The Ugly Duckling By Shadowgraphy

Shadowgraphy comes to the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre on Saturday 28 November, with the show running through to Sunday 29 November. It's puppeteer Drew Colby retelling Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling, and the whole thing is done using shadowgraphy — the old art of hand shadows. If you've never seen it properly, that's exactly what it sounds like: the performer creates and animates images using nothing but their hands, a light, and a few simple props. The story follows a tiny duckling on a journey of self-discovery through the seasons, and Colby tells it entirely through those hand-shaped figures.

There's music to go with it, too, with Antonio Vivaldi and Max Richter providing the soundtrack. And the performance doesn't end when the story does: afterwards, Colby runs a 'You Can Make Hand Shadows Too' workshop, where he teaches the audience how to make four specific hand shadow animals. So you get the show and then a chance to try a bit of it yourself.

The venue is part of the story here. The Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre is a theatre, museum, and education unit in Glasgow's West End, and it's a proper home for this kind of work. It houses an extensive mask and puppet library and archive, permanent exhibition areas, a mask studio, and a marionette carving workshop. It also runs a Saturday family show programme that brings in touring companies working in glove, rod, marionette, shadow, table-top, and black light theatre, so this fits right in with what they do.

Tickets are £7.50 to £7.95, and the centre is at 8-10 Balcarres Avenue, Glasgow West End G12 0QF. The show runs Saturday 28 November and Sunday 29 November.