Quotes
"In terms of a process for the baby puppets in Dead Dog in a Suitcase was that Sarah and Lyndie (Wright) whipped up some prototypes which were brilliant, and we just spent an afternoon playing with them. That informed so much of the actual writing and what the babies did and how they spoke and how they sang. That's always a really fun thing to do, before rehearsals even begin: Just have some prototypes and play."
"For me, there's an interesting feedback loop with Kneehigh. I watched Kneehigh and was influenced by Kneehigh and then wrote my own stuff. Then there's quite possibly my writing influence on Kneehigh. Working with Mike on Dead Dog in a Suitcase, we didn't really discuss the show on a deeper level very often. We spoke more about Breaking Bad, and other things we were watching, reading, stumbling across, everyday inspirations. I’m writing for people I know, we’ve explored stuff together before so there’s a sort of shorthand."
"The music of John Gay took opera music, the serious opera, and whilst not mocking it, used it as fuel to comment on the wealthy and to show another side of life. That's what Punch and Judy did: they literally played outside opera houses. That's why it was seen by Pepys outside Covent Garden. It was at Bartholomew Fair, and it was outside Covent Garden. Punch was Italian. He was more Italian than many of the operas probably were and he was taking the mickey out of the opera and making money out of opera-goers. There was this parallel between what Punch had been doing and what John Gay was doing that felt very historically apt in our use of puppets in Dead Dog in a Suitcase."
