all of the plays of this period, in
schools and village halls. Other school shows included Who Stole the Sun?,
Stig, Rare Earth and Rubbish, the last two in collaboration with the high-
profile, Theatre in Education (TIE) company, Belgrade Theatre from
Coventry. Though Kneehigh performances shared much common ground
with TIE, Kneehigh was driven more by the telling of a story and exposing
the underlying themes than by the desire to educate children, for example,
about their environment.

In those early days, the company was made up entirely by people who
lived locally. There was no official designer for the shows, so Dave Mynne,
a graphic designer by trade, did the sets and posters. The set building was
done by a local boat builder, Tom Dudley, who later became the Chairman
of the Kneehigh Board. Actors were drawn from the community, as were
designers, writers, directors and musicians, not to mention car park
attendants, caterers, costume designers, carpenters and electricians. All
were seen as part of the creative process and would participate in
rehearsals throughout. The result was not just a close-knit team but also a
rare through-line of thought, imagery and themes in every part of the final
product.

New members brought new skills to the mix. Jon Oram, for example,
brought with him his mime training, having studied under Marcel Marceau
before joining Footsbarn. Gerry Finch, a former fencing champion for
Cornwall, trained them in sword fighting for The Further Adventures of the
Three Musketeers in 1985. Sue Hill joined the company in 1988 as the
designer for Stig. Like most other members of the company, she played
multiple roles, and as well as being one of the key actors, she was also

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designing and making the lavish props and masks used in many of their
shows. Her partner, the acclaimed theatre designer Bill Mitchell, joined the
company at the same time and they were both central to Kneehigh’s rise
from local phenomenon to internationally acclaimed troupe. They would
later go on to found Wildworks, extending Kneehigh’s experimentation
with Landscape Theatre.

As well as performances in schools, theatres and outdoors during this early

period, Kneehigh put on a number of cabaret shows. “Perhaps not our
finest moments,” according to Mike Shepherd, although they were good
training grounds for actors and musicians, and demonstrated the
company’s fundamental commitment to their local community. Key plays in
this early period include: The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, Cyborg
and Tregeagle.

Many of their shows were built around themes in poetry, particularly that
of the Cornish poet Charles Causley who wrote The Tinderbox (1990) and
dubbed Kneehigh “the National Theatre of Cornwall.”

1990s

The 1990s was, for Kneehigh, a period of diversification and development,

particularly in various forms of community-based theatre. The first strand
of these started as walks – called Wild Walks – and then became what
Shepherd now calls Landscape Theatre.

Bill Mitchell, along with sculptor David Kemp, was the main mover of this
strand of Kneehigh’s work. Mitchell was adamant that the landscape
should suggest the story. Though Cornwall did not have fantastic theatres,
it did have a fantastic landscape that lent itself to theatre happenings. The
place was always the starting point for what could happen in it. Ghost Nets,
for example, was set near Hayle where the river runs into the sea, and the
theme centres on how pollution from man’s monstrous factories and
machines were poisoning the fish.

With Wild Walks, the audience was taken on a physical journey. As willing
captives, they were led from place to place, inhabiting the same space,

10
breathing the same air as the actors. Because they were physically more
active, not sitting in seats, the members of the audience engaged far more
with what they were experiencing.

The work on Landscape Theatre leads nicely in to community projects,

another feature of the 1990s. Mike Shepherd insists that community is at
the heart of everything Kneehigh does. He means by this partly the
community of actors, musicians and designers, many of whom remain for
years with the company; partly the community of outside help from locals,
such as catering, car parking, programme selling; and partly the community
of Cornwall, the loyal followers of Kneehigh who turn out in droves, always
– even in the rain.

A typical Kneehigh audience, though it is expanding as the company’s

fame grows, is basically an audience of non-theatre-goers. Though its
subjects may be far from Cornish, its inspiration still comes from the cliffs
around the barns where it continues to devise and adapt everything. Never
parochial, the company has expanded considerably since its inception, and
now happily embraces both the community outside Cornwall and the
changing community within it, where there are now increasing numbers of
immigrants from all over the UK and the world.

In the 1990s, Anna Maria Murphy and other members of the company
created a number of community projects called ‘Pride-of-Place Projects’
which included festivals with processions, celebrations of a particular place
with banners and wonderful puppetry, such as the huge, luminous fish
lanterns for a project in the Cornish village of Mousehole. Such events
helped communities to celebrate change, not to dwell on the past, but to
embrace the inevitability of growth, population change and all that brings
with it.

Kneehigh collaborated several times with the well-established Cornish

playwright Nick Darke. The first show was Ting Tang, in 1990, followed by
Danger my Ally in 1993, The Bogus in 1994, The King of Prussia in 1995 and
finally The Riot in 1998. Although the plays, and in particular The King of
Prussia, directed by Mike Shepherd and designed by Bill Mitchell, were
critically acclaimed, Darke decided to separate from the company. He was
resistant to the ensemble tendency to adapt and diverge from the script,
according to moments of happy experiment, game playing and

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improvisation. As a well-known writer, he wanted to keep the role of writer
sacrosanct and separate.

The King of Prussia (1995) saw Carl Grose in his first acting role with
Kneehigh. Darke quickly recognised in him a natural playwriting ability, and
he wrote extensively for Kneehigh, including co-writing Tristan and Yseult,
along with Anna Maria Murphy. (When Darke died, Grose finished the play
he had been in the process of writing: Hell’s Mouth. Darke would have liked
that: his prodigy taking the writing mantle from him and becoming
successful in his own right.)

The underlying theme of The King of Prussia was poverty and inequality –
resonant, and deeply political themes for the Cornish community. Darke’s
play is a metaphor for an England under Margaret Thatcher. The second-
homers, who Darke felt messed up the Cornish economy, are satirised
through the character of Suzanne Stackhouse, who lives in a large castle
but only visits there once a year. Smuggling, championed by the Carter
brothers, is presented as a boon for the community. Their little kingdom, of
which John Carter is the self-proclaimed King, is really a mini socialist
Republic. As John Carter puts it:

“If you call yourself a king there will be no king! Cus we’m all kings!
And if we’m all kings there’s no kings don’t you think? Long live kings
all! Death to all kings!”

This accords with the Brechtian idea that plays should either be written or
adapted to be relevant to modern issues, and much of Kneehigh’s work –
even the folktales – contain a progressive or even subversive political
message.

Folktales, myths and legends are concerned with truths that apply to all
humanity. They are also endlessly open to adaptation and revision – both
excellent reasons why Kneehigh has used them so extensively in its work.
Appealing was also what poet Charles Causley calls their “dubious
morality”. Many contain subversive elements, chiefly of the rising up of a
humble man to greatness, by bringing low the rulers and the status quo.
Folktales from around the world often have similar features, and Kneehigh

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will often combine these to great effect, as they did with The Wooden Frock
(2004), based on an Italian folktale.

2000s

Since 2000, the company has undergone national and international

expansion, in large part due to the drive and energy of Emma Rice. Rice
had been acting with the company since 1994-5 (her debut role was as
Cinderella in The Ashmaid) and directing since 1999 (The Itch). She took
on the role of Artistic Director, along with Mike Shepherd, in 2002 and
stayed until she was offered the job of Artistic Director at The Globe
Theatre in 2016. Her daring, risk-taking approach to new material
sometimes led to a show over-reaching itself but was always interesting
and innovative. More than anyone, it is her directorship that put Kneehigh
on the international map.

Bill Mitchell and Sue Hill’s departure from the company in 2005 to set up
Wildworks, allowed them to further develop and extend their work in
Landscape Theatre, and they retained strong links with Kneehigh
throughout. Bill Mitchell passed away in April 2017 at the age of 65.
Kneehigh’s commitment to community and site-based work has resulted in
a series of ‘Rambles’, which combine the spirit of the earlier Wild Walks
with their Pride-of-Place community projects.

From 2007 onwards, Kneehigh’s focus was increasingly characterised by

adaptations, especially from screen to stage – for example, Brief
Encounter. Some of these have been site-specific, but not in Cornwall;
others, for the first time, were never performed there.

In 2010, Kneehigh built a permanent home for the company called ‘The
Asylum’. Its name suggests both refuge and sanctuary but also, most
importantly, it is a place where madness is contained – and given free rein.
Resembling the Eden Project domes, The Asylum is a moveable, large
peaked tent fronting a series of domes constructed to let in light but keep
out the weather. The Guardian called it “the most outdoors you can get
indoors”, and it has been located at an abandoned quarry near Blackwater,

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and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Every show is still adapted, devised and
rehearsed in the barns near Gorran Haven, beginning with those daily runs
along the cliffs. The Asylum marks the company’s promise that their
particular brand of madness is still for Cornwall, first and foremost.
Wherever the world beckons, this is where they return.

Kneehigh’s unique way of working – devising scripts through playful

improvisation, the close bonding of all members of the production, and
their way of integrating comedy, dance and music to create a truly rich
experience of physical theatre – continues to inform and enliven
everything they do.

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 SECTION THREE:
KEY PLAYS

THE VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS (1980s)

Adapted from a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, this play was the
first in which Kneehigh used masks and puppetry to such magical effect.
Local poet, Anna Maria Murphy, adapted the story of a ragged old tramp
who may or may not be an angel. She also starred in the early production.
The play has been reinvented many times, most recently by the Little Angel
Theatre, Islington, in 2016 in collaboration with Mike Shepherd and other
members of the company.

TREGEAGLE (1980s)
This “Cornish Faust” was performed in different versions throughout the
1980s and concerns a real historical character, Jan Tregeagle, a Justice of
the Peace in the early 17th century, who, legend has it, entered into a pact
with the Devil. The first production of Tregeagle was written by Shepherd
and conceived as a TIE show, to chime in with local history projects. After
this, the next two productions built on the first and were conceived as
outdoor performances. The third production of this was designed by Bill
Mitchell, and performed at the Minack Theatre, a Greek-style amphitheatre
set at the edge of the dramatic cliffs against the backdrop of the sea.

