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OFFICIAL NOMINATION: "Most Entertaining"
-Dublin Fringe Festival, 2005
WINNER: "Best Multimedia Experience"
-Hoontown Puppet Festival, Bangkