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| Crossing the Borders of Performance: an interview with William Todd-Jones |
| by Guy Cracknell |
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William Todd-Jones is a puppet designer and performer, with a long career in theatre, film and television. He is also a writer and director who specializes in creating theatrical works born in the interstitices between puppetry, music, dance, acrobatics, drama, and education. He is also an environmental activist, and has run the London Marathon and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume to raise money and awareness for conservation programs. In the following interview, conducted by the English journalist Guy Cracknell, he talks about his art, his sources of inspiration, and how he moved from his beginnings in a small Welsh mining town to the work he does today.
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Let me set the scene. I have finally pinned down William Todd–Jones (who likes to be known simply as Todd) for an interview. Because of his hectic workload I have waited almost a year to meet him, but now I am at his home in a small village in Devon, looking forward to a coffee and a good chat. But Todd has other plans.
"Have you brought your walking boots?" he asks. No, I haven't. "No matter," he says and disappears. He returns with a sturdy pair of boots and a waterproof. "How much time have you got?" A couple of hours. "Okay, we'll go to Whiddon Deer Park." And within ten minutes, with Todd's dogs Shadow and Seeker trotting beside us, we are striding along a track towards a wooded hillside at the head of the Teign Valley, with Castle Drogo's imposing presence high above us.
"I grew up in the valleys of South Wales," Todd tells me as we walk," in an area of coal mining and steel working. Whenever I could, I would cycle up to mid–Wales and work on farms to escape. I simply couldn't face the prospect of spending forty years down a pit — but all through school the expectation was that we would end up working in the coal or steel industries. I remember my father taking me to the giant hot mills in Ebbw Vale, and as I looked down into the steam and heat of the works I knew that I didn't want to end up there. So I went off and studied ballet and performance."
Todd's peers did not mock this ‘Billy Elliot’ type decision, although it was considered strange. He was lucky to be surrounded by family and friends who supported his decision. Todd was also greatly affected by the death of his grandfather from silicosis, a symptom of life at the coalface. It was another powerful spur that put him on the path away from the mines towards a career in performance.
Suddenly we stop. We've reached the top of the hill and are standing beneath two lines of magnificent beech trees. The path runs up the middle and at its end is a granite sculpture by local artist Peter Randall–Page. "I like to come here to think," Todd says. "R. S. Thomas, the Welsh poet, wrote a poem called The Moor, and the opening line is ‘It was a like a church to me.’ I have to say I'm right there with him. This place is a cathedral of wood." We enjoy the tranquillity in silence, then move on, and Todd continues his story.
Having decided to study dance, Todd went to the Welsh College of Music and Drama, where he found himself excelling at contemporary ballet and modern jazz dance. After finishing his course, he travelled to America, where he landed a job in the theatre department of Bard College. "Bard has always had an ‘interstitial’ approach to education — putting sculptors with dancers, and musicians with painters, all interacting in different ways, with a bit of science thrown in to stir things up. It was a place where you could cross borders, experiment, and be dangerous.
"I performed in various ballets and operas," Todd continues, "and I was amazed by the American attitude to dance — the discipline, the dedication. But I realized ballet was not going to be my field. I'd grown up to be a short, hairy Welshman, and standing next to these elegant, almost liquid bodies made me realise that my true vocation was not in the smooth, silky movement of ballet, but more in physical comedy, acrobatics, and dramatic performance. I would just go for it, a great ball of energy, all leaps and spins. And then I watched the dancers around me. They were beautiful, like gazelles, and I knew I'd never be like that."
Todd was desperate to "defy gravity" in his performances, but his body simply wasn't designed for that type of dance. So he began searching for other ways to express himself, and his quest took him to New Mexico.
I had always wanted to see the American west. I grew up loving cowboys and Indians and here I was in the landscape of my childhood games. Around me were Navajo and Pueblo Indians, and the dominant culture was Hispanic and Native American. I fell in love with Native American art — because although it may seem simple at first glance, it's actually extremely sophisticated. It expects the viewer to bring something to it, to bring it to life." Todd was also deeply impressed by Native American dances, such as an Eagle Dance he witnessed. "It was incredible how the dancer, with the barest costume, became an eagle. He didn't need feathery wings, or to hang from a wire. Simply through movement, expression, and the audience's willing belief, he was an eagle. It was very natural."
Todd's time in New Mexico proved a critical turning point. Not only was his imagination fired by the culture, but he met his future wife, Carol Amos. He also met a sculptor who had worked on Star Wars, and this would be an important connection, leading him to a long career in the film industry. When the death of Todd's father took him back home to Wales, he feared, once again, that he'd be trapped in the valleys...until he got a call from the sculptor, who was now in London working on a Jim Henson film called Labyrinth. "He got me a job on the film, moving boxes at Jim Henson's Creature Workshop," Todd recalls. "Two weeks later I still hadn't moved any boxes, but had instead become head of the woodworking department. I started by making shelves, and about thirty tables, including one for the film's conceptual designer, Brian Froud, and eventually I got the opportunity to make puppets as well. I worked on the film for about two years and I knew I had found my home. I got to perform some of the characters in the movie, as well as to develop and sculpt puppets. And I thought ‘Wow, if this is film–making, then this is for me!’ But actually, it wasn't the norm for film–making. Jim Henson created an unusually safe environment for artists and artisans, and gave us a lot of free reign. This atmosphere of collaboration and support allowed me, and my ideas, to make a contribution to the finished product."