CYBORG (1987)

Shepherd called the play a “folktale for the future.” Based on Georg
Büchner’s play Woyzeck, it was directed and designed by John Downie.

In Büchner’s play, the main character, Woyzeck, represents all poor folk
who are bullied, cheated and exploited by the upper classes. In the
Kneehigh version, Woyzeck is a programmed robot who, during the course
of the play increasingly develops human emotions. It won a Fringe First

15
prize at the Edinburgh Festival and started a thirst in the Kneehigh actors
for greater recognition. Ambition was born, but to achieve their aim they
realised they needed to change and reinvent themselves.

PEER GYNT (1991)

This adaptation from the Henrik Ibsen original was designed and directed
by Bill Mitchell. By now, Mitchell had become co-artistic director with Mike
Shepherd. Shepherd says that this production marked the beginning of a
golden era of their shared directorship. The play toured both nationally and
internationally. Tristan Sturrock and Giles King played Peer Gynt, one as an
old man and the other as a young man. This was also the first show for
actor Bec Applebee, who became another key performer over the next
years.

The epic nature of this story appealed to Kneehigh, along with its many
fairy tale elements: trolls, dwarves, and other middle-earth type characters
who mix freely with the human beings. Shepherd particularly liked the
universality of the story. It shows a whole community from birth to marriage
to death, and covers sex, lies, deceit and other human failings.

THE SHIP OF FOOLS (1992)

This production takes its title from the painting by Hieronymus Bosch, with
its cast of archetypes crammed on to a ship. The cast combined this image
with a reading of Angela Carter’s Book of Fairytales (1990) and researching
the Mexican Day of the Dead. Each actor then developed their archetypal
character through improvisation around a central story. The archetypes
chosen were the sweet-natured but simple Fool, the greedy Judge, the
Drudge – who in their version was a donkey – the beautiful and the ugly
Sisters, the possessive Mother and the adoring Father.

Early rehearsals involved putting two of these characters together and

seeing what happened. Out of a half-hour long improvisation, as little as
30 seconds would go towards the eventual script. The play was devised,

16
designed and directed by Bill Mitchell, and acted by Mike Shepherd,
Tristan Sturrock, Bec Applebee, Nicky Rosewarne, Sue Hill, Jim Carey and
Allan Drake as the donkey.

WINDFALL (1993)

This was a reworking of Kneehigh’s earlier play, The Very Old Man With
Enormous Wings, as an outdoor show, “verging,” says Shepherd, “on site-
specific,” because Tristan Sturrock as the angel/flying man had to be on a
high place, such as the top of a pillar or a rooftop. It toured nationally and
internationally, featuring, as well as Sturrock, other familiar names in the
cast: Bec Applebee, Giles King, Mary Woodvine, Steve Jacobs and Lucy
Fontaine.

RAVENHEART (1994)

This adaptation of Carmen was performed in the UK and the Netherlands,

in collaboration with Manchester's Inner Sense Orchestra. The music was
arranged and performed by Jim Carey and the members of the orchestra,
and the cast included Bec Applebee, Emma Rice, Giles King, Tristan
Sturrock, and actor-musicians Jim Carey and Allan Drake. Musical and
visual storytelling combined to make this a dark and successful production.

Kneehigh had adapted works before, but to adapt a famous musical like
Carmen for such a large-scale production was a step up for the company.
It marked the beginning of what was to happen in the next 20 years, where
well-known films and novels become the staple fare of Kneehigh’s
success. From then on, though their Cornish subjects continue to be
reworked, Kneehigh looked more and more to the outer world for
recognition.

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THE ITCH (1999)
This production was adapted from Thomas Middleton and Williams
Rowley’s The Changeling by Emma Rice who, for the first time, also
directed the play. For Rice, who had been an actor with the company since
1994, this marked a turning point in her career and ushered in a change in
both musical direction and casting. The cast for this show, apart from Rice
and Shepherd, were all new names to Kneehigh: John Surman, Luis
Santiago and Rod Dixon, and the music was a ‘soundtrack’, instead of
being played live.

Rice, with her exciting vision and her push to take risks, brought about all
sorts of changes, and her following 14-year tenure as co-director with Mike
Shepherd from 2002-2016, took the company to a whole new level. This
was a period of explosive creativity, with the company gaining in
prominence and stature nationally and internationally. Never content with
conventional ways of working, she enjoyed the fact that in Kneehigh,
everyone felt equal ‘ownership’ of the creative process, saying that that
feeling “far outweighs the fragile highs of an actor”.

THE RED SHOES (2000)

The Red Shoes marked Emma Rice’s second show as director, and was a
critically acclaimed success, gaining her the Barclay’s TMA Best Director
Award in 2002. This is the dark and cruel tale of a girl whose shoes are
bewitched so that she can never stop dancing. Rice says the story “charts
the pain of loss, obsession and addiction.” As with each Kneehigh retelling,
the tale is mined for its underlying message to create a performance
relevant for adults not simply an entertainment for children.

This was also the beginning of a long association with Stu Barker as
Musical Director. The show toured extensively, and helped to push
Kneehigh ‘up the league tables’ as Mike Shepherd puts it. Tom Morrison,
then Artistic Director of the British Arts Council, co-wrote shows for them
before becoming Associate Director at the National Theatre. Alex Wardle,
who worked with Kneehigh as Production Manager for the next five years,
began by managing the tour of The Red Shoes.

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CRY WOLF (2001)
This was a smaller production which played in village halls. It drew on Little
Red Riding Hood and other ‘bad wolf’ legends. It featured Giles King and
Craig Johnson, with Emma Rice as the Wolf – once again using surprise to
turn well-known stories around. This time Mike Shepherd was the director,
and the upbeat Balkan-style music was recorded by The Baghdaddies.

TRISTAN AND YSEULT (2003)

This show was one Kneehigh’s most successful. It has had several outings
since its first performance, touring all over the world.

It was conceived as an outdoor production, staged first among the

brooding ruins of Restormel Castle. In 2005, it played at the National
Theatre, where it was magnificently translated into an indoor setting.

Based on legends that go back thousands of years, the story was adopted
as part of the Arthurian Romance tradition, with a similar love-triangle
between King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere at its heart. The story of King
Mark, his knight Tristan, and Yseult is of course much older.

This play is the archetypical Kneehigh production. It is Cornish. It has

violence, comedy and, above all, love at its centre; love in all its guises –
passion, tenderness, loss and yearning. It works within a framework of
those whom love has never touched, who look at it only from the outside,
but who yearn for it, in the form of the Chorus of the Unloved. The Chorus
acts as a ‘bridge’ between the performers and the audience.

Other elements that bear the particular Kneehigh ‘stamp’ include: dual
roles and gender-crossing (Craig Johnson playing both the ferocious
warrior Morholt and Yseult’s maid Branigan); actor-musicians on stage
playing music live; direct address to the audience, and moments of
audience participation such as when they are joined in the toast to King
Mark; moments of pure comedy (often provided by Frocin or Branigan)
punctuating scenes of tenderness or horror, which – strangely – never
spoil the seriousness but actually enhance it.

19
THE WOODEN FROCK (2004)

This was a co-production with the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Based on an

Italian folktale, it was scripted by Tom Morris. Amanda Lawrence, Bec
Applebee, Mike Shepherd, John Surman and Alex Murdock were in the
cast. Most were actor-musicians, under the direction of Stu Barker. The
story is of a widower king who decrees that he can only remarry a woman
whose finger exactly fits his dead wife’s ring. This turns out to be his own
daughter, Mary. To escape her fate, she is locked in a wooden frock in
which she sails away. In the play, the dress is cleverly constructed of many
rings that fold inside each other like a child’s stacking toy. Pull on the
shoulder straps and the rings separate to create a dress, resembling a
cage or an instrument of torture from which she must escape. Puppets and
other inventive props abounded.

THE BACCHAE (2005)

The Bacchae was an adaptation from Euripides by Carl Grose and Anna
Maria Murphy – a combination that had already worked very well for Tristan
and Yseult. This was another co-production with the West Yorkshire
Playhouse, directed by Emma Rice, with music by Stu Barker and a familiar
cast including Mike Shepherd, Robert Lucskay, Charlie Barnecut, Eva
Magyar, Craig Johnson, Giles King and Andy Brodie.

With its central theme of religious intolerance, the play had powerful
contemporary relevance. For their thoroughly modern take, Dionysus was
treated like a rock-star, often talking in a rhythmic rap style and surrounded
by hysterical fans. The costumes were 1960s chic. King Pentheus’s mother,
Agave, for example, wore high heels and wrap-around shades like Jackie
Kennedy. The chorus of Bacchae were men dressed as women, with naked
torsos and long white tutus. In the pre-show, the men came on nearly
naked and donned their tutus, exclaiming and commenting on their garb,
until they were transformed into the Bacchae.

The actors’ frenzied dancing builds to the gory and blood-soaked climax
when the intoxicated Agave rips Pentheus’s head off. She lifts the head up
high, shining and sticky with blood and howls: a haunting dreadful sound.

20
The god Dionysus was played by Hungarian actor, Robert Lucskay, and his
speech was often in Hungarian: emphasising his ‘otherness’ to the mortals
around him.

The play ends as the Dionysus ascends slowly, gracefully, until he is out of
sight, leaving the suffering woman with her terrible guilt, below, alone. The
effect is both devastating and cathartic.

RAPUNZEL (2006)

This was created as a Christmas show for Battersea Arts Centre. Mike
Shepherd played both a dame-like Mother figure and Rapunzel’s would-be
lover and the play was directed, like most others of this period, by Emma
Rice. In this play, as in The Wooden Frock, there is much to laugh at and
some terribly sad moments too, especially when Rapunzel’s lover is
blinded and cast out to wander the world. Rapunzel finds him eventually
and heals his eyes with her kisses. These types of stories are the best for
devising purposes because of the scope they have for both comedy and
tragedy.

NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS (2006)

The company returned to Angela Carter – the inspiration for earlier shows
such as Ship of Fools – for this tale of freak shows and prostitutes. The play
was written by Tom Morris, his first experience of the intense, sometimes
anarchic, collaborative improvisation with the company. He found the
process “terrifying” at first, but soon realised the unique creative energy it
unleashed.

The story, set in Victorian London, centres on Fevvers, a foundling left on

the doorstep of a brothel and raised by prostitutes. As the girl grows, the
bumps on her shoulder blades develop into wings and she, encouraged
by one of the girls, Lizzie, joins a travelling circus. A journalist is determined
to uncover her act as a lie, her wings fake.

21
The show was visually stunning. Fevvers drooped her huge white-
feathered wings on her trapeze like a disconsolate clown, over-made-up
and gaudy in a tasteless glittery costume. She kicks her legs and twirls over
most of the show. But there is a real suffering person under the make-up
as the journalist finds out.

Rice calls this story “an homage to theatre…the dirty, thrilling, emotional
soup of it, the thrill of fantasy and the intoxication of dreams.” Through the
eyes of the journalist, the audience are invited to ask what is the truth and
what is a lie? The magical illusion, which is theatre itself, poses the
question: can you believe your eyes? Is Fevvers for real or not? It is not
certain, but it would be lovely if such miracles could happen, and the play
ends with an invitation, and a wish: “Fly out of your pants, Fevvers! Fly for
us all!”

CYMBELINE (2006)

This was adapted from the Shakespeare original by Carl Grose and
directed by Emma Rice. Some were horrified by the abuse of
Shakespeare's language. For example, the Queen, attempting to console
Isobel at the loss of her lover, declares: “Chin up, sweetheart. There's
plenty more fish in the sea.” Others found it a revelation.

It certainly, in the usual Kneehigh way, demystified Shakespeare, exposed

the themes and the complex plot in a very clear way, had fun with the
characters, mixed humour with sadness, and had some songs running
through the piece that were quite beautiful.

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (2007)

This was a co-production on the huge Olivier stage with the National
Theatre. It had big ideas and a larger cast than usual, mixing National
Theatre people with Kneehigh stalwarts like Mike Shepherd, Craig
Johnson, Tristan Sturrock and Robbie Lucskay. Emma Rice directed and
Bill Mitchell produced a visually beautiful set.

22
The story centres on an air force pilot who is shot down in the Second
World War. Against all odds, he survives, and falls in love with a radio
operator back home. When an angel comes to escort him to heaven, the
problems begin.

The play was one of Kneehigh’s most daring and ambitious, with its large
cast and huge space. Though it was visually beautiful, it failed to grip
emotionally.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER (2007)

This was an adaptation of the classic 1945 film, itself based on Noel
Coward’s play Still Life, about an affair been two married people. It had an
extended run at the Haymarket Cinema, London in 2008, which was
especially converted for the company. A cinema was chosen, and the
décor was deliberately very much of Coward's period, as a site-specific
vehicle for the production.

The backdrop to the stage was a giant cinema screen, into which Laura,
the female lead played by Naomi Frederick, was taken to enact her dreams
and then pulled back into reality. Unlike the original film, it was not set in a
railway station café, though the café was used sometimes, set in one
corner of the stage. The main stage was the station platform, with an
elevated scaffolding footbridge spanning the width of the stage. The
footbridge was moveable. On the other corner of the stage was a
slagheap, on which the musicians, dressed as women, were situated.

The music, orchestrated by Stu Barker, was largely Noel Coward songs,
and the cast pre-show had everybody as ushers and usherettes.

Rice insists that what she looked for in the play was those same elements
she seeks to expose in folktales - universality. She went back to Coward’s
original play, Still Life, rather than basing the whole thing on the later film.
This allowed more scope as it centres on three couples: the main couple,
unhappy marrieds embarking on a brief affair; an older couple who are
learning, tentatively to trust again; and a young couple setting out on the
road with hope and joy.

23
The central 'marriages', that of Alec (Tristan Sturrock) to his unnamed wife,
and Laura to her husband, have each meant sacrifices. People have to give
up something of themselves to make the compromise of marriage. Rice
likens this to the amputation of the girl's feet in The Red Shoes, or the
hands in The Wild Bride. Something of the soul of the person is lost and,
for the marriage to work, must be regained. For Laura this has been the
loss of her piano playing and her love of swimming and Alec too has given
up things he enjoys. The affair acts as a crucible from which they go back
changed and, suggests Rice, are truer to themselves.

Coward, as a homosexual in an era before that way of life became

acceptable, used the play as a metaphor for his own frustration – the lies
he had to tell, the deceit, the loss and anger and the shame he was forced
to feel.

HANSEL AND GRETEL (2009)

Hansel and Gretel was written in the usual collaborative way by Carl Grose
as a co-production with the Bristol Old Vic. It was full of puppet animals:
rabbits, birds, chickens and a ferret, as well as ingenious contraptions,
which worked and established their own magic. The puppets are
developed enough as characters for there to be a lump in the throat when
the Witch kills a couple of rabbits, or when Hansel and Gretel's parents kill
the chickens for the pot. Again, it is a tale with a very dark side: parents
who are willing to leave their children to die alone; a nice old lady, who
turns out to be a witch who eats children.

It needs a special eye to see how old tales can be altered. In Kneehigh’s
hands, the story turns into a coming-of-age rite, where the children are
tested and come out the other side into adolescence – shown at the end
by Hansel's first awareness of his own sexuality and leaving childhood
games. Another modern slant was Gretel's inventive practicality. Without
her engineering skills and her crazy contraptions, the apple would not have
fallen from the tree nor would the witch have been killed.

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THE WILD BRIDE (2011)

This was one of the first shows devised for The Asylum tent before The
Asylum moved to Heligan. A father meets the Devil at the crossroads and
is tricked into selling his daughter to him. The girl has every possible horror
thrown at her, but it does not alter her, except outwardly, and she still goes
on to triumph in the end.

Directed by Emma Rice and designed by Bill Mitchell, the cast were Eva
Magyar as the Bride, with Audrey Brisson as her younger self, Stuart
McLoughlin as the Devil and Stuart Godwin as both the Bride's father and
the Prince. Magyar was trained by choreographer Pina Bausch and the
entire production (like The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, 2016) included far
more dance than usual.

The chorus was made up of Hungarian musicians and dancer, with most of
the cast playing the music too. The Devil strummed a guitar and lulled the
audience into thinking he was as benign as he seemed to be. Looking
down on the pretty girl as she danced under a tree, followed by her vain
but likeable father, he conjured a rain shower of gold – and it is only at that
point that his true identity is revealed. In this way, the audience was as
easily taken in as the father.

DEAD DOG IN A SUITCASE (2014)

This production was based on John Gay's The Beggar’s Opera, translated
to modern times by Carl Grose as a co-production with Liverpool Everyman
Theatre and directed by Mike Shepherd. The music for this was superb,
mixing older traditions and ballads with rap, ska and trip-hop.

Macheath becomes a contract killer and the Peachums, whose daughter

Polly wants to marry Macheath, are out to get him, not wanting such a
rogue in their family. It is set in Cornwall (perhaps, or at least somewhere
by the sea, with Punch and Judy shows and piers and tourists), with the
Peachums as pilchard tycoons. Pilchards have always been the mainstay
of Cornish fishermen.

25
It proves that Kneehigh are still staying true to their beliefs: modern issues,
relevant to Cornwall; music and songs that are a true narrative vehicle;
puppetry, humour and a dark undercurrent of something else going on.

REBECCA (2015)

Mike Shepherd often said that making theatre in Cornwall, there is always
a temptation to pander to the Poldark and Daphne du Maurier market, for
which he admits there is a call. He despises the fact that non-Cornish actors
are shipped in to fill this niche, with “Mummerset accents.” Kneehigh’s
adaptation of Rebecca was stylistically very far from this. It leavened the
grim atmosphere that spread over the new young bride by the
housekeeper’s obsession with her drowned mistress Rebecca, with a
couple of comical house guests and servants.

The set was just stupendous. In a single setting it could show us the bottom
of the ocean, with the dead Rebecca under the boat which sank with her,
then by raising the boat from the seabed, we were taken out of the sea
and into the hallway of Manderley, with the awareness of the ever-present
sea kept in mind by a forestage which suggested sand and rocks.

26
 SECTION FOUR:
SELECT LIST OF PRODUCTIONS

1980-1989

1980 The Adventures of Awful Knawful

1981 Mr Corbett's Ghost
1982 The Labyrinth
1982 Around the World in Eighty Days [Minutes]
1983 The Golden Pathway Annual
1983 Skungpoomery by Ken Campbell
1984 The Jungle Book
1985 Further Adventures of the Three Musketeers by Steve Betts
1985/6 Tregeagle [2nd version]
1986 Fools’ Paradise
1987 Cyborg by John Downie
1988 Sun and Shadow by Stuart Delves
1989 Tregeagle [3rd version]

1990-1990

1990 Ting Tang by Nick Darke

1990 Tinderbox by Charles Causley
1991 Peer Gynt
1992 Ship of Fools
1993 Windfall [Very Old Man with Enormous Wings reworked]
1993 Danger My Ally by Nick Darke
1994 The Bogus by Nick Darke
1994 Ravenheart
1994/5 The Ashmaid
1995 The King of Prussia by Nick Darke
1996 Tregeagle [4th version]

27
 1997 Arabian Nights
1998 The Riot by Nick Darke
1999 The Itch by Emma Rice

2000-2016

2000 The Red Shoes by Emma Rice

2001 Cry Wolf
2002 Pandora’s Box by Margaret Wilkinson
2003 Tristan and Yseult by Carl Grose and Anna Maria Murphy
2004 The Wooden Frock by Tom Morris
2005 The Bacchae by Carl Grose and Anna Maria Murphy
2006 Nights at the Circus by Tom Morris
2006 Cymbeline by Carl Grose
2006 Rapunzel
2007 A Matter of Life and Death
2007 Brief Encounter by Emma Rice
2008 Don John
2009 Hansel and Gretel by Carl Grose
2010 Blast!
2011 The Wild Bride
2011 Wah! Wah! Girls
2011 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
2012 Midnight’s Pumpkin
2013 Steptoe and Son
2014 Dead Dog in a Suitcase by Carl Grose
2014 Noye’s Fludde by Benjamin Britten (opera)
2015 Rebecca
2016 The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk by Daniel Jamieson
2016 FUP adapted by Simon Harvey

28
 2016 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips adapted by
Michael Morpurgo and Emma Rice

SCHOOL SHOWS INCLUDED:

• Who Stole the Sun?

• Trelumpkin and Trebumpkin
• Stig
• Footprints 1
• The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
• Poetry in Action
• Rare Earth and Rubbish (with Belgrade Theatre).

29
 EXERCISES

INTRODUCTION
The exercises outlined here have been developed using techniques from
the Kneehigh company. By adapting some of these exercises to your own
classroom situations, you will help your students to extend the range of
their acting skills as well as build the trust and confidence in each other
needed to cohere the group as a whole. The exercises have been
organised according to level of difficulty or experience, although all of
them can be adapted to suit to the age and ability of your group, or the
number of students you are working with at any given time.

Within each section, the exercises are broadly ordered in terms of

increasing complexity. However, there’s no need to work through them
chronologically and it’s entirely up to you how you mix-and-match to keep
your students engaged and motivated. Each of the exercises, or group of
exercises, can be modified to suit the age and abilities of your class, or the
number of students you are working with at any given time.

Where the exercise is linked to or particularly well-illustrated by a specific

Kneehigh production, this has been indicated. If possible, show clips of the
play or plays to your students before beginning. This will help them better
understand the context, and can inspire them to experiment and
improvise – key elements in the Kneehigh way of working.

The importance of working as a group cannot be overemphasised. The

bond between Kneehigh actors is not confined to the rehearsal space.
Actors and non-actors often begin each day running together along the
cliff tops near their rehearsal space and will come together in the evening
to chat, relax, and share a meal. Allowing space for such informal group
activities and including all members of the team – lighting technicians,
writers, musicians, stage-hands, as well as the actors themselves – helps
create a truly inspiring atmosphere in which your theatre group can
flourish.

30
BUILDING GROUP AWARENESS
Exercises in this section are designed to get the students working together
as a group. Responding to others – either their spoken cues, their body
movements or their expressions and gestures – requires a great deal of
focus and concentration. As students learn to take their lead from each
other rather than from an appointed (or self-appointed) leader, their special
awareness also develops and their acting skills are honed.

EXERCISE ONE
This exercise is best done outside, although it can be adapted for your
studio or hall space. Choose as large a space as possible.

• Ask your students to walk in close formation, separated only by a few

inches. The formation will depend on the numbers in the group: for
example, if there are nine in the group, form three lines of three.
There is no leader for the exercise.

• First, have the students practise walking at the same pace as each
other.

• When they have achieved this, ask them to increase the pace without
anyone obviously instigating the change. You are aiming for a unity
within the group, without anyone standing out or leading the others.

• Have the group play with the walking pace by increasing or

decreasing the speed, always keeping to the same formation and the
same distance apart.

• If the formation breaks or the distances alter, slow the pace down
and then allow it to build again gradually. Outdoors, this can happen
just following the contours of the route – a path or the outer
perimeter of the playing field. Indoors, they will have to build in the
turning of corners without breaking formation. This is more difficult.

31
• When everyone is able to do this, have them begin to run together.
Start with a gentle jog, so that everyone is able to keep up.

• When they are able to keep together without breaking formation or

increasing the distance between each other, appoint a leader for the
day.

• The leader will call out instructions, as follows, but in any order:

v Forwards
v Backwards
v Touch
v Change
v Close eyes.

• On the command TOUCH, everyone touches someone close to

them, putting a hand on a shoulder, or on the back between the
shoulder blades, for example. The rhythm and the pace of the run
must not alter. Keep touching until the next instruction, so that the
whole group is physically as well as mentally linked.

• On the command CHANGE, each person, without breaking the

rhythm of the jog, changes places with another without breaking the
formation. This could be either by swapping with someone else in
the same line or with someone behind or in front. If chaos happens,
keep coming back to this instruction. Once again, it’s about group
sensitivity.

• On the command CLOSE EYES, the group keeps doing whatever

the last instructions was – forwards, backwards etc. – with their eyes
closed and without breaking formation or changing pace or the
spacing between each other. This requires strong mental
concentration. Don’t do this with or immediately after the CHANGE
command.

32
EXERCISE TWO

• Have everyone choose a partner to work with.

• Make sure that the whole group is working with concentration and in
silence.

• Establish a rhythm (by clapping or with a drum) and keep to that until
the whole group is keeping to the same rhythm.

• On a loud beat, sticking to this rhythm, have them move away from
their first partner and form a new pair.

• Continue working. This should happen two or three times, always

retaining the same smooth flowing pace.

• Talking strictly to them as they work, and trying to fit your words to
the pace, tell them to move around the room, without breaking the
flow, until they are in two lines. The lines then mirror each other, still
keeping the rhythm.

• Following on from the above, the two lines stand apart with a good
space between them. The space is an imaginary platform on a central
balancing point. If a person from one side steps forward – all moves
must be gentle since any sudden movement will cause violent
tipping – it must be matched by someone from the other side moving
forward onto the imaginary platform.

• Once everyone is on the ‘platform’ moving gently forwards and

backwards, stretching upward and slowly squatting downwards, you
can start changing the rules.

• Choose one person who is, in imagination, equal in weight to the

whole of the rest of the group. The whole group mirrors what this
one person does. Keep everything slow and controlled.

33
 • Then ‘forget’ the platform idea and have the whole group moving
around the room, still mirroring this one person who they must
always keep in view.

EXERCISE THREE

• Have everyone choose a partner to work with.

• Without either ‘leading’ have them walk around at the same pace
and in time with each other.

• For this exercise, they must focus intently on each other so that they
move together as if they are one being with one mind.

• When you are confident with this, build in simple moves to do

together. Make sure you keep them simple – anything like hopping,
skipping and so on, at this stage will not work. They won’t be
together. Try straightforward arm movements, stopping, waiting for
a beat and starting again, varying the pace.

• Then, keeping to the same simple movements and only once all the
pairs are working together well, on a handclap, the pairs separate.

• Tell the students to imagine they are still attached to each other by
an invisible thread, so that they stay in close harmony with their
partner.

• Stick to the same simple moves. Once this is working well, suggest
more complicated movements such as sitting down, lying down,
standing up again.

• When the whole group is confident with this, try the same exercise
in groups of three or four – always starting with moving together first
for a while and then separating on the handclap. Work up until the
whole group are moving as one.

34
SPEED OF REACTION
These exercises start simply and build in complexity and speed. Only move
on to faster or more complex movements once the students are confident
and comfortable. If things become chaotic – and they do! – slow down,
regroup and start again. The exercises will help to strengthen spatial
awareness, hand-eye coordination and clowning/comedy skills, which rely
crucially on a sense of timing.

EXERCISE ONE

• Have the group run around the room in any direction they like,
however, they must avoid bumping into anyone. If anyone collides,
they must freeze for the count of three before running on again.

• If you have a small group, reduce the space with chairs or other
objects to make things more interesting.

• If pandemonium arises from running straightaway, then use a very

fast walk and only increase to a run when they are concentrating
fully.

• When this is going well, throw out instructions to the group:

v Stop dead
v Move on
v Run to the nearest side
v Drop to the ground
v Hop forwards or jump.

35
EXERCISE TWO

Games such as Musical Statues or Grandmothers' Footsteps are excellent

for improving speed of reaction. In ‘Shipwreck!’ or ‘Man the Lifeboats!’, the
group have to respond to instructions as fast as they can – instantly if
possible – as the leader tries to catch them out by throwing an instruction
out at an unexpected time, in rapid succession or leaving a long time
between one command and the next.

• Allow the class spread out in the space and imagine they are on a
ship.

• The ‘captain’ calls out instructions randomly:

INSTRUCTION ACTION

Port! The group runs to the left.

Starboard! The group runs to the right.

The group runs to the back (away from the

Stern!
leader).

Bow! The group runs to the front (towards the leader).

The group throws themselves to the floor,

Hit the deck!
lengthwise and face down.
The group sits on the floor and makes rowing
Man the lifeboats!
motions.
The group mimes climbing ropes, stepping up
Climb the rigging!
and down on the spot.

Captain coming! The group salutes.

The group peers into the distance with their

Ship ahoy!
hands shielding their eyes.
The group mimes scrubbing the floor on all
Scrub the decks!
fours.

36
EXERCISE THREE

• In pairs, have the actors walk around the room at a good pace
pointing to objects and calling them the first thing that comes to
mind, not necessarily their correct name.

• The tone of voice is always excited: “Ooh, look, over there, isn’t that
interesting!”

• Let them know that they should not pause to think: the words should
be thrown out in a definite rhythm, without breaks, as though they
were throwing a ball to each another.

• If possible, try this exercise using beanbags, throwing them to each

other without breaks, and saying a noun – any noun – at the same
time as they throw. It is imperative that they don’t break the rhythm;
don't give them time to think or plan.

• Gradually, increase the speed so that they end up running.

• Some of the ideas they come up with will be absurd. When common
nouns run out – and they quickly do – people come up with crazy
silly things: that’s all to the good. It can be very liberating.

• Decide who is A and B and have them face each other.

• Imagine there is a box between them on the floor.

