Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival this summer becomes a laboratory for re‑imagining classic horror through the unexpected medium of puppetry. Michael Hockey’s 'TO BE FRANK' and Yngvild Aspeli’s 'Dracula: Lucy’s Dream' each take a familiar Gothic figure and stretch it into a contemporary commentary, using oversized puppets to make the invisible tangible.
Puppetry as a Lens for Modern Myths
Hockey’s show reinterprets Frankenstein as a balloon‑sized puppet that riffs on punk music while questioning the ethics of creating conscious life. He began shaping the piece in 2022 as a reaction to what he describes as a societal pressure to conform, a theme that resonates with today’s debates over artificial intelligence and the responsibilities of tech giants such as OpenAI and Palantir.
Aspeli’s 'Dracula: Lucy’s Dream' places a towering puppet of the vampire at the centre of a performance that probes autonomy and repression through the eyes of Lucy Westenra. By rendering the mythic monster in physical form, she makes the abstract concerns of power and control accessible to a live audience, turning fear into a shared, cathartic experience.
Scheduling the Spectacle
'TO BE FRANK' runs at Pleasance Courtyard from August 5‑30, excluding the 12th, 19th and 26th, with shows at 2.05pm. 'Dracula: Lucy’s Dream' is staged at Pleasance at EICC from August 6‑29, also skipping the 12th, 19th and 26th, but at 5.30pm. Both productions are part of the same festival programme, offering distinct yet complementary evenings of experimental theatre.
The creators stress that the performances are not merely visual novelties; they aim to give audiences a collective space to confront anxieties about creation, autonomy and societal constraints. Laughter, they argue, becomes a conduit for confronting deeper existential questions.
Creative Roots and Influences
Hockey’s artistic foundation comes from the École Philippe Gaulier, a renowned clowning school in Paris that emphasizes physical storytelling and bold character work. Aspeli leads Plexus Polaire, a company celebrated for its puppet‑driven adaptations, including a previous 'Moby Dick' production that similarly blends narrative depth with striking visual design.
Both shows illustrate how puppetry, often dismissed as children’s entertainment, can serve as a powerful vehicle for sophisticated storytelling. By inflating familiar figures to monumental scale, the artists invite viewers to see the familiar in a new, almost unsettling light, prompting reflection on the boundaries between creator and creation.