Billy Twinkle: Requiem for a Golden Boy

I've always liked puppets. To describe Ronnie Burkett as a good puppeteer would be a grotesque understatement. He's really pretty awesome. I'm told he's a great writer as well although that was less clear in this stodgy, self-indulgent show that works only as a result of the tremendous marionette work.

From the start it's pretty clear the show is going to meander. The opening moments offer some clever work, a puppet striptease is a novelty and a technically impressive one at that, but there is little drive. The sentimental journey through Billy's life is pacy enough but has a wildly divergent tone and throughout the stakes feel very low. A sudden trip into a rather uncomfortable situation with a businessman is hugely effecting but is quickly washed over as we return to the rose tinted story. The conclusion feels so hideously inevitable that tension never kicks in as we speed towards the happy ending. Burkett places himself very much front and centre but is constantly upstaged by his brilliant creations. He's an exciting performer and his bitchy wit is consistently funny but the combination of puppeteer and puppet doesn't always work, he just gets in the way.

Triumphing over everything though, and entirely saving the piece, is the sheer magic of these marionettes. If I'd seen more high quality puppet shows I suspect I'd have been less kind to the uneven plotline but staged with these little wooden dolls who give better acting performances than many actors it's hard not to be entranced. They truly come to life in a manner I really didn't expect. Their movements aren't precise or even necessarily terribly accurate, each marionette isn't controlled by several people as in Bunraku and other styles seen recently in London (War Horse and Shun-kin being obvious examples), it's just Burkett and often just one hand. Yet they come alive in a very real way. The staging is pretty slick with music and flashing lights covering scene changes in a manner that totally follows the cruise ship theme and the set is a clever construction (although placed too far from the audience to my mind).

All in all, style triumphs over substance. I didn't particularly take to the more meaningful elements which are buried in the overlong and self-indulgent, quasi-metaphysical plot but that didn't prevent my enjoying myself even if it was for rather shallow reasons. If Burkett fails here as a storyteller, he has succeeded on every level at breathing life into wooden mannequins.