Bloody Silly Business was an ensemble, puppetry piece done as part of the NEAT festival in Nottingham in 2014. It was a verbatim show built from statements of World War One survivors. This really helped to add sincerity to the characters. The piece was also a promenade piece which immersed the audience in the show. We also used shadow puppetry to illustrate some of the stories, to give more detail to the imagery.  

We chose to make the puppets as old people looking back on the war, therefore many of the puppets were situated in arm chairs while there story unfurled around the rest of the space. We wanted to incorporate real items that may have been used and around at the time. Therefore we used old-fashioned sewing machines to signify the industry in the war, and type writers to represent the letters sent.  

Each person in the group made one puppet, based on a real person. My puppet was based on a nurse called Alice blood. Alice’s story was used within the show. Using real people helped to make characters more real and present. 

With each story we stretched a red ribbon across the space, being a visual representation of that story. This meant that throughout the performance the space changed in some places penning in the audience.