• A begins to take objects out of the box, naming each object as he

does, without pausing for breath. The shape and sizes of the
imaginary objects don’t matter – only the speed at which they are
lifted out and named. As before, don’t pause to think.

37
 • While this is going on, B’s job is to keep the energy and excitement
up. He encourages, “Yes - and then? What else?” etc. Don’t allow this
to run too long before swapping roles.

• When both have had a go, return to moving speedily around the
room pointing at objects excitedly and ‘naming’ them.

The important thing with this exercise and all the following is not to be
afraid of being ridiculous. Kneehigh often come up with their best ideas
through silliness – someone starting an action and the others willingly
joining in with whatever absurdity has been initiated.

EXERCISE FOUR

• For this more advanced work, you will need an inflatable beach ball
or balloon.

• Have the group disperse around the room, with the only instruction
being that the ball or balloon must keep moving and remain in the
air.

• If it touches the floor, the game is over. See how long this can be
achieved.

• This exercise requires concentration and an awareness of the

whereabouts of the whole group and of the ball/balloon so they can
see where likely gaps or problems might occur.

• Move onto a football – but only where nothing will get broken! This
is best done outside, or in a sports hall.

• The faster the speed of the football, the greater the concentration
required. When the group are focusing well, add in another ball. Both
balls must be kept moving and off the floor. Keep going until one
drops.

38
PROJECTING EMOTIONS
Kneehigh often work in outdoor settings, where a message or an emotion
has to be carried over quite a distance. In this section, students learn how
to use body language in order to convey a character’s emotional state or
personality.

EXERCISE ONE

• Have the group find their own space in the studio.

• Ask them to make their whole body into a smile, a tear, a frown, a
longing.

• Grow into the mood from small to large, to the count of 10. Try this
with a very slow count, which will give a jerky stop-start effect, and
then to a faster count, where the growth and diminishment are
performed smoothly.

• To the count of 10, varying the speed of the count, change moods
and appropriate body language from:

v Sad to happy
v Calm to nervous
v Unconfident to determined
v Bored to interested.

• This could be a three-fold exercise if you like – translating the

second mood back to the first.

39
EXERCISE TWO

• Divide the group in half. They should stand in two lines some way
apart (perhaps the width of your room but not as far as the length).

• Start with Line A moving and Line B staying where they are until their
opposite partner is halfway across.

• Using the emotion ANGER, Line A moves towards Line B, building

gradually from slight irritation to fury by the time they get to the other
side. Sound is not excluded and may help.

• Line B must, at first, watch their opposite partner coming towards

them and react appropriately, using their whole body to build their
reaction, although staying at their own side. They might react by
increasingly building anxiety, or they might mirror the growing anger
they see in their opposite partner.

• At the halfway point, Line B, propelled by whatever emotion they are

now feeling, crosses over, negotiating their way past their angry
partner.

• There should be an altercation of some kind between the two at this

halfway point. Perhaps this altercation changes the mood for one or
both parties and this is shown in their body language.

• Keep the meeting of the two brief, just long enough for some kind of
resolution, before continuing the way they were heading.

• Line B, now on the opposite side of the room from where they
started, leads the action, with the emotion JOY. Encourage the
development of a brief interchange when the two partners meet.
Make sure that the body language does not deflate when speaking.
Repeat the emotion if it does.

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 • Other emotions to use might be:

v Nervousness
v Determination
v Sorrow
v Fear.

Finally, ask for two volunteers to repeat their cross-over and the
interchange.

• Can they keep the larger-than-life emotion going, even when

speaking?
• Does the voice match the body language?

EXERCISE THREE

• Using a football or similar prop as a ‘baby’, pass the baby from one
to another to create its reality.

• Handle it carefully at first. Look into its face and comment on its
looks.

• The baby needs winding. Hold it against your shoulder and pat its
back. It burps – very loudly (supplied by another of your group).

• The baby might be dribbling, or it might be doing worse. React to

this, but not by dropping it. React realistically, such that the audience
will believe that this is a real baby.

• You have been asked to look after the baby. What could the mother
mean? Improvise dialogue.

• Gradually, build up the roughness with the infant. Jiggling it a little

too hard, throwing it up a little bit first, and catching it – until you are

41
 throwing the ‘baby’ from one to the other in a game of piggy-in-the-
middle.

• If you start throwing the baby around too soon, without first building
up its reality, you lose the audience’s engagement. The audience
needs to experience the same journey as the actor/child-minders,
and to feel the same sense of naughtiness and release when they
begin to misbehave.

• Encourage the actors to use eyes and faces to communicate at times

with the audience, show them the baby and ask them to admire it.
Make sure they know they are being invited ‘in’.

For more exercises to build rapport with the audience, go to the section
Engaging the Audience.

EXERCISE FOUR

A Kneehigh audience always feels complicit in the action up to a point –

and then experiences shock or delight when something suddenly happens
to change the mood.

• Sit the class in a circle on the floor.

• Use a crumpled up ball of paper to represent a bomb.

• With exquisite care, and speaking in whispers, the group leader

explains how the slightest sound or sudden movement could cause
the bomb to explode.

• Activate the bomb and pass it around – slowly, carefully and silently.
Don't allow the tension to be broken by some wise-cracker throwing
the paper ball too early.

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 • Pass it around for long enough to build tension, then the leader must
shout as loud as he/she can whilst throwing the paper/bomb into a
far corner of the room and diving under a chair, or into another corner
of the room. It is, of course, an exercise in belief and cannot be short-
changed by impatience.

A similar exercise can be undertaken with the paper representing a

small animal or pet.

• The leader creates the creature verbally while scrumpling the paper,
tenderly stroking it and speaking lovingly. Handle it with extreme
gentleness.

• Pass it around as before. This time the throwing of the animal, or a

move of sudden violence such as stamping on it – once more done
by the leader and only when he feels belief in the creature is
established – should cause quite a reaction in the group: gasps,
laughter, embarrassed horror.

EXERCISE FIVE

In creating a character, it is useful to employ the seven basic ‘tension

states’.

These are:

1. Mr Morning After
The muscles are slack and energy at the lowest level, barely enough
to drag yourself from one place to another.

2. Mr Cool
Here is someone so laid back they are almost falling backwards off
their bench. He keeps a comb in his top pocket and uses it with a
languid hand. Mr Cool is so wrapped up in himself he cannot be
bothered with anything else.

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3. The Stage Manager
If there is a ‘normal’ tension state, this is it. The Stage Manager does
not push himself/herself onto the audience attention; he/she remains
invisible but quietly organised.

4. The Director
The tension is up a notch because The Director feels more overall
responsibility than The Stage Manager: she’s the one carrying the
can. She fusses as to whether things are just so.

5. The Optimist
Full of happy energy, The Optimist springs about, embracing the
world and greeting people with positivity.

6. The Pessimist
Here, the tension level is very high. He is in a state of extreme anxiety
– convinced the world is going to explode, the sky to fall on his head.

7. Rabbit in Headlights
The last state is where the muscles are so tense that movement is
almost impossible. The Rabbit in Headlights waits for the mad
axeman behind the door, too scared to breathe.

• As you call out the number, have the students move around the room
in that particular tension state. This may take some practice as they
get used to the different states. Initially, they may tend to underplay
a high-tension state such as number 6.

• Allocate a tension state to each person and, making sure there is a

good mix, try the following situations for improvisation in groups of
four to six:

v A gang plotting a daring robbery.

v A group of people preparing for a party to be held that
evening.
v A family getting ready to leave for to the airport on holiday.
v A queue of people waiting impatiently to buy tickets for a
popular band.

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Discuss the variety of character types which emerge from the tension
states:

• Did people employ the amount of body muscle tension needed to

help achieve their characters?

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‘CLOCKING’ AND MASK-WORK
Masks were often used in Kneehigh’s earlier shows. Although they are not
such a feature nowadays, signaling to and interacting with the audience
directly, or ‘clocking’, is central to Kneehigh's performance style then and
now. As with clowning or mime, ‘clocking’ is important when wearing
masks. There has to be a moment when the person wearing the mask
pauses after entering and allows the audience to read his or her body
language – to ‘clock’ the audience. This is so whether you use a neutral
mask or a character mask. Kneehigh often ‘clock’ without a mask, to allow
an audience to take in their characterisation, which often depends on
outward costume details. Sometimes they ‘clock’ to allow the audience to
laugh at their new character, if they're taking on multiple or dual roles, or
simply to allow time for the audience to register the idea that they are a
new character this time round.

EXERCISE ONE

• When wearing a mask, it is important always to face front, or nearly

so. If you turn your head to the side, or turn your back, the illusion
created by the mask is lost.

• Stand at the front and have the whole group facing you.

• Get them to start moving around the room, but making sure they
always face the front.

• Every time they hear a clap, they are to change direction, but always
with their faces to the front. This is not as simple as it sounds.

• Follow this by having everyone adopt a character with appropriate

facial expressions.

• Have them imagine they are on a platform waiting for a train to arrive.
It is late. For some characters, this will be a real problem, for others

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 not. They could be meeting someone or leaving for a holiday or for
an important meeting...They could be family groups, businessmen or
women, students, secretaries, or someone who works at the station
itself etc.

• Have half the group do this first, watched by the other half. The
audience call ‘freeze’ every time someone forgets to have their face
towards the front. Then swap.

EXERCISE TWO

• Instruct everyone to put a cheerful fixed smile on their faces. Allow

it to take hold before turning the whole body into a smile.

• Discuss whether they had to force this or whether the body

responded naturally to the feeling in the face.

• Move on to other emotions. Turn the face and then the whole body
into a frown; into a vacant look; into a sneer; into a gasp of wonder
etc.

This exercise is useful for work both with and without a mask.
The Kneehigh style is larger-than-life – it has to be to be clear to
audiences in large theatres and outdoor venues.

EXERCISE THREE

For this exercise, use blank full-face neutral masks. Plastic ones from a joke
shop are fine.

• Have one member of the group go up in front of the rest with his or
her back to the audience.

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 • He/she puts the mask on and then turns round and stands still in an
actor’s neutral position: feet facing forward, slightly apart and under
the hips, and body straight, arms by the side, leaning forward slightly
onto the toes, which signifies stillness with a readiness for action.

• Instruct him/her to make one simple gesture, such as pointing a

finger. Notice how powerful a single gesture becomes once the face
is unreadable and neutral.

Unable to read the face, the audience instantly begins to read the body
language instead. This is an important lesson for all masked actors to learn.
The audience is watching his every gesture, the tiniest shift of his body or
tip of his head.

• Divide the group in half. Remember that it is as important to observe

the effect of a mask as it is to experience what it feels like to wear
one.

• Ask the maskers to show one particular emotion, such as anger, joy,
hunger, or sorrow. For this, they must ‘think with the body’. An actor
will naturally make his face under the mask – happy to express
happiness; the face is part of the body’s muscle system after all.
Using the muscles of face and body will awaken the feeling inside.

• Once everyone has experienced both watching masks and wearing

them, ask the performers to choose one of the following phrases,
and repeat it over and over until their bodies reflect what it says:

v “How dare they laugh at me.”

v “Bet you wish you knew what I’ve found out.”
v “I’m far and away the most beautiful person here.”
v “Frankly, being watched terrifies me.”
v “It’s the kind of day that makes you feel good about
everything.”
v “If you don’t do what I tell you, you’ll be sorry.”

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 • In their own time, and once they are ready, each makes an entrance
one at a time. Remind them to clock, pose, and then move towards
the audience always facing front.

EXERCISE FOUR – ‘ADVANCED CLOCKING’

• Divide the class into groups of about five or six.

• Each person in the group should choose a Tension State (see section
on Projecting Emotions), making sure there is a broad mix.
Remind yourself of your tension state’s body language by moving
round the room, sitting, standing etc.

• Each group is then given one of the situations suggested below, to

improvise straightaway. Remind the group of the need to clock an
audience, to make it clear the kind of character they are.

SITUATION ONE
• Set chairs up facing the front.
• The group file in and take a seat.
• The situation is an exam hall.
• The teacher speaks, instructing when they may turn over their
papers, when they should begin and when they should stop writing.
• Their reaction to the exam paper comes out of their own tension
states.

SITUATION TWO
• Move the chairs into two staggered lines facing front.
• The group file in and take their seats to watch a film.
• It is a very tense horror or action thriller.
• Throughout, one person eats sweets or crisps out of a bag noisily.
• Teacher hands an empty packet to them for this.

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SITUATION THREE
• Rearrange the chairs and angle them unrealistically, so that everyone
can be seen.
• The place, despite the angled seating, is a train.
• The students come on to the train and take seats.
• They are all tired after work. It is evening and they are going home.
• One of the commuters creates a disturbance.

Finally, choose one of the original character types listed earlier and a
tension state that fits that character.

• Either in pairs or small groups of up to four, try out some of the

following scenarios. Remember to share with the audience, by
clocking with appropriate facial expression, your character and any
change in emotion or bright idea that your character has.

IN PAIRS
• Two people reach an impasse on their way.
• They both step one way (the same way) and then the other.
• They are getting nowhere.
• They fall to insults and threats.
• Finally, they solve the problem in an unexpected fashion.
• One person is jealous of the other, who he perceives (rightly or
wrongly, it doesn't matter) to be much better-looking/better-dressed
or talented than he is.
• He does his best to undermine the other person by any means
possible.

IN GROUPS OF 3/4
• You find an ideal place for a picnic and unpack what you are carrying
for it. But first there are insects – and then something else…
• You are wrapping an awkwardly-shaped present for one of your
friends or family.
• You enlist help, but there are problems, and before you can finish the
intended recipient rings the doorbell.

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• Two cars have bumped. No one is hurt, but the cars are damaged.
One sees a way of capitalising on the problem and getting a better
car, but not all goes according to plan.

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LARGER-THAN-LIFE WORK/PERFORMING OUTDOORS
Much of Kneehigh's work is for outdoor sites. This requires very clear and
large characterisations and speaking accompanied by matching body
language. You will find that, as Kneehigh actress Sue Hill puts it, “words
behave differently out of doors.”

The ancient Greeks used masks with funnel-like mouth openings to help
project the voice. The chorus, often standing near the audience and
addressing them directly, ‘translated’ much of what was going on. Actors
kept their movements minimal but used large, clear gestures.
Amphitheatres made use of the natural contours of the land to help the
actors’ voices carry.

The Elizabethans built theatres enclosed by surrounding walls, where the

stage was thrust out into the audience. Actors, such as the travelling
players in Hamlet, were often reprimanded for their stylised gestures –
such as those in a manual of the times called ‘The Alphabet of Gestures’
which listed certain ‘stock’ positions to convey emotions: sad, happy,
angry.

Victorian melodrama came originally from groups of travelling players who

entertained the crowds at fairs, on a simple platform using clowning
techniques, plus the kind of stock characterisation, easily recognisable,
that came to them through such other touring companies as Commedia
dell’arte. The voices needed to be loud and commanding, as well as
appropriate to character, to draw a crowd.

Kneehigh’s style – broad and physical, with clear characterization, and

often based on stock characters or archetypes and clever costuming –
uses many of these strategies to overcome the challenges of performing
outdoors or in large spaces.

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EXERCISE ONE

• Have the class pair up and face a partner with the furthest possible
distance between them, e.g. at opposite ends of the hall or studio.

• Without informing their partners, each person thinks of something

they want to tell them, or if they cannot think of anything, the first
couple of lines of a well-known song or nursery rhyme will do.

• On a signal from the teacher, everyone should start speaking all at

once, trying to communicate their message to their partner.
Everyone is thus talking and listening at the same time. The result
will be pandemonium!

• Stop it very quickly, after a few seconds.

• Ask how many people understood what their partner was saying.
Very few will, unless you have a tiny group.

• Tell them it is a matter of life and death that they communicate their
message to their partner and, without moving from the spot, ask
them to try again.

• What should happen is that more and more people start to use
gesture and pantomimic large movements while speaking.

• Emphasise that speaking out of doors, in a large space as Kneehigh

habitually does, needs great clarity of body language and gesture as
well as good projection to get the message across.

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EXERCISE TWO

• Ask the performers to find the body language of the following

archetypal characters:

v The King
v The Mother
v The Father
v The Simpleton
v The Boss
v The Trickster or Cheat
v The Boaster
v The Organiser
v The Bully
v The Drudge (the lowest servant in the hierarchy)
v The Coward
v The Judge
v The Professor
v The Glutton
v The Nerd
v The Busybody.

You may want to add to this list.

• Have them try still poses first, which must be very exaggerated. Then
explore the walks that might accompany such characters – again
large. Try not to drop the bodily exaggerations you found in the
poses.

• Ask them to notice which particular part of their anatomy is the most
important thing in the pose: nose, chest, chin, stomach? That should
‘lead’ the movement. For instance, if someone decides that The
Boaster stands with his chest stuck out, or The Nerd with his
forehead as the frontmost part of him, then those are the parts of the
body they should lead with when they walk.

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 • Finish by having them speak a few lines in character. Finding a voice
that fits your character is important – then make sure that voice and
movement, facial expression and gesture all match up to give a clear
impression to an audience.

• Use the full length of your studio space to communicate each

character to the rest of the group.

• Does the character come over clearly?

• What happens if you present this character outdoors? If possible try

it. Does the wind carry the voice away?

• Or does the clarity of the actor’s body language mean that they still
communicate effectively?

EXERCISE THREE

• Choose one of the character types from Exercise Two.

• Come up with descriptive words for each – some will be about how
the character looks, others may suggest how he or she moves. Write
down whatever comes to mind.

Elaborating on the archetype idea, assign the following names to each

of the students:

v Jack Flash
v Samuel Button
v Horatio Hornblower
v Tabitha Twitchet
v Earnest Drood
v Annabel Merryweather
v Elisa Cramp
v Cecil Brayne

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 v Susie Dither
v Sid Brisk
v Lavinia Fish
v Daisy Cheyne
v Lois Sidewinder
v Oscar Slope.

• Ask the students if they can visualise the person. Can they see a
movement, a mannerism, a voice?

• Pool the ideas and whittle them down to three for each character,
making sure at least one is visual: an animal or an object.

• Invite the actors to find a mix of possible garments or prop

accessories that feel right.

• Have them choose things without thinking too hard about it, but on
a whim. This may ‘surprise the character out of your mind’ and into
the beginnings of a stage presence.

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ENGAGING THE AUDIENCE & COMEDY
Kneehigh’s rapport with the audience starts well before the play,
sometimes even before the pre-show warm-up. The cast will often take up
positions in the auditorium and strike up conversations with people. This is
completely improvised, and might have someone flirting with one of the
audience members perhaps, or commenting on someone's picnic supper,
or looking in ridiculous places in and under seats for something or
someone lost and so on. There’s usually a lot of laughter in this part of the
show.

In The Wooden Frock, for example, the actors, dressed as caretakers and
cleaners, moved through the audience wielding brooms and dusters, and
commenting on the state of the theatre, the litter on the floor. The pre-show
might be accompanied by music, which imposes itself more and more, until
a cue moment is reached and the actors start to drift towards the stage, or
into the wings to ready themselves for their first entrance. Some may stay
on as a chorus, opening the show and observing the characters, as if they
were also members of the audience – a good example being the ‘The
Chorus of the Unloved’ in Tristan and Yseult. In much the same way as a
Greek chorus, the actors dip in and out of the action, establishing and
forging an empathetic link with the audience.

These exercises will help your students to build that vital link with audience
members, using clowning, improvisation and physical theatre techniques.

EXERCISE ONE

‘Testing the energy’ is a great exercise for workshops on street-theatre or

Commedia.

