Meet Fred

Hijinx Theatre / Blind Summit

Great Britain

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Being different isn’t easy! Fred is a spirited rag doll, only half a metre tall and completely politically incorrect. He wants to be a normal guy who gets a job and meets a girl. Instead, he finds himself in an absurd show in which his life gradually spirals out of control. He’s even threatened with losing his PLA (Puppetry Living Allowance). Freds dependence on those who pull his strings becomes a symbol for social constraints, prejudices and abuse of power par excellence. Meet Fred is an astutely subversive social satire whose humour shines the deepest black.

Hijinx Theatre is an inclusive theatre group from Cardiff in whose productions actors with and without learning disabilities perform together. A network of academies for actors with disabilities supports their work. Meet Fred was created in cooperation with the Blind Summit theatre, which has already received several awards as one of the most internationally successful British puppet theatres. For the unconventional open form of the performance, the group draws on the Japanese puppet theatre of bunraku, which it combines with contemporary figure play and performance.