October 2023
The award-winning Box Tale Soup Theatre Company are known for their track record of excellent stage work and for “seamlessly blending multiple disciplines, including puppetry, mask, physical theatre and all original music”. Their latest piece, “Casting the Runes”, enjoyed impressive success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe over the summer and is now touring. Here, co-writer and performer Noel Byrne chats about the company’s work so far, why M.R. James’ work became the latest focus, and why puppetry is perfect for gothic tales…
I really love the sound of this latest show, Casting the Runes. Tell me a little bit about what drew you to adapt M.R. James’ supernatural thriller.
To put it simply, it’s a great story. Although James’ style is certainly of its time, his work is still very popular today, and there’s a good reason for that. When you read his stories, James’ gift for slowly, subtly building tension, creating this incredible atmosphere, is immediately clear. When we read the book, we thought it would make a great piece of theatre, and that we could do a good job of it, do something interesting with it, and that’s always a big part of choosing a piece to adapt – we need to feel that it would work for our style, that we could do it justice. Theatre is a great medium for a story like this because it gives you a sense of presence and immediacy that you just don’t get from anything else – you’re there, the story is unfolding live, right in front of you, you’re sharing it with other people, and that all heightens the experience of a story like ‘Casting the Runes’.
Puppetry questions now then – starting with what drew you, personally, to the art of puppetry as a means of theatrical storytelling?
As a company, we love working with puppets, and puppetry features in all our work in some form. Puppets are magical, instantly transportive, with an otherworldly quality that engages an audience’s imagination immediately. I love the fact that they allow us to show and do things that would otherwise be impossible on stage. In practical terms it’s been a sort of accidental love affair for our company, as we didn’t intend to have so many puppets in our first show, but things snowballed as the ideas developed.
Since then we’ve learned a lot along the way, and I like to think we have our own unique approach to our puppetry now. We employ puppetry in different ways according to the needs of each show, and it’s always exciting to discover what works. In artistic terms I think I’ve always been drawn to puppetry – Jim Henson’s work was a big influence on me growing up, not just the Muppets but the more fantastical work like Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. It made me realise that anything was possible with puppetry, and I still feel that same sense of magic when I see great puppetry now.
And when it comes to crafting a gothic, suspenseful thriller from the “grandfather of British horror” through puppetry, where, for you, does the greatest power lie?
For a ghost story I think puppetry is perfect because of that magical, otherworldly quality. Used in the right way puppets can also seem unnerving, unnatural, and in a ghost story, where isolation is important, puppets can make an actor seem alone even when there are other characters onstage. I’m really proud of the puppets we’ve made for this show too, and I think our mysterious villain, Mr. Karswell, is pretty intimidating – people often say his eyes follow them around the room!
Obviously, your shows rely on actors skilfully interacting with
puppets – what would you say is the key to crafting such interactions well?
Practice is, of course, a huge part of it, and we’ve worked so much with puppets now that it comes more naturally than in the beginning. Keeping the puppet ‘alive’ is crucial too, making sure they never seem like an inanimate object in a scene. Otherwise it depends on the specific puppet and show, although there are certain principles that almost always apply – breath, focus, attention. Most important of all though I think, is belief. When I look at the puppet during the show, I see the living character, existing in the same world of the play as my character does, as I do. And if I invest my belief and focus in the puppet, it very quickly helps the audience do the same.
You are also performing in the show, so I’m interested to know how that influences the writing process. Do you feel that seeing a piece from both sides of the curtain has a significant influence on the work you create?
You’re wearing different hats, and we try not to let one interfere with the other too much – when we’re writing, our focus is simply on putting together the best script we can, and that approach applies at each stage of production. But making the work from start to finish means that we can really fine tune as we go, whether that’s design tweaks or script edits – nothing is sacred, we’re always happy to make changes if we think the end result will be better. I really love being involved in all aspects of a show’s creation – it’s one of the things I like most about running a company and making our own work, because you get to see the idea through from start to finish. We put a great deal of time and care into all sides of the show, and because there’s a real consistency of vision, I think that shows in the end product.
