Imitating the Dog theatre - like the travelling players of old

The lockdown profiles of our region’s theatres and companies is on temporary pause thanks to a show that, appropriately, goes back to where theatre in this country began: a travelling band of merry players.

The company of Imitating the Dog are the merry players arriving in Halifax to perform shows in the Piece Hall’s magnificent courtyard tonight and tomorrow, having played the space outside Leeds Playhouse last night.

The last time the company was seen around these parts was shortly before the Covid lockdown with the innovative stage show crossed with live cinema production of Night of the Living Dead Remix. The company returns with something as theatrically inventive – Dr Blood’s Old Travelling Show.

“I don’t want to give too much away, but basically a van rolls up, an old, slightly battered Luton van, and out of it emerges a stage with screens and then these figures. Using front and back projection we create this quite magical technological world in which to tell our story using puppets, figurines and music to sort of unfurl our narrative,” says Imitating the Dog co-director Andrew Quick.

“The story centres around a group of strangers who turn up in this place to expose evil and corruption in the town through their story and then sow retribution on the people who have committed these terrible deeds. It’s kind of like a cross between a classic contemporary technological version of a Punch and Judy show meets vampire Grand Guignol through classic street theatre.”

If that last sentence lost you, all you need to know is: it’s theatre. It’s live and it will happen in front of an audience, surely enough to recommend it. It has also emerged from the long shadow of coronavirus, an enormous feat.

“I think in some ways it was very much responding to the situation. We had in our minds that we wanted to do a show that was more tour-able, less dependent on the middle-scale and that would enable us to go to smaller venues,” says Quick.

“We had this idea of doing a show that was almost inside a car, but obviously at the moment you can’t do that, so we started to think about something that was more of an outdoor piece, but to do what we normally do which is to make these quite technologically complex pieces. I suppose we’ve ended up combining a classic piece of outdoor theatre with what we do as a company and do it in a Covid-safe way.”

The company will also provide with this production something of an arm round an industry replete with people working in it who feel like this week they have had a smack in the face: the show is being given to venues without charge. It means the theatres can charge audience members and keep all of the ticket money, a desperately needed little boost.

“We postponed making the mid-scale production we were due to make early next year until the summer and we are using that budget to tour Dr Blood’s Old Travelling Show instead. Our co-producing partner, Leeds Playhouse, has generously given space and technical and human resources to the project. The truth is, we are making the show thriftily: Leeds Playhouse is even loaning us the van in which we are making and touring the work.”

Quite apart from providing a glass of water in a theatrical desert, Imitating the Dog are paying tribute to the tradition of theatre in Britain with this show. The players who roam the country, pitching up in towns to perform their wares has a long history.

“With regards to the theme of the piece, I suppose we had been toying with lots of ideas around horror movies and vampires. We thought that having a group of strangers turning up in a town and telling a story about that town, and the group having some sort of supernatural powers might be quite interesting,” says Quick.

“Medieval players used to have their cart that they’d turn up in and draw around the city with all the props, costumes and pieces of the set all bundled inside. It’s our 21st century version of that.”

Of course you can’t talk about contemporary theatre without recognising the epoch-defining moment we are experiencing together. The show doesn’t talk about Covid specifically, but does reference the politics of the day and allows the audience to draw its own parallels. As far as the practicalities of creating a show in a world of Covid, there are difficulties. In rehearsals the mandatory face masks and visors are proving a challenge to communication, though not one that is insurmountable.

It has also had an impact on the staging: it’s going to be outside, for a start. Demonstrating, however, that with a little creative thinking, the challenge of bringing theatre back really shouldn’t be beyond the wit of Government.

“Covid has slightly changed the way we are staging the show. To give you a concrete example, originally we had one person out front and two people in the van, but the van’s too small for that to be safe, so we’re having to have one person in the van and two people out front now. But thinking about the dynamics of the piece, that’s turned out to be a change for the better – it means there’s more interaction with the audience now.”

Who knew. Creative people coming up with a simple creative solution to the problem of Covid.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson