International Work
Puppets are used to tell stories in nearly every culture. It is a global phenomenon.
Puppets don’t have passports, but they speak a language that everyone can understand!
The Fetch Theatre's Artistic Director was also a founding member of Teatro Montemuru in 2001.
This company, based in the mountains of Portugal, have become one of Europe's top touring theatre companies. Purvin has designed several major productions for them and is committed to forging ongoing links. ("O Gigante" has completed a highly successful two year tour of Portugal.)
The Fetch has nurtured life long working relationships with artists from the Punjab in India. This cultural collaboration has manifested itself into three major touring shows in the UK.
Artists and poets from the Punjab have worked and performed with us to create work that has toured locally into rural areas, also into British Asian communities in the UK.
In 2006, thanks to the British Arts council, The Fetch visited the Ramayana Festival in Varanasi, India, in order to study a traditional theatrical presentation of the Ramayana. In return our Indian counterparts visited medieval Mystery plays in the UK.
This coming together inspired and directly led to 'Discovering The Ramayana', which toured to schools and colleges all over the West Midlands.
In 2009 the Fetch visited a peace festival in Israel, running puppetry workshops with Palestinian and Jewish children, delivering the workshops in a pine forest in Galilee.
We then toured our one man show "The Grateful Crane", into small village schools in the Punjab.
The Fetch is based in a rural location and therefore believes that it is essential to both export our rural identity and import new influences from other far off rural cultures.
All this work has been inspirational for us, and the company aims to maintain these links and nurture new ones in the future.
In spring 2015, the company performed five sold-out performances at the Prague Fringe and received rave reviews from the Czech press.
The Fetch returned to Portugal in the summer of 2015 to perform "East of The Sun, West of the Moon" at the Altitudes Festival near Lamago, and received a standing ovation.
In 2016 The Fetch toured East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon in the Ukraine, performing at the Gogol Festival in Kiev and then touring further to the city of Odessa on the Black sea. The tour was an immense success. The Fetch made many friends and we will be returning again next year.