Jonny Fluffypunk goes digital with Glos libraries
Stand-up poet, give-up musician and lo-fi theatre maker Jonny Fluffypunk has been dragging his art around the country and occasionally beyond for over 20 years. Fiercely DIY, resolutely home-made and by turns funny, wistful and oddly moving, Jonny's work is both a celebration of the beauty in the mundane and an elaborate cry for help.
He recently debuted his first family production, The End of the Pier Show, a lo-fi spoken word theatre and puppetry performance. Due to be premiered at Stroud and Gloucester libraries just as lockdown struck, Jonny talks about what happened next and how he translated his live show into a digital one. Armed with his phone, a broomstick, some free apps and a lot of imagination… his show was streamed over half-term in February 2021. The show was as a collaboration between Gloucestershire Libraries, Pound Arts in Corsham, and Strike A Light, with the research and development phase supported by Art of Libraries and has been watched over 700 times.
How do you normally work? How have you had to adapt your work during lockdown, and not meeting groups face to face?
Creativity-wise, this should be my worst nightmare. As a theatre maker and performer, I see what I do as about intimacy; getting up close. I’ve no ambition to be on big stages, I like taking art to unusual spaces and winning over folks who might never otherwise see live theatre. I’m a performer; I need a breathing, touchable audience. I riff off them. I get my art kicks playing with the energies in a room. You can’t really do that sat in your pants, shouting at muted thumbnail faces on a laptop.
A few of my contemporaries have decided adapting to this new paradigm just isn’t for them; they’ll just sit it out and do something else until things are more normal. But I’ve chosen to try to adapt. Okay, so that was prompted partly by the fact that I needed the money, yes; but mainly, it was due to the fact that the preview tour of my brand new show for families, ‘The End of the Pier Show’ was due to start, as it turned out, three days after lockdown began. All that work and preparation had filled me full of a hyped energy that refused to be put on hold indefinitely, so after the obligatory few weeks adjusting to the madness, I started trying to make the best of it.
One of the main things all of us have had to learn to deal with is that we’re now spending a lot of time, creative and otherwise, on camera and on screen. Yep, it’s weird. It’s certainly not what I signed up for as an artist; it can’t replace the buzz of a packed room and metaphorically holding a crowd in the palm of your hand (rather than literally, as it is now). But, seeing as plenty of actors have for decades happily embraced the very different worlds of being on stage and being on the telly, finding pros and cons to both, I don’t see why I can’t, too.
How have you and the groups you work with been able to respond creatively?
I’ve found, on the whole, that organisations I work with have been keen to carry on that work, and we’ve all learned together how to make stuff happen. Some projects went on hiatus, their commissioners unsure how they could be delivered in this new world. I’m glad to say almost all of them have since come up with new workable approaches, and the projects dusted off.
Sometimes, the solutions have involved streamed workshops and performances. Sometimes organisations have decided to make the most of it, and instead of a one-off zoom experience, or whatever, want something they can use as and when they want. Filmed content, in other words. For both approaches, me and a roomful of people has now become me and a camera. Of necessity, lockdown has turned me into a middle-aged livestreamed vlogger and a movie-maker. And I’m loving it.
What top tips would you give an artist testing out new work in a digital realm?
Look, I’m proud of the way I work; I’m a militant ramshackle fundamentalist. What I do is deliberate, lo-fi, DIY and homespun. I have a heart of cardboard and a gaffa-tape soul. I make stuff that can go anywhere and adapt to anything. I’m a big believer in great art being born of limitation; I like imposing parameters and seeing what’s achievable with a bit of determination and ingenuity. All my theatre shows are designed to be operated by myself; I like inventing little ways of delivering sound and lights and visuals that I can pack away in a little suitcase and put up anywhere. Stuff gets made in my shed and everything fits into the back of a car. And that philosophy adapts well to new paradigms. Online is just another ad-hoc venue.
I don’t have a pet cameraperson in my house. I don’t even have a ‘proper’ camera. But I’ve got a phone, and that gets gaffa’d to a broomstick which gets gaffa’d to a tripod. And I rapidly learned to treat it as my surrogate audience - an audience of one, yes, but it’s audience. Someone to play to, someone to play off, and play with. Loom up close for whispered confessional or, conversely, for intimidation purposes. Turn your back to it. Disappear off screen and return from an unexpected direction. Play with timing. Play with blackout and desk-top props. Occasionally I’ll pick the camera /broomstick /tripod up, whisper reassuringly to it, and take it off on a hand-held journey. Keep in mind what’s in frame and what isn’t, and you have all you need to become your own immersive experimental theatre. You control the viewer’s experience; and that’s exciting. It’s new possibilities. It’s getting a little bit of that buzz back
Tech-wise, well, no fancy expensive film editing software here; I do all the production using free apps, designed for kids to put clips on YouTube, Again, it’s lo-fi and DIY. With imagination, you can do great things with such simple tools. I’ve learned, for instance, to think it through first. Decide the shots I want and do most of the editing in-camera, rather than the usual practice of shooting tons of stuff and making the decisions in the edit afterwards.
