Tap Tap Theatre’s Captain Morgan double bill

Bristol’s excellent Tap Tap Theatre return this month with a brace of rip-roaring comedy adventures, promising all the monsters, sword fights and shivered timbers you’d expect from a Hollywood blockbuster, delivered by two actors and one musician.
Using nothing but their bodies to conjure objects and set, Captain Morgan and First Mate Hammond must slay monsters, battle sea gods and outwit the dastardly privateer Renshaw to claim the ultimate prize: the secrets of time travel.
Here’s the shows’ writer and director Ben Behrens to tell us more.

What’s Tap Tap’s mission statement, Ben?
More than anything we want to make great shows. We’re all about small budgets and big ideas. Unpretentious storytelling with humour and heart, using small indicators to conjure big worlds. We try to make work that is original and fun.

It sounds like a demanding performance for the two actors… tell us more?
This story was never meant to be told with anything more than two actors and one musician: no props, no set. It’s all been designed to fit into that aesthetic. One of the big moments making the show for me was talking to a friend about constructing a sword-fight scene with no swords. I didn’t know how it could possibly work just through mime.
But he said, ‘no, you’ve got this the wrong way round. Without real swords you can have a much more outlandish and ridiculous fight than you could otherwise’. That totally changed my perspective on what we were doing. Having two actors and no props is actually liberating: because you’re not tied to what you can see, you can conjure anything.
The payoff is that it is exhausting for the actors: there’s nowhere to hide, and very little time during the hour-long show where they’re not doing something physically demanding in full view of the audience. 

So, the Sands of Time: why are Morgan and Hammond searching for the secrets of time travel?
As a great treasure in itself and a vehicle for finding even more treasure. Then there’s the need to keep it from falling into the wrong hands…

Are these shows directed at a particular age, or do you hope they can cross age boundaries?
Whilst we never set out to make a children’s show, the more we’ve performed the more we’ve realised families are drawn to it too, and I think that – with the exception of very small children – both shows offer something for just about everyone. In the ‘Poseidon’ scene, for instance, kids get to hear and see a giant sea monster at the same time as the adults are enjoying the wordplay and narrative payoffs. So we hope that no one feels excluded from what we’re offering.

Are these pirate stories set in a particular time and place – a 17C/18C ‘golden’ age of piracy?
In a story about the search for time travel, historical accuracy is not something that has troubled us too much, so if any audience members are sticklers for historical detail I can only apologise. If pressed, I’d have to say around the latter period of the Golden Age of Piracy, perhaps early 18th century? But in a story about time travel, they don’t necessarily stay there…

How do the two Captain Morgan shows compare – e.g. is one a little darker?
Broadly speaking, they both offer the same things: lots of jokes, a rollicking story, ridiculous characters and great music and sound effects from Dave. If you enjoy one show, you’ll enjoy the other. But I think we’ve all evolved as theatre-makers over the years and perhaps … Sea of Souls is a bit more joyful? A little less cynical, maybe?
I also think we’ve improved and so, whilst the first show has lots of great physical moments in it, there are action sequences in part 2 that are more ambitious than anything we’ve attempted before. We push the form a bit more – the final 15 minutes of show 2 is the thing I’m most proud of in the whole series.

Any obvious influences (the pictures and blurb vaguely suggest Tintin, for example)?
So many! Obviously none of us would be here without Pirates of the Caribbean reigniting interest in pirates. And I think Indiana Jones has always been in the back of my mind. But it was watching Joe Bone’s one man show Bane that I realised the things you could do on a bare stage with one actor and a musician.
In addition, I can’t help but love comedians like The Pajama Men who create so much physically out of nothing – as well as the most deranged characters. Then you have Steven Berkoff’s intense mime choreography. And you’re very right about Tintin! The idea of a series of adventures featuring recurring characters that can be read in any order comes from there, I think. The sheer excitement and adventure in those books – that’s what we’re aiming for onstage.

Captain Morgan and the Sands of Time and Captain Morgan and the Sea of Souls are at the Wardrobe Theatre – alternate nights from Tue Mar 29 to Fri Apr 1, then a double bill on Sat Apr 2. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/captain-morgane-sea-of-souls

For more info on Tap Tap Theatre, visit www.taptaptheatre.com