Baba Shakespeare is a new production to be staged by Tower Theatre Company at the Arcola Tent from Tuesday 17th April - Wednesday 2nd May 2012 as part of the RSC Open Stages, which has been described as the UK's biggest amateur theatre project.

The script for Baba Shakespeare has been written by director Emmeline Winterbotham and is derived from the screenplay of the 1965 Merchant Ivory film Shakespeare Wallah, a true story that follows the family of actress Felicity Kendal as they travel around post-colonial India as a troupe of Shakespeare players.



Monday, 16 January 2012

Chop Chop!

It is time for me to cut out my designs on a bandsaw.  First the front and side elevations are transferred onto the wood, which has been squared up using a plane.  Below you can see the right lower leg under the pillar drill.  The holes for the joints are drilled whilst the wood is still square, which makes it much easier to get them nice and straight.


Below is the female monkey in a very primitive state, with all the wood still around the drawings.  Before bandsaws were around, this excess wood had to be removed by hand with a large chisel, but now this can be done faster and more accurately with a machine.  The wood here is jelutong; the hands and feet will be made later on out of lime.


Here is some bandsawing going on.  The trick is to cut out the first side of the design but not all the way round; if you leave tiny sections still attached, then the wood doesn't come off, which means you can turn the block over to cut out the second side and the base of the wood is still flat.  At the end you can go back and remove the wood around the first elevation using the bandsaw or a coping saw.


Here is the monkey post bandsaw, still looking a little strange but that will soon change once I start carving and the hard edges get taken off.

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