Stories from Covid, Lyric theatre.

This intervention project by Lyric Theatre in Dorset invited artist to take over the Lyric theatre Van. Each artist was given the brief of producing a performance that collected people stories and experiences of lockdown. Marina Renee-Cemmick and Sophia Blee created two tinkering puppets that had arrived from the moon. They filled the van up with bits of waste metal, beads, wood, lost and found objects which would be used creatively by the public to make their own puppet. The public were invited into the van to speak with Barbra over tea and biscuits. Barbra is a puppet with a typewriter, a head scarf and pearl earrings. She looks like she may tell your fortune, but instead she gathers the publics stories, memories and experiences of Lockdown. For the puppets them-selves were on the moon for lockdown and had no idea of what it was like. She then asks the public to create a little friend, a puppet friend, like herself, that could keep them company. She then passes you on to the Herbert, whose tinkering at the back of the van with his tools. Arriving at Herbert the public dives into various boxes to choose head and hands an used objects which brings their imagined puppet to life. The finished piece of the project is installation of everyone's puppets along south the written stories from Covid.