Puppeteers pull the strings as Life of Pi stagehands nominated for Olivier Award
THEY have no lines to say, and their presence is as unobtrusive as can be. But the seven performers who operate a puppet tiger in the stage adaptation of Life of Pi have been nominated for an Olivier Award for acting.
The group of puppeteers have been included in the best supporting actor category. Three of them are women, but they play a male Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
Fred Davis, Tom Larkin and Scarlet Wilderink operate the tiger head; Romina Hytten is the heart; Daisy Franks and Tom Stacy are the hind. Habib Nasib Nader provides the animal’s voice.
The play, which transferred from the Sheffield Crucible to Wyndham’s Theatre in London, is an adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel about a shipwrecked boy adrift on the ocean with a tiger for company.
The puppet itself, which is life-sized, was designed by War Horse puppeteer Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes, who oversaw the giant puppetry for the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.
The Olivier Awards will take place on April 10. Life of Pi has a total of nine nominations including best actor for Hiran Abeysekera, best choreography for Caldwell, best director for Max Webster and best new play.
The revival of Cabaret leads the way with 11 nominations, including best actor for Eddie Redmayne and best actress for Jessie Buckley.
Lily Allen could repeat her win at the recent Whatsonstage Awards after being nominated once again for best actress in 2:22 A Ghost Story. She is up against Sheila Atim for Constellations, Emma Corrin for Anna X and Cush Jumbo for Hamlet at the Young Vic.
The awards are run by the Society of London Theatre.
Julian Bird, the society’s chief executive, said this year’s ceremony would be testament to a “world-beating theatre industry and its extraordinary creativity and resilience during an extremely challenging period for our sector”.