• Have the group stand in a circle facing outwards.

• Select three or four people to step out of this circle: those remaining
are the audience. Those picked out, run with great energy around
the outside of the circle, smiling and interacting with their audience
at all times.

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 • After they have run round about three times (this is called ‘winding
the energy up), the teacher calls “NOW!” and the runner/performers
turn in to the section of the audience they have reached and say
“WOW!” as loudly and as with as much energy as possible.

• With face and body alight, and keeping the energy high, they try to
sustain the audience’s interest for as long as possible. How long can
they make it last?

• Do this several times with different runner/performers.

It is a good exercise for testing that magical two-way process, the

electric current between actor and audience. If either side of the
partnership is not concentrating, the effect is a damp squib.

EXERCISE TWO

• Choose three or four actors at a time: the rest of the group can be
the audience.

• Ask them to select one of the characters listed in the Larger than
Life section.

• Staying strictly in character, three or four at a time, they then move

through the rest of the group, who are seated. Their job is to ‘work
the audience.’

• Encourage them to improvise things to say, but bear in mind that

they must be careful not to actually upset anyone. The audience is
allowed to join the interchange but must remain seated.

In a class where everyone knows each other, this might not be very difficult.
It would be very different with an audience of strangers. Discuss what

58
differences there might be working a real audience, and what dangers
there might also be.

• How do you think you might get around these dangers?

EXERCISE THREE

• Ask your students to imagine that they have a secret they want to
share with the audience. Have them do this, one by one, while the
rest of the group watches.

• They might start by exaggeratedly looking around to check that no

one else on stage is listening.

• Frame the secret-telling as a question – asking the audience for their

opinion, not to invite a conversation, but worded in such a way that
the response might be delighted laughter, oohs and aahs, or even a
simple yes or no.

EXERCISE FOUR

• Take turns for one or two members of the group to walk at speed in
a circle around the stage, as if it were a clock-face.

• Make sure each actor ‘clocks’ the audience before they start, and
walk at a fast, jaunty pace.

• Having completed one full circle with no mishap, have him or her trip
and fall when they get to the 9 o’clock position.

• The third time round, they approach 9 o’clock cautiously, ‘clock’ the
audience to make them aware of what they are thinking, then jump
over or evade the ‘obstacle.’

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 • He or she smiles triumphantly at the audience and carries on only to
reach 3 o’clock and trip and fall again. At this point, ‘clock’ the
audience again in disbelief and perhaps anger – as if to say it’s not
fair!

• Have a few try this out. Each one should vary how they negotiate the
9 o’clock obstacle, and their reaction to tripping at 3 o’clock.

EXERCISE FIVE

This exercise is done with one solo performer, with the others supplying
sound effects.

SCENARIO ONE
• A person is sitting reading a book. It is a horror story.
• By ‘clocking’ and sharing with the audience, she shows that she is
absorbed but terrified. Sometimes she can hardly bear to continue
reading.
• She hears a sound nearby. What is it? Does she dare investigate?
• Encourage your students to find their own ending.

SCENARIO TWO
• The reader is a babysitter.
• He has settled the baby down and wants to get on with his book.
• But every time he settles down, the baby screams, and every time he
gets to the cot, it stops.
• Prompt your actors to share their feelings of frustration with the
audience throughout.

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EXERCISE SIX

• Two people, A and B, are getting ready for bed. They are in a room
which they have to share, but neither wants to be in the same space
as the other.

• A shares with the audience how comfortable the bed is, how nice
and squashy the pillow. Then she settles down and closes her eyes.

• B has been watching this with envy. He finds a space to lie, but every
time he tries to settle down in it, A opens her eyes and shoos him
further away.

• Finally, he settles and shares with the audience how hard and
uncomfortable the bed is. He tosses and turns, but finally starts to
drop off. This is when A starts to snore – loudly.

• The rest of this little scene is B's attempt to sleep despite the noise.
It should start with politely waking A and graduate through frustration
to rage!

EXERCISE SEVEN

• Have the actors team up in pairs: A and B.

• A has a number of belongings which are heaped on the platform (use

objects around the studio for these).

• A is a bossy, imperious person. She orders a layabout porter (B) to

carry her stuff from the platform to somewhere representing a cart or
cab. Both share with the audience their feelings about the situation.

• A gets increasingly exasperated and impatient as B makes heavy

weather of carrying. He piles things up on top of each other and
keeps dropping items.

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 • It could all end with A pummelling B with one of the ‘heavy’ items,
which in A’s hands is surprisingly light.

• Encourage your students to find their own alternative ending.

EXERCISE EIGHT

• Building on the previous exercise, add another actor, C to the mix.

• A and B are competing for the attention of gorgeous C. Each tries to

outdo the other.

• How does C respond?

• Who wins and why?

• Share with the audience throughout.

Ask them direct questions:

• What did you think of that?

• You prefer me over him, don't you?
• What would you suggest I try? etc.

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WORKING WITH MUSIC
It is good if you have a musician or two in the group, but if not, most people
could be taught at least a tune or two on a simple tin whistle or recorder,
or to create rhythms on any number of percussion instruments. In early
Kneehigh shows almost all members of the cast could play something: a
guitar or other stringed instrument such as a ukulele or banjo, and often a
brass or wind instrument also. Percussion might be used to create tension,
to emphasise particular moments, or as part of the joyous music the shows
always have in them.

It may be that you have no one in your group that could hold the show
together with superlative musicality, but actor-musicians, as many as
possible in the group, ought to be used and some of the more complex
music could instead be recorded.

EXERCISE ONE

• Half the members of the group start a strong rhythm with clapping.

• When it is well established, the other half starts up a counter rhythm.

Don’t try to outdo each other, but work to fit the two rhythms
together, adapting as necessary.

• Once this has been achieved and enjoyed for a while, invite your
students to create a particular atmosphere using sound alone.

• Start with your own voices and bodies to create:

v A spooky, ghostly atmosphere.

v A threatening atmosphere.
v A happy carnival-like atmosphere.
v An atmosphere of forgiveness and peace.

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 • Add to the mix whatever musical instruments you can muster for the
next part, allowing the participants to first experiment with the range
of sounds they can make.

• Using their bodies and the instruments, ask them to work together
to create a soundscape evocative of, for example:

v The seashore
v A woodland
v An underground cave
v A battlefield.

EXERCISE TWO

• Set the scene of a homecoming: a village, or town, perhaps where

the menfolk are being welcomed home from the war.

• Work together to create an atmosphere of celebration using sound,

rhythm and dance.

• Build from the initial sounds and rhythms and move into dance,
which is spontaneous from group members, and unplanned.

• See if, as a group, you can then work this into a more polished piece
while still retaining the quality of spontaneity.

EXERCISE THREE

Accompany the following scene of love and farewell, with music. This is a
short section from Kneehigh's version of Cymbeline. Posthumus is taking
leave of Imogen, his love. Posthumus is an orphan boy brought up by King
Cymbeline and Imogen is Cymbeline’s daughter. Furious, Cymbeline has
banished Posthumus for daring to love Imogen.

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The following is a short section, and should be possible to learn quickly
by heart:

IMOGEN: Where will you go?

POSTHUMUS: Italy.

IMOGEN: Italy? Why Italy?

POSTHUMUS: I'll be out of sight and out of mind.

IMOGEN: Not out of mine.

POSTHUMUS: No matter where I go, I shall remain loyal, my Imogen.

IMOGEN: And I will remain true, my Posthumus.

They kiss.

The music needs to set the mood but remain in the background. Soon after
this, in the original version, there featured a beautiful, haunting song,
composed by Stu Barker and performed by Dom Lawton. In general, the
songs may accompany the action, or a scene change. They will move the
narrative on in some way, or establish or alter the mood. As most people
have experienced, music has a unique ability to pierce right through into
our innermost selves. It can also, as Antonin Artaud shows, be profoundly
unsettling, especially through rhythm.

Don’t worry if your group does not have the ability to create its own music.
There have been many Kneehigh shows where recorded music is used.
Even when there is a live band, sometimes there are snatches of recorded
music. Groups such as The Baghdaddies, Oi Va Voi and the Barcelona
Gypsy Orchestra are all good resources, as is Kneehigh’s own CD So Good
at Love, which features songs from many of their shows.

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PUTTING ON YOUR OWN PLAY
Often, Kneehigh’s plays are the result of the company’s improvisations
during the rehearsal process. Sometimes, folklore or fairy tales are used as
a starting point, but these are always adapted with a modern take or a
surprising twist.

When looking at fairytales, prompt your group to look for the hidden
messages they contain – the ‘universal themes’. The figure of the Selkie,
for example – half seal, half human – may be about the importance of being
true to yourself. The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid, or other Hans
Christian Andersen or Brothers Grimm stories are also great starting points
for your own play. Have your students watch The Ashmaid, Kneehigh’s
adaptation of the Cinderella story to inspire their own flights of fairy tale
fantasy.

The exercises in this section can be used over the course of several days,
weeks or months with your group as you work together to devise an
entirely new piece of theatre. This may take the form of a ‘Wild Walk’,
where the audience walks through the landscape, or it may be site-specific
piece of theatre.

EXERCISE ONE

• Using your school or college site, choose one of the themes below
as the springboard for your piece of Landscape Theatre:

v First day at school – a mixture of primary or secondary

v Bullying – not just at school perhaps
v Expectations – in the broadest sense of the word – your own,
other peoples’ etc.

• Write down every group member’s impressions or experiences.

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 • The first step is to create a tableaux or still images, either in groups
or with a single actor, e.g. someone sitting on a step, cast down and
isolated.

• Introduce some slight gesture, repeated several times, e.g. the

threatening gesture of a bully; pushing open a door on the first day
of school.

• Lastly, add a short section of dialogue which can be repeated ‘on a

loop’ as the audience walk past.

