If you go to The Sex Lives of Puppets with expectations of titillation and ‘Carry On’ film-style crudeness, you’ll be sorely disappointed. This well-crafted show from the pen of Ben Keaton and Mark Down and performed expertly by the puppet company Blind Summit does indeed include lots of sex, but it is also poignant, touching, and laugh-out-loud funny.
The puppeteers/actors stylishly introduce each ‘conversation’ with cardboard, handwritten signs, evoking laughter before the puppets even open their mouths. The skill of the four puppeteers/actors who voice and animate each puppet is astonishing to the extent that the puppets themselves become so real, and the two people standing behind the table manipulating them stop registering and become almost invisible.
During The Sex Lives of Puppets, we are mainly presented with different combinations of couples discussing sexual scenarios/beliefs using such authentic language it sounds verbatim. Indeed, many of the phrases and styles of interaction were influenced by observing research interviews conducted by the London School of Hygiene and the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, although the transcript of these interviews couldn’t be used directly because of privacy laws. Granted, there are ‘squirm’ moments where discussions are so frank that I was glad my Nana wasn’t there, but we can accept, listen, and laugh because it is all voiced through the medium of puppets, and this distancing enables us to fully engage with the sexual openness without being overwhelmed by embarrassment.
It is hard to explain why we accept these small stuffed figures so completely. Yes, they have exquisitely detailed faces, but they are still stylised caricatures, and their expressions are fixed yet so animated that I genuinely believed during one tender moment that one slightly pompous financier was tearful, my brain happily filling in the gaps and interpreting it all as ‘real’.
In The Sex Lives of Puppets a rich variety of gender, race, age, sexual preference, and attitudes is aired without any exploitative or abusive scenarios. After the hilarious orgy at the climax of the show – played with wonderful ‘tongue-in-cheek’ insouciance – I came away feeling enlightened and positive about human sexual relationships whilst aching from laughing so much. This show is going to be a Fringe classic, and you might even pick up some tips!
