Festive fun and havoc at The Wardrobe

Guaranteed to make family members of all ages laugh, feel good, and invariably get up and dance by the end, Kid Carpet shows are hard to do justice in words.

Ed Patrick’s self-styled Casio keyboard-infused “peculiar disco punk music”, is perfectly pitched against sets built from “things that other people have thrown away, and cardboard”.

What he manages to create with his merry band troupe of Noisy Animals – Hedgehog, Badger, Bear and Gorilla – is a unique and wonderful blend of high production and lo-fi aesthetics, of clowny energy, great songs and somehow relatable nonsense.

From Noisy Holiday and Noisy Nativity to the online, lockdown-inspired Noisy Animals in Isolation, Kid Carpet shows are shot through with a vibrancy and an authenticity that has deservedly won him an intergenerational fanbase, and one that keeps coming back for every new instalment.

With new material from the Noisy Animals set to drop very soon onto their very own YouTube channel Noisy TV, and plenty of community and documentary projects underway too, Patrick is a ceaseless innovator.

Returning to the live stage for a festive run of shows, Kid Carpet & The Noisy Animals present: A wonderful magical Christmas filled with all the usual stuff will be at The Wardrobe Theatre from December 16-23. Bristol 24/7 went down to Patrick’s studio for a croissant, coffee and chat about the Kid Carpet aesthetic, how the new show is shaping up, and the true meaning of Christmas.

What are you up to this morning?

“Today I’m continuing with my script for the Christmas show, which is very nearly finished; I’m also cutting up some audio up, changing some of the words to a famous song, and it’s made me laugh a lot over the last 24 hours thinking about it. It’s totally irrelevant to the show, but I think I’m going to have to put it in. It’s all about Badger having a bad back, and it will be a lovely musical moment.”

Can you give us an outline of your upcoming Christmas show at the Wardrobe?

“At the last minute we got the opportunity to put on a show, and we thought: ‘Great. Let’s go and muck around in front of some real people, and feel like we’re human beings again’.

We were looking at the idea of doing a best-of, with games and songs from the previous Noisy Animals shows that we’ve done, a bit like the Super Mega Rockin’ Rock Show. But then we were very aware that people really want stories, too.

So we’ve chosen some elements from the Christmas show we did in lockdown last year, and some YouTube bits we’ve got coming up that are going to drop as part of the Noisy Animals YouTube channel – Noisy TV, and we’re using some of that to co-promote the show. It’s current new material for me so I wanted to be able to do that live.

In terms of what the show’s going to be about, it’s Christmas Day in the Noisy Animals’ house. They want to open all their presents straightaway, but they’re not allowed to, until all their grannies arrive. And we’re going to have a traditional Christmas Day, with a lovely lunch, and maybe we’ll watch some telly.

Kid Carpet performs in Noisy Nativity – photo: Paul Blakemore

How do your shows take shape, generally?

Normally, we’ll have a conceptual idea first. With Noisy Holiday, we knew I was going on a middle class holiday with these unruly kids. For Noisy Nativity we knew it would be a straight story, but with all those opportunities to muck with it. And for this one, the starting point was Christmas Day.

But the more I do stuff the more I realise that whatever the initial ideas, it’s more about just messing around and having fun. It’s not how much tech or infrastructure you’ve got; it’s more about the clowning and the jokes and the songs than it is about anything else, really.

What is it that’s special about The Wardrobe Theatre, as a venue?

Tucked away through the back of the Old Market Assembly, it’s like a speakeasy, almost. I really like that you can see the other half of the audience, and you see their reactions.

When you’re end-on to them, you can feel almost like you’re watching TV, and it’s just you. But when you see the other audience there as well, it’s that added intimate feeling. You feel like you’re part of a gang.

In terms of music for children, do you have any influences?

I started out making music for nightclubs and rock shows. Then I had kids and sort of accidentally got into making music for children; since I was singing and making up things with my kids anyway, it wasn’t a big stretch to do it for other people’s kids too.

In terms of influences, I’d cite people like Michael Rosen and Ivor Cutler, kids TV from the 70s and 80s like Tiswas, Bagpuss, The Clangers, and a general love of nonsense and leftfield ideas rather than straight jokes. I take a lot of the comfort in using little toys and an animation set.

Can you explain a little more about Noisy TV and your recent video work?

We started just before the first lockdown with the aim to make 10 episodes of a show featuring the Noisy Animals. We’ve got all these sets made – a front room, kitchen, lounge, stairs, garden, etc – and we have now shot three, which we’ve been finishing off with extra songs and pop-out videos.

The first episode is set to drop just before the Wardrobe show starts, and all three will be up between then and Christmas on Noisy TV, as well as with some extra, associated video content.

Along with the online live broadcast show that we did last Christmas, the Noisy TV project has shown me there’s a kind of merging of broadcasting, youtubing, and live ways of working – it can all connect up. We’ll see how that goes over the next few years.

The audience that comes to theatre tends to be middle class; if I do a music gig, a whole different audience comes to it. So in terms of getting people to the Noisy Animals, a YouTube thing can reach greater numbers, and maybe if they get into it online, they might then go to see it on a live stage too.

I’m also making some documentaries with Arts Council funding, working with some schoolkids as well as some children from a group called Special Friends. One is going to be about how to dance like animals, and the other one is about impossible facts about animals. It would be really nice to be able to make some more, because it’s really fun.

In what ways has being a dad changed your work as Kid Carpet?

I think the brain fog that you have as a parent of young kids just wasn’t conducive to a lifestyle of coming home late from gigs. So I changed direction; I was a bit clouded, and being able to focus just on the kids sharpened that focus, and made the direction a lot easier to navigate.

Preparations for A wonderful magical Christmas – photo: Ed Patrick

How do you achieve the balance of appealing to kids and adults just as much?

I make it for me. Really, they are grownup shows dressed up as kids shows. The way in to it might be that people who remember my material from when we were in nightclubs, and now have kids, think ‘it speaks to us!’

So much family theatre is patronising and middle class and stuffy. I want us all to muck about with this absurd world together, and rock out a little bit, have a laugh, have a cry – it’s for all of us.

Finally, what does Christmas mean to you?

To be honest, I would be happier lying on a beach at Christmas, far away from all the carols, and shopping, but to be able to do a silly show where you’re mucking about and making yourself laugh is fantastic, and I love that.

Kid Carpet & The Noisy Animals present: A wonderful magical Christmas filled with all the usual stuff is at The Wardrobe Theatre, The Old Market Assembly, 25 West St, Old Market, Bristol, BS2 0DF from December 16-23 at 11am and 2pm (no 2pm on 18,,22 and 23). Tickets are available at www.thewardrobetheatre.com.  

Main photo: Kid Carpet

Read more: Review: Noisy Nativity, Tobacco Factory Theatres

Listen to the latest episode of the Bristol 24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast: