The Nightingale
6 December (run ended)
Reviewed by Mathilda Gregory 

The deliciously named Punched is a first foray into adult puppet cabaret by The Nightingale, featuring all-original work by local artists.

The opener – Grist to the Mill’s Biting the Dust – was beautiful, with an adorably creepy Victorian waif puppet. Even better was the follow-up, an excerpt from Matt Rudkin’s new show Dean Gibbons and the Knowledge of Death. This was the stand-out piece for me; genuinely funny and starkly thought provoking. Touched Theatre, who also hosted the evening in the form of the irascible Miranda (essentially Mr Punch as drag queen), closed the first half with a simply-staged piece following the climactic adventures of a little blue man.

The second half began with an engaging piece from Yael Karavan. I’ve seen a lot of Karavan’s work before, and she is always thoroughly engaging and bubbling with humour. This piece was possibly the most striking and immersive of the evening, but it was hard to see how this was puppetry; anyone seeing the piece out of context would describe it as physical theatre based around a prop. At no point did we forget about the performer and focus on the object as the protagonist.

The finale featured the neat idea that the Hare (of “…and the Tortoise” fame) is a drunken recluse, never having recovered from his humiliating defeat. But this idea, though leading to many funny lines and set-ups, was milked so dry it rasped by the end of the sketch.

And this problem was a common factor throughout the show. For show called Punched it could have been a heck of a lot punchier; every piece, with the exception of Rudkin’s, was too long for the ideas it contained. The opening piece, for example, featured a lantern show that took place under a table – in the shallow rake of the Nightingale, this was invisible to everyone who wasn’t on the front row (and it wasn’t worth the trouble many took to move into the aisle).

A lot of the pieces were quite elaborately staged, and it is understandable that this limits the number of offerings the evening can sustain. However, the shorter pieces and the host’s antics were probably the most enjoyable parts of the evening. I do hope Punched becomes a regular part of the Nightingale’s programme and, if it does, that they find a way to mix in some snappier acts, to truly bring the evening to life.