The show also boasts an eco-conscious approach, commendably making use of recycled materials for set and props. Is this environmental kindness something close to the heart of Box Tale Soup?
Sustainability is important to us, and our work, in several different ways – financially and practically, as well as environmentally. Although we use recycled, reclaimed and sustainable materials wherever we can, I don’t think you’d necessarily guess that when looking at the set, props and puppets – we put a lot of work into making it look beautiful. But using these materials really adds to the aesthetic, giving a distinctive look and encouraging a resourceful approach. There’s also something special about being able to tell people the beautiful puppet they’ve just seen started life as a frozen pizza box! We have a sort of unofficial motto when we’re making a show, ‘Don’t be wasteful, be creative’, and we try to apply that to everything we do, not just the prop making!
And Casting the Runes also promises original suspenseful music. Is this something you have had a hand in as co-writer? What can you tell me about the approach to scoring a show like this?
Our composer, Dan Melrose has worked with us almost from the beginning of the company, and we’ve known him a lot longer than that. So we work closely together, and the music develops alongside the rest of the show. In the beginning we’ll have a conversation about the style of the show, and what genres the music might involve, then Dan will begin working on a few ideas, uploading them to a shared folder. As the show begins to take shape, we’ll go back and forth with requests and edits for the music, and again, this can continue right up to the end of the rehearsal process – if we need a small tweak, or a track of a slightly different length, Dan will be providing changes as we go.
For this show specifically we had a few pieces that we started with as inspiration, and a few key sounds that we felt would be appropriate. Low, sustained notes, string slides, train and typewriter-like rhythms – we wanted a mix of tracks that would convey a sense of creeping dread at times, then a desperate urgency, a sense of mystery at others. And as ever, Dan has delivered a fantastic soundtrack for ‘Casting the Runes’.
Now, the last glimpse I had of a Box Tale Soup show was for The Wind in the Willows, and yet here we have an example of you further establishing yourselves as “one of the go-to creators of classic Gothic theatre” with previous shows including The Turn of the Screw and The Picture of Dorian Gray. The scope of the company is clearly quite wide, but I’m interested to know if you have a personal preference for the kinds of shows you make?
In practical terms, to exist as a touring company, it makes sense to have family shows available, especially if you can tour them alongside your other work, as we do. So, while performing ‘Casting the Runes’, we’re also touring ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. However, when we first set out to create work for younger audiences, we were adamant that it should follow the same principles as our other shows, and be made to the same standards. So I’m very proud of all our family shows, and I think adults in the audience are often surprised by how much they enjoy them!
We don’t really take a different approach – we look at the best way of telling the story, think about the audience we’re aiming for and go from there. We’ve been around long enough that some children who came to our first family shows are now old enough to enjoy our more adult work too! If forced to choose one or the other, I’d go with the adult shows of course – there’s more nuance, emotion and range – but the family shows are tremendous fun to make.
And finally, having had huge success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last month and now setting out on a pretty big tour, what would you say has been the highlight of bringing this show to audiences so far?
The response in Edinburgh was amazing, people absolutely loved the show, and we had a great time with it at the Fringe. A show like ‘Casting the Runes’ is great fun to perform live partly because of the audience reactions – never quite the same from one show to the next. Are you safe in your seat? Perhaps, perhaps not… And the audience themselves add to the atmosphere – you can feel the tension growing in the room, hear the gasps, whispers or nervous laughter around you – we’ve even had a good scream! So it’s a fun journey to take with an audience, and I’m really looking forward to sharing it with everyone on tour.
“Casting the Runes” has touring dates available up until November 25th 2023, with more dates and venues to be added – more information about venues, dates and tickets can be found here. For fellow Yorkshire-based folk – the show will be at Harrogate Theatre February 14th 2023.
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