shoe people
This is not a posting about Imelda Marcos, or yet another investigation of the curious phenomenon of foot fetishism (apologies to googlers). No indeed, this refers to that much darker perversion; the childrens TV spin-off theatre show. These are almost inevitably tawdry and cheap, the performers are either recent graduates trying desperately to earn enough to survive, or booze hardened veterans who just don't care about the indignity of it all anymore.In fairness, I should point out that there are quality, non-exploitational theatre companies out there, producing wonderful, imaginative childrens theatre. Whirligig and the Polka Theatre for Children are spectacular examples. What we are talking about here, however, is the shoddily produced, brightly coloured version of a saturday morning cartoon. If you've ever worked in a receiving house you will have done them all; Fireman Sam, Postman Pat etc, etc. They are usually shoehorned in on top of another show (to cut costs), and will have minimal sets and staging (ditto). The performers are entirely anonymous as generally speaking, they will be wearing enormous polystyrene heads and padded costumes to mimic the character, a bonus here (see note about cutting costs) is that one performer can play several parts, as long as there aren't too many characters onstage at any one time. There will also be 'the gimmick'; Postman Pats' Van (a golf buggy with added polystyrene), Fireman Sams' Fire Engine (A council rubbish trolley with more polystyrene), these will lumber clumsily onto stage for no perceptable reason, and then will have to reverse off again because there isn't room for them to turn round without demolishing the scenery.
The show which still brings me out in a cold sweat when I remember it was 'The Shoe People'. I had (and have) never seen the programme, but I was given to understand that it achieved a similar level of nauseating banality to that of 'The Flumps' (why did that never make it onto the stage I wonder?). The premise being that somewhere in an Enid Blyton landscape there is a town (Shoe Town) inhabited by lovingly stereotypical shoes, each one of which has a 'personality' to match its type; thus we meet margo the ballet shoe (dippy but loveable), pc boot ( crusty but loveable police boot), trampy ( dopey but loveable old tramps boot), do you sense a throughline here?. I have absolutely no idea how many single shoes inhabited this fictional place, when I encountered the stage show we had six performers and several more shoe characters.
The actual prop shoes were enormous, a sort of fibreglass and polystyrene pedalo in which the performer sat, all expression (which was limited) was achieved by manipulating eyes and mouth. Because they were sitting in giant shoes, all the turns were on radio mics, and this is where my traumas began. As this was a low budget operation (have I mentioned this?), they didn't tour a sound person, and for some reason, I drew the short straw. I was reassured that it would be fine by the DSM (deputy stage manager), he would be on cans (talkback headphones) and there was a very good plot-sheet. First show all started swimmingly, the DSM would tell me who was coming onstage, and I would fade up their radio mics as soon as I saw them trundle onstage. The point where it started to go wrong was when the DSM told me the name of the next character on and then said 'just going off cans for a minute', blow me, ten seconds later he came onstage dressed in a pinstripe suit (not a shoe costume) and sang a song. I was getting confused now, without the DSM I was lost, I had no idea who any of the characters were, and there were only wiggling eyes and mouths to indicate that someone was speaking. Most of the time I got it right, but there were moments of sterotypical radio mic chaos when someone was speaking, and I then faded up the wrong fader producing either silence, the sounds of an argument in the dressing room, a toilet flushing, or someone phoning his booky. The rather stupefied Birmingham audience who were present at this spectacle took it all in their stride, either their expectations weren't very high, or the Wooster Group meets Harold Pinter version of the show that I had contrived to create was exactly what they wanted.
After the show had come down, I went backstage with a certain degree of trepidation, expecting at the very least a small rocket, far from it, the DSM, who was also the company manager, thanked me, and said he thought it had gone very well. Begging the question, what on earth had it been like when it had gone badly?
I've done some research, here are the lyrics of the theme song;
Every time you're skipping down the street
Think about the shoes upon your feet, today
It's a magic world when your toes uncurl
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
What've you got between you and the ground
When you want to dance of simply run around
There's some friends down there to take you everywhere
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
Sh-sh-sh-shoe people
All good stuff as you can see, more horror stories later.
By request, here are a couple of images:
posted by Lampy @ 9/19/2006 10:48:00 am
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