The First Outing

Since having the first days of play last weekend this past week has involved a lot of devising, cutting, chopping and rearranging of material for Thingamabob’s first public appearance which happened on Friday. It was at the Fool’s Paradise Showcase so only 10 minutes were performed to give a taste of what the full show will be like.

The feeling before hitting the stage was a more nervous one than usual, we’ve gone into this project knowing there is a certain degree of risk involved with using a Heath Robinson Contraption live in a show, but nothing prepared us for the nerve-wrecking experience of knowing there’s not much one can do to control how the machine behaves once you set it off, in front of an audience. During rehearsals we found that much like a circus trick; the moment you try to show someone your new trick, you can’t do it, or in this case – IT won’t do it.

That said, thankfully the performance was successful, it wasn’t perfect, there were a couple of minor mechanical glitches but nothing which massively detracted from the action, they may in fact have added to the experience. This was the first real test for the project and we’ve taken a lot away from it, how the audience responded was going to be a very important factor and they responded positively so we’re very pleased with that. It’s now even more exciting to continue work on the show as we’ve seen a glimpse of the potential it has.

Here’s a sneaky peak edit of Fridays live performance:

The week ahead will be spent in the workshop with an aim to complete the majority of the building work before we hit our first main R & D period the following week.