2019 › London

Past event

Jessica Souhami Performance

How did it go?

Jessica Souhami engaged children at the Shaw Theatre in London from the very start of her performance by telling them all about her shadow puppet company Madame Souhami and Co. She showed the children pictures of her amazing, colourful and intricate puppets and explained how a shadow puppet theatre works. She told the children how she had an accident and hurt her shoulder which meant that she was unable to carry on with the theatre company. However, she had all of these characters and all of these stories to tell so she decided to put them into a picture book. She read the audience some of her stories and talked to them about how she created the illustrations using collage as well as showing them how you create surprise and suspense in a picture book using the very pages, ‘the spreads,’ themselves. Children loved her latest picture book Gerald the Lion and roared with laughter at the antics of Gerald the very small cat who thinks he is a lion!

What people said:

Thanks for having us! The children thoroughly enjoyed it!

Drayton Park Primary, London

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Venue:
Shaw Theatre, 100-110 Euston Road, London NW1 2AJ
Date:
Wednesday 9th October
Time:
10:30 am
Duration:
Approx. 1 hour
Age range:
Years 2, 3 and 4

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Jessica Souhami

Before she became a writer and illustrator, Jessica was a puppeteer. She made shadow puppets and, together with her puppet company Mme Souhami and Co., she travelled around the country bringing to life some of the stories that people have been telling one another for hundreds, and even thousands, of years. In the early 1990s Jessica stopped touring. She still wanted to tell stories but now she wanted to do it through books. Her first book was called The Leopard’s Drum, a story from West Africa. She went on to retell fantastic tales from around the world in her books including Rama and the Demon King, King Pom and the Fox, and Honk! Honk! Hold Tight.

Praise for The Leopard's Drum

The illustrations are outstanding. Adapted from characters created for [Jessica's] own travelling puppet shows, they startle and enchant like shadow puppets in a live performance.

The Independent


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