Much love to you all.

Goodness. In all the excitement of doing the puppet show and then not doing the puppet show anymore, I forgot to write a final Brighton fringe post for this blog that nobody reads.

Yes, so it is over and it was wonderful. Thank you to all who came. God bless everybody at the Regency Tavern, who were gracious hosts. Apologies for my pitiful performance as box office lady. I think everybody who paid to see the show managed to see the show in the end. The only negative of the whole thing is that the heatwave arrived the following weekend when I was miles away from any beaches, but that's probably not the fault of anybody in particular.

We got one last review (from Whats on Stage) which was wonderfully complimentary. In parts.

'The Garyhaus Players are either a group of supremely clever and terribly well balanced individuals or a bunch of absolute nutters and, to be honest, I know where my money goes and it’s not on them being well-balanced!'

WE ARE SO BLOODY BALANCED.

Anyway he ended up saying it was funny and engaging, so all can be forgiven. I am sad that there will be no more opportunities in the foreseeable future where I can be graded numerically. I love grades.

After the final show, Meg Lavender (who has no real internet presence because she is some sort of ethereal, constantly napping, pixie-like creature) took photos of the puppets in the dark dingy basement and made them look amazing (trickery using a swinging light bulb I think). They can be found on our facebook page. Why not 'like' them? I'd really enjoy that. YOU'D BE A BLOODY FOOL TO NOT GO AND LOOK AT THEM. Here's a teaser:

That's not even the best one. Maybe I should put the best one up? NO, then were would the incentive to click this link be? 

Moving on, let us consider what is next for the Garyhaus Players. Well, there's Secret Garden Party in July. Unfortunately Lori (master of the big orange puppet) can't come. Very sad. We'll get a new person, maybe they'll be just as good. Probably not. Anyway, Secret Garden Party is sold out now so if you were going to buy a ticket just to see Lori your chance is now gone. If you've already bought a ticket just to see Lori then I don't know what to tell you. They're like two hundred pounds. You're mad.

In fact, there may be cheaper ways to see Lori (and the rest of us, I don't know you're so bloody hung up on Lori! Sam and Naomi are also excellent puppeteers and Tye Mcgivern has tricked multiple audiences into believing he can play a viola). Yes, we shall probably do some more shows somewhere. London, I imagine. Maybe in a pub? God knows. I'm not really in charge. If you'd like us to perform at your birthday / wedding / coronation, then we'll probably do it. Although no guarantees. I haven't checked with anybody else, and, as I've already pointed out, I'm not really in charge.

Finally, when we've milked I Have Never Cared for Sunsets for all it's worth, then I suppose I'll have to write something else. Naomi needs more puppets to make to fend off the loneliness. Feel free to send in suggestions. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION.

Well that is all. For now. The Garyhaus players: GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN (because we're not really gone! we'll never be gone! we have nothing else in our lives!)

Press round up.

With our second weekend fast approaching, I thought it might be helpful to have a small round up of all the press our little play has so far received. If you have any undecided friends or colleagues, why not share this post with them so that they can see for themselves if I Have Never Cared For Sunsets is the sort of puppet show they're after this weekend?

Press I wrote myself

At Fringe Review, we have '10 Questions: An interview with the Garyhaus Players'.

The Whats on Stage site features 'Five reasons to see . . .  I Have Never Cared For Sunsets'.

Reviews by other people

Our first review was by a lovely fellow at Fringe Guru, who gave us FOUR stars (out of five! goodness!) He enjoyed our 'whimsical, very likeable, puppets' (the puppets are so proud!) and had 'an hour full of laughs'. Final words? 'If ridiculous humour and puppetry appeal to you, then you won’t want to miss I Have Never Cared for Sunsets at this year’s Brighton Fringe.'

Our second review was less flattering. For the man at the Argus, the highlight of the show was the bench collapsing underneath 3 audience members (this WON'T happen again, we promise, benches have been reinforced!). He thought the show required too much background knowledge, didn't like the 'constant references to potatoes and leeches' (I'm not sure what he has against potatoes and leeches), and thought the whole thing had 'the distinct air of an end-of-term revue by the local philosophy club'. If you like the idea of an end-of-term revue by the local philosophy club, you know where to go.

And finally, some feedback from our wonderful audience. A very hungover lady on twitter said she thought she'd fall asleep, but 'instead laughed out my nose the whole time'. Another woman approached some Players in a theatre and said she loved it. My mother also claimed to love it. One friend said she'd been practising her fake enthusiasm but didn't need to use it. Another said, 'yeah, it's ok'. One man googled Karl Popper after the show (successfully spreading the word of Popper!). Another man believed he had learnt something about science (I would not recommend I Have Never Cared For Sunsets as an educational tool, I believe there are books on science and whatnot that would be far more accurate. Also, the BBC have produced a somewhat historically inaccurate but pleasing account of the eclipse expedition which helped confirm relativity theory. It stars David Tennant and Andy Serkis. Also, Jim Broadbent plays Oliver Lodge, my favourite olden times scientist of all time, mainly because everybody was talking about him in the 1920s and nobody's talking about him now, and he just wanted to use the aether to communicate with his dead son. Anyway, I believe it is available on DVD. There are also a number of academic articles on the subject but, like all academic articles, they're rather boring.)

Review by me

I am pleased! I think you should come! Here's a photo I took with my phone  -

Finally, I should point out that while the Fringe Brochure lists the event as 75 minutes long, it's actually only 45 (this is what happens when you leave a known jazz enthusiast in charge of admin).

Our first weekend.

I saw the venue for the first time the morning before our debut show. I was led through a beautiful pub, down a staircase, through a utility room, into a tiny courtyard (where we would have been performing if it wasn't for British weather), through a dark dank room, through another dark dank room, and finally into our performance space! The darkest, dankest room of them all. It was a surprise. But, after the lights and table had been set up, and we'd purchased some bunting, I started to see that it might just work.

The first show went down with several hitches. One of the benches collapsed. Three audience members found themselves on the floor. One poor soul had to spend the rest of the day covered in cider. The remainder of the show was clouded by the doom of bench-related anxiety. Everybody was on edge. Some lines were almost certainly forgotten. And we had two reviewers in, watching the whole disaster unfold.

But, miraculously, the audience laughed loads of times (including at the Plato's cave reference - what a sophisticated crowd we draw in). All the way through. We can now stop describing the show as a series of events, and instead just call it a comedy. And our review from fringe guru was actually rather positive (4 stars!)

Sam Fox (puppeteer) experienced nerves for apparently the first time ("It's sort of like being scared, but not really, I'm all jittery, this is very confusing. And I'm hungry"). Tye Mcgivern drank several whiskies and reinforced all the benches. Naomi and Lori bought a baguette. I congratulated myself on my foresight when several months before I had flatly refused to be in the show (how do people do it? It's TERRIFYING)

Second show ran a lot more smoothly. A sizeable chunk of the script was missed out but nobody (including, for quite some time, the cast) noticed. The audience was lovely, and also laughing (surprisingly at completely different bits this time - our show is thus doubly funny) and when it was over we all got drunk and ended the night in an empty dark room dancing to Talking Heads.

The Sunday performance was, for me anyway, a nauseous affair (oh thanks wine, you bastard). I was on ticket-collection duty, and failing miserably, partly because the pub was packed (turns out they do a very popular Sunday lunch - book in advance if you fancy it). Also, I'd thought that only family and friends were coming but there were quite a few ordinary punters (incidentally my favourite kind of punter) as well. We sold our last few tickets in the pub and, after re-evaluating the seating situation in our dark, dank room, even had to turn some people away (sorry, do come back another day!)

So we've now done THREE performances, each with a good sized audience and lots of laughter. We're all quite surprised. I won't be down next weekend (in the midst of all this excitement, I forgot I'm supposed to be writing a PhD), but can't wait to see what changes have been made by our final weekend of the 19th/20th. EXCITING.

[Our capacity's down to 20 now (and our benches are up to 78% sturdiness) so do book ahead to avoid disappointment]

The celestial and sublunary spheres.

Five reasons to see.

Still undecided about paying the hefty price of six pounds in order to see a puppet show whose sole aim is apparently to destroy the reputation of a beloved philosopher of science?

Well we've somehow managed to come up with FIVE excellent reasons to see the show, which can be found here.

If you require further reasons, then feel free to email us at garyhausplayers at gmail dot com or correspond with us via twitter @garyhausplayers. Or I suppose you could comment on this very blog, although that doesn't seem to be a particularly fashionable option at present.

A fourth interview.

Professor Garyhaus?
Yes, hello, thank you so much for finally agreeing to meet with me.

To be perfectly honest, I very nearly didn't come today. You've got a reputation as a terrible interviewee.
I know, but I really don't know why.

The British Association of Interviewers have blacklisted you. I could get in a lot of trouble for even being here.
Then why did you come?

There you go again, asking questions, I was told you'd do this.
So sorry.

I ASK THE QUESTIONS.
Please don't go.

QUESTION ONE. WHY HAVE YOU MADE KARL POPPER EVIL?
I don't know. I thought it was funny. I now see I was wrong.

LOOK AT HIM. 

He looks lovely.

I think the British Society for the History of Science might have something to say about this.
I'm actually a member of that society . . .

Oh dear.
Oh dear?

You're in more trouble than you realise.
But matters related to Karl Popper are policed by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science. I'm not in any way affiliated with them.

You don't think the BSHS and BSPS might be in cahoots?
Oh god.

That's right.
My livelihood!

You'll never practice history of science in this country again.
But I have no other skills! What will I do?

Write puppet shows?
But I HATE puppets! I'm only doing this to pay back my debt to the constable.

Who's the constable?
I don't know, it's a Punch and Judy reference. I think. I've never even seen a Punch and Judy show! The others told me.

Who are the others?
I can't say!

Why are you crying?
I don't want to do this anymore.

Please, pull yourself together! This is the last interview you'll ever do!
Good! I don't want to do interviews anymore! I hate interviewers! You're all so mean!

Professor Garyhaus?
Yes?

I'm going to go now. But I want you to know one thing before I leave.
What?

That was an excellent interview.

Karl Popper.

“There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.”