Python meets David Attenborough

TWO performers who met while studying physical theatre have developed a stage show inspired by their shared love of David Attenborough.

Jess Clough-MacRae, 31, from Bristol, and Jonathan Tilley, 36, from London, became friends when they were both students at the École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

They formed Clownfish Theatre and created Attenborough and his Animals, which revisits highlights of his television series such as Our Planet.

The characters include a blue whale, fish, racer snakes, crabs, lizards, gorillas and spiders.

Jess explains: “Jon plays Attenborough and I play the animals and we recreate the documentaries live on stage. I’d love to be able to say it’s balletic or acrobatic but it’s certainly not that graceful — it’s sort of Monty Python-esque, or like Mr Bean.

“They’re animal impressions but they’re very specifically based on certain scenes. The joy in it for people is that they recognise them.

“Jon and I studied clown, mime and physical theatre in Paris. We studied animals for a month in the first year and I thought, ‘Yes, this is my thing’, because everything until then I’d been really terrible at. I discovered a bit of a joy in playing animals.

“After we graduated, we moved to Bristol with some other friends. Someone said to me, ‘What is your ideal role?’ and I said, ‘Animals’, and this person said, ‘Oh, you should do a show with David Attenborough, where he does the voiceover and you do the animals’.

“I repeated that to Jon, who said, ‘I’ll be David Attenborough’ and that was it. It was just a sort of joke but then we decided to give it a try. We did a scratch night and it just grew from there. It’s about the physical comedy and the body doing all the work, which is fun.

“We’ve found that sea creatures and birds are the easiest to really bring to life because they’re so far from the human body. They’re a lot of fun — the crab and the blue whale are some of my favourites.

“We’ve got gorillas and orangutans and I think they play a more emotional part in it because they’re closer to us, I suppose. The hardest ones to do are four-legged mammals. It’s much easier to be a fish or a lizard but a pantomime horse is referenced.

“We have pretty glorious soundtrack because most of it is taken from David Attenborough documentaries with the odd surprise.

“We’ve stolen all our material from the greatest man alive, so we tend to get quite a nice response. You can’t go wrong with Attenborough — what a guy.”

• Attenborough and his Animals is at the Kenton Theatre, Henley, on Sunday, April 9 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £20 adults, £18 concessions. The show is suitable for ages six and over and has a running time of 70 minutes with no interval. For more information and to buy tickets, call the box office on (01491) 525050 or visit www.kentontheatre.co.uk