• Is there one idea which can run through the whole thing as a
storyline?

If Landscape Theatre is a jigsaw puzzle that the audience must gradually

piece together you need to put clues – little pieces of the main idea – into
different places, which the audience will experience at different times.
These clues need not be in a logical order. Give the audience some work
to do.

Apart from the audience experiencing through walking, watching different

scenes and still images, and piecing the whole theme together for
themselves, what else can you think of that they could participate in?
Helping with an activity, such as pulling in the nets in Ghost Nets, or being
given something to hold. Audience involvement is key.

EXERCISE TWO

• Set the class the task of finding an interesting site. It need not be in
the countryside: Kneehigh has performed in housing estates,
abandoned department stores, schools and sheds.

• They could photograph or sketch it, and present a case for its
usefulness – different levels, hiding-places for the cast to wait, or for
surprises to happen, and so on.

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The best of these could be visited by the whole group:

• What does the site suggest?

• If the story comes out of the landscape, what story could you see
happening in this site?

It may be that the chosen site had a specific role in the past – like a mine,
or quarry, or a wood used for charcoal production. Or it may be the site of
something dramatic that has happened in the community perhaps, such as
a beach from where locals went out to rescue stranded soldiers from
Dunkirk. But to keep it in the Kneehigh mode, it would need to have
relevance or resonance with the present. This may be the larger resonance
of a huge theme, such as memory and loss was for Sou-terrain, or in a
more localised vein – a place which has been altered by industrialisation,
or which is under threat from fracking, for instance, or perhaps a place
which has a local legend attached to it – of a dragon, or a giant, or some
such. Whichever idea you choose, try to elaborate out from the storyline.
Really use the site to its fullest capacity.

• Think of where the audience would be, and how to move them
around from place to place without breaking the atmosphere you are
creating.

• Think of still shapes and symbols you might use; costumes, masks
and large puppetry if appropriate. This would be an exciting devised
project to undertake, suitable particularly for older students.

EXERCISE THREE

• Choose two people from the group to debate the proposition “In
theatre, the text is sacred.”

• They need to prepare properly, as homework perhaps, and come

back with sound arguments. Having given their arguments for and

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 against, open the debate to the rest of the group and finish with a
summary of both positions and a vote.

• As part of the research, suggest they look at how modern theatre

companies treat Shakespeare and the classics. Kneehigh’s
interpretation of Cymbeline and Middleton’s The Changeling (under
the new title, The Itch) are both useful examples. Bring in examples
of other key practitioners such as Jerzy Grotowski, Antonin Artaud
and Bertolt Brecht.

EXERCISE FOUR

Using the story of The Tinderbox as a springboard, invite the class to

identify elements that might resonate with a modern audience.

Ask yourselves:

• What messages could be made from this story – messages that are
universal or political?

• Is there anything here that could be relevant to this country now, or

your own area?

• What are the darkest features of this story?

• Can you identify the 'dubious morality' of it mentioned by Causley?

• There is the killing of the witch, but what else can you find?

• Greed may be on, but what else?

• What do you make of the characters?

• What kind of a hero is the soldier?

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 • What kind of a villain is the witch?

• Where might puppetry be useful? Consider puppets, large and small,

and models (toy cars, boats etc.) as Kneehigh often use both.

• Can you see the possibility for comic action and buffoonery to draw
an audience in?

• Which parts of the story might lend themselves to this?

• Which characters?

• Where might music, or sound effects made by musical instruments

and the voices and bodies of the actors, help the action?

• The princess is a passive character, usually asleep, in the original

story. What if she wasn't?

• How might this change the narrative?

• Is there a possibility of a chorus in this story – what could they be a

chorus of?

Finally, pick out one part of the story and experiment with it. Try it through
action. This means, as Kneehigh will often do in rehearsal, someone
starting a bit of silliness and then others joining in and furthering it as much
as they can, to see where it takes them.

• You could start with a very small section of the story itself, or with the
idea of a chorus. Characters need to be extreme and to be
archetypes, instantly recognisable to an audience. Revisit the
exercises in the Larger-Than-Life Work and Engaging the Audience
sections to help with this.

• Have a volunteer in the group, who, as the princess, starts an action

or makes a body shape, or uses a prop lying nearby, or says an

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 outrageous line – anything which might galvanise a reaction from her
parents and provoke a response from one or other or both of them.

• Two others from the group step forward as King and Queen, without
planning what their characters will be, and join in to further the scene,
seeing how far they can take it. Gender-crossing is welcomed –
some of these extreme mother types, for instance, are often taken
by the men in the company.

• The second it becomes lifeless, stop the scene and discuss what
happened.

• Have a number of people try this out, or another moment from the
story, and then discuss what has worked best, whether any
characterisations are beginning to take on something that is
compelling to watch.

Remember: folktales offer a lot of leeway. It is all down to interpretation,

to manipulation of the basic story – while still keeping it recognisable.
In Kneehigh terms, it is about revealing the dark underside to the tale.

EXERCISE FIVE

Part of Kneehigh’s interpretation of the Cinderella fairytale, The Ashmaid,

was always improvised. This was where the two ugly sisters are waiting to
be alone with Cinderella so they can beat the living daylights out of her.

For this exercise in precision timing, split the class into several groups of
four with the rest as the audience. The actors play Cinderella, the two ugly
sisters, and the all-controlling, fearsome stepmother.

The scene is in two parts.

THE FIRST PART:

• Cinderella has refused to help the sisters with their dresses.
• Before they can hurt her physically, the mother enters.

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 • She is a totally over-the-top, grotesque comic character.
• Her eyes could freeze waterfalls with a single glance. Her anger is to
be avoided at all costs.
• Both audience and daughters toe the line to her face, but throw
meaningful looks and threats every time ‘Mummy’ looks away for a
second. Remember to include the audience; they are party to your
plans for Cinderella.
• The scene needs to be long enough for the tension to mount in the
audience, as to what is in store for Cinderella when Mummy finally
exits.

THE SECOND PART

• This follows on from when she leaves, promising to return.
• The stepsisters enlist the audience’s help in devising increasingly
outlandish punishments for Cinderella.
• As preparation for this second half, decide some of the crazy
suggestions you are going to make to start the ball rolling.
• When you have performed the first half of the scene in front of the
rest of the group, this second half will be a genuine working of your
audience.

EXERCISE SIX

In Death in a Bottle, a young boy’s mother lies dying. The boy meets Death
coming to fetch her and, desperate to save his mother, sets Death a series
of challenges. How big and scary can you be? he wonders. Death – ever
the show-off – obliges. When the boy then asks, how tiny can you make
yourself? Death turns himself into a tiny insect and the boy traps him in a
bottle. With Death trapped, nothing can die.

Think a few of the potential comic ideas that might arise from this situation.
For example – from Kneehigh’s own version – two members of the chorus
are hungry and try to kill and eat a chicken, but the chicken won't die –
even when a hydrogen bomb is pushed up his backside! Try out other
ideas. Play them to the fullest extent you can manage. Absurdity needs to

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pile on absurdity. The bomb in the chicken is the end of a very long line of
attempts to kill the poor bird!

• Now improvise, in pairs, the boy's meeting with Death. If you want to
add a third person, the plaintive mother could be added to the mix.

• Can you work out the reasons for releasing Death again? It is the old
idea of being careful what you wish for. Make sure you've got all the
loopholes covered.

• Think of Midas who wished to have everything he touched turned to

gold and almost starved to death because his food changed to gold
as soon as he touched it. He hugged his beloved daughter, only to
turn her into a golden statue.

• Think some of the many reasons for the release of Death from the
bottle.

• Invent a number of absurd scenes that could occur in such a story

and jot them down.

• Try to achieve a mix of comic and horrific ideas: the executed man
who runs around with his head under his arm, for example, and the
mother who is in such pain that she is begging to die.

• Choose from your list of archetypes and try out two contrasting
scenes.

EXERCISE SEVEN

Kneehigh’s adaptation of the tragic love story of Tristan and Yseult is,
characteristically, laced with absurdity and humour. At one point Yseult,
worried about her marriage night with King Mark, persuades her maid,
Brangian, to swap places with her. Brangian turns out to be not only a virgin
but has no experience of love at all.

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In the play, Brangian is played by a man, which of course adds to the
humour, but her dilemma is real and played straight all the same. You don't
have to have a male play her.

• Experiment with this situation. Brangian can muse about what she
has seen but not experienced – the kind of things she knows but has
not seen, Yseult and Tristan get up to. Her imagination can run a little
wild.

• Add in all the kinds of half-facts and rumours you might have heard
when you were very young. Other actors can play the Chorus of the
Unloved to whom she appeals for help. But they have as little
knowledge as she.

• Let the situation run as an improvisation as long as you can manage,

and then discuss: if this was going into a show, which parts would be
worth keeping? Jot those down. You never know - they might come
in useful for your own eventual piece.

EXERCISE EIGHT

This exercise is also inspired by a scene from Kneehigh’s Tristan and

Yseult, and it is important that the students watch the scene before
working on their own improvisation.

Frocin, King Mark’s right-hand man, is dreadfully jealous of Tristan, who has
replaced him as the King’s favourite. Frocin suspects that Tristan and
Yseult are up to something, but he will need proof before he unveils the
truth to the King. He imagines King Mark’s gratitude, the honours that will
be heaped on him for uncovering their treachery. Frocin arms himself with
a camera and recording equipment. A microphone would do, imagining the
rest.

• Tristan and Yseult are in this improvisation – they may notice Frocin
skulking and, deep in their love, brush him aside, not realising the
danger. Contrast their love with his spitting jealousy.

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• Frocin is an over-the-top character – the epitome of jealous rage.
Have fun with his facial expressions. He might be useless with his
camera and microphone, constantly getting things wrong. He will
need to share his feelings with the audience throughout.

• Take the improvisation through as much mayhem as you can sustain

before he reaches a successful conclusion and nails his evidence.

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