"For me, if there's a reason for art, it's to help people come to terms with the truths of their world. What an artist does, in my mind, is sit on top of the water of inspiration with ideas percolating up and bubbling around him. The artist brings these ideas into reality, and the audience goes, ‘Aaahhhh!’ Without that connection, without people going ‘aahhhh,‘ then that piece of art doesn't work. It needs to have relevance in people's lives, no matter how conceptual or abstract."
"I've worked on numerous productions since Labyrinth, on film sets in London, L.A., Berlin, Prague, and other places. Not all of those films have been great, mind you, but I try to choose projects that will open people's horizons. That said, some of the things I've worked on achieve this more than others! For example I worked on the first Batman movie, Judge Dredd, and Lost in Space, and if I'm honest, it was merely for the commerce. But that said, Tim Burton's Batman, which I was on board for from the early stages, originally set out to ask some interesting questions. Why would a man don a rubber suit and go around punching people? Why was he created? Why was the Joker created? Why did they choose separate paths from the same anomaly? I was very attracted to Burton's concepts — but then the producers decided to turn the film into a big punch-up. When I saw the final film, it didn't seem to be what we had shot. And yet it was commercially successful."
Todd has worked on numerous other films, including The Little Shop of Horrors (he brought Audrey, the giant man-eating plant, to gruesome life), and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, both of which he's particularly fond of. "I loved Roger Rabbit, it was such a blast. And believe it or not, I was Jessica Rabbit. I did her movement and then she was animated over me. I think it's hilarious to imagine all these males thinking ‘phwoar’ about this cartoon fantasy woman, and underneath is a hairy Welshman." Todd has also worked on a number of children's productions, including Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island. One of his most extensive performances was as Moppatop in a BAFTA award-winning British children's television series called Moppatop's Shop, created by the Henson's Creature Workshop. He made 127 episodes, wearing an 80–pound puppet, and is extremely proud of the program.
"It's a real shame the way television has gone," Todd says. "Nowadays, something like Moppatop wouldn't be made, simply because it would be too expensive. Producers think, why spend all that money on a puppet show when we can stick eight people in a house and make cheap reality TV? I hope people will grow tired of the reality programs, with their lack of artistry, and that this will change." Another British television series that probably wouldn't be made these days is The Chronicles of Narnia, including The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. Todd appeared as a number of characters, most notably as Aslan the Lion, Glenstorm the centaur, and a dragon.
Todd's latest work has involved him as movement consultant and performer on the TV production of 'Fungus the Bogeyman'. "It's kind of in the same vein as the Narnia program. It has less of a budget, but it utilises the technology we have now to tell an epic tale without an epic cast. With computers you can now create the huge landscapes you need for fantastical worlds, or even for stories set in this world. The story of Fungus is from a famous Raymond Brigg's book, which many people are familiar with from their childhoods. Fungus is a bogeyman having a bit of a mid life crisis. He is questioning his job, which is to scare humans — or drycleaners, as they are known. But bogeymen serve an important purpose, for they bring a little bit of chaos to the human world, just to keep people on their toes. The slug trail across the kitchen floor, the sock that's missing...those come from bogeymen. And they do their job really well, without being seen — that's the point. But Fungus wonders what it's all about. And that's about it for the plot of the book, which is not enough for three hours of television. So the film introduces Fungus' family. His son, Mold, is secretly using deodorant, and cleaning his room, rebelling. Fungus takes him up to see the drycleaners to show him that just because they are clean they are not so great — they destroy things, damage the planet, make wars. But Fungus is seen, and caught. And that's how the story unfolds.
"Fungus is performed the same way Andy Serkis played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings,
wearing a suit with reflective ping pong balls on it to capture movement, data is collected and converted into a wire frame figure in the computer, and then Fungus' skeleton, muscles and flesh are put over the top and he is animated. The only traditional puppet technique used was Fungus’ arm opening a fridge."
Does this new technology worry Todd? "How do you realise a Bogeyman?" he asks. "I've worn huge costumes and sweated massively to capture a performance, with virtual reality screens inside the costume because I can't see out, and wires and pulleys and servos all around me. But you can only go so far this way. The new techniques allow every dynamic, every movement to be caught and to bring whatever character to life. It's very exciting."
We've reached the end of our walk, and we go back to Todd’s house to watch his show reel. It is amazing how many of the productions on the reel I recognise. ‘God, that was you? I remember that!’ I find myself saying over and over. The productions include 101 Dalmatians, Pinocchio, Fierce Creatures and The Never Ending Story III. And there are more...lots more.
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