How have you adapted your work to work with libraries and with families?
So, that new ‘lo-fi spoken word theatre and puppetry’ show of mine, The End of the Pier Show, had been in development before lockdown with wonderful support from Strike A Light, Gloucestershire Libraries and Create Gloucestershire’s Art of Libraries programme; we’d run tie-in workshops with families in Gloucester and Stroud libraries, and Stroud library staff had been brilliant in accommodating all my random, last-minute pleas for rehearsal space. I always make shows that are designed to go anywhere; that aren’t reliant on the ambience and technical set-up of a ‘black box’ theatre to work, and libraries- that last, beautiful bastion of something free for the people- are always what I have in mind when I’m ‘visioning’ such things. And I reckon if I can hold an audience amid the competing attentions of shelves of colourful books, I can hold one anywhere. The show had been due to be premiered at Stroud and Gloucester libraries when lockdown struck; after a few months when, like everyone else, I just tried to get some sense of what the future held, my ace producers at Strike a Light hatched a plan to film a version of the show and get it out there digitally. It was streamed out, free to view, over half-term in February 2021 as a collaboration between Gloucestershire Libraries, Pound Arts in Corsham, and Strike A Light, and was watched over 700 times, getting some wonderful feedback:
‘Our whole family loved the show (not just the kids). Quirky, fun and creative! Perfect way to beat the lockdown boredom this half term.’
‘Really loved how it felt like a live performance. It was filmed in a way which mirrored how your mind zooms into certain aspects when you’re watching from the audience of a show and didn’t try to mirror TV not stay static in the audience.’
‘Enjoyed the subtle bits of humour suitable for adults’
‘Incredibly well done. So hard to perform with no audience and yet the performer completely pulled it off. Love the lo-fi sets, varied dialogue, rap/rhyme, puppets. Entertaining but with depth.’
If it helped in some little way to keep libraries in the hearts and minds of their communities then I’ll sleep happy. And I can’t wait to get back to doing real live shows inside them.
As well as the show stuff, the always-up-for-it people of West Midlands library services, through arts organisation Poetry on Loan, asked me to write and film little pieces for individual library users, and other organisations wanted little 5 or 10 minute ‘workshop idea’ videos they could upload for stressed-out home schoolers. After a lot of playing around and practice, I found that once I’d written the piece, or prepped the workshop, I could conceive, film, edit, title, soundtrack (using my ukulele and trusty 1980s keyboard), voiceover and upload a 5-10 minute film of it- visuals tweaked to suit my desired aesthetic- in about 30-40 minutes.
What have you learnt from the experience?
As the rain lashes down outside, I guess there’s something to be said for sitting on the sofa with a cider, while out there, somewhere, recorded me sweats his guts out on other people’s laptop screens. And I don’t miss the driving.
What next?
I guess like everyone else I just listen to the news and wonder. I’ve got a couple of workshops to film this afternoon, and I’ve just had an email confirming that a summer festival I’m booked at is definitely going ahead, so I’ll take that as a green shoot of hope.
Jonny Fluffypunk
“Of necessity, lockdown has turned me into a middle-aged livestreamed vlogger and a movie-maker. And I’m loving it. ”
“I’m a big believer in great art being born of limitation; I like imposing parameters and seeing what’s achievable with a bit of determination and ingenuity. ”
“Keep in mind what’s in frame and what isn’t, and you have all you need to become your own immersive experimental theatre. ”
“I always make shows that are designed to go anywhere; that aren’t reliant on the ambience and technical set-up of a ‘black box’ theatre to work, and libraries- that last, beautiful bastion of something free for the people- are always what I have in mind when I’m ‘visioning’ such things. ”
“As the rain lashes down outside, I guess there’s something to be said for sitting on the sofa with a cider, while out there, somewhere, recorded me sweats his guts out on other people’s laptop screens.”
Jonny’s show is a continuation of the Art of Libraries programme. The programme was piloted in 6 libraries over 3 years and encouraged children and young people to take part in a range of creative activities from circus workshops to animation workshops and to watch live theatre - and claim their place in these spaces in the heart of the community.
In 2020 Gloucester Libraries commissioned three artists to test new and innovative ways for libraries to engage virtually with families whilst they weren’t able to host groups and activities inside the libraries themselves.
The artists have shared their experiences in this blog series (their creative journeys and some top tips) so that other performers can gain insights into making the transition from a live to digital space.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing blogs from a visual artist and a theatre company as well as a toolkit for library staff and anyone interested in working creatively in libraries.
If you are inspired to work in libraries and would like to find out more please email libraries-readiscover@gloucestershire.gov.uk.
Jonny has two collections of writings published by Burning Eye Books, and he has toured several full-length solo ‘stand-up spoken word theatre’ shows, going to all sorts of oddball spaces in a gleeful celebration of humanity and doing stuff together.
He also has a new show about hope gestating right at this moment somewhere in his heart. When not doing stuff on a stage, Jonny runs workshops with anyone and everyone who likes writing and speaking words.
Contact Jonny via jonnyfluffypunk.co.uk. All images credit: Jonny Fluffypunk