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Puppetry of Penis Rises Again at West End Apollo

The Australian adult cabaret show, Puppetry of the Penis, will return to the West End next month, featuring the original ‘genital origami creators’, David Friend and Simon Morley, for three weeks only at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, from 4 to 23 October 2004.

Since premiering, under the title Dicks Tricks, at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 1998, the show has become an international phenomenon. After an Australian tour, it became the surprise hit of the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000 and then transferred to the West End’s Whitehall Theatre for an extended five-month run in 2000/2001 (See News, 3 Oct 2000).

At the time, West End producer, David Johnson, having seen the show in Edinburgh, said he quickly realised the 'boys' had a hit in their hands when the woman sitting next to them wet her pants during the Kentucky Fried Chicken impression. At the Whitehall (now converted into the Trafalgar Studios), Puppetry of the Penis broke box office records, with both the biggest ever advance box office as well as the highest ever daily box office take.

The show returns to the West End after having mounted productions and tours around the world, including an extensive UK regional schedule, and having proved a hit, yet again, at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, which finished in Scotland earlier this week.

For the benefit of the still uninformed, Puppetry of the Penis features the two well-endowed Australian men, who manipulate their genitalia into various shapes, objects and landmarks. Amongst their popular penile impressions are The Hamburger, The Windsurfer, The Loch Ness Monster and The Slow-Emerging Mollusc. A video camera projects all the intimate details onto a large on-stage screen, ensuring that no one could possibly miss a thing.

The production does carry a warning as “an adults-only, non-sexual show featuring full-frontal male nudity”. As a warm-up, the show is preceded by stand-up from British comic, Hattie Hayridge.

Prior to Puppetry of the Penis, the Apollo will host another Edinburgh transfer in comedian Ross Noble whose latest show, Noodlemeister, has a limited run from 3 September to 2 October 2004 (See News, 21 Jul 2004).

- by Terri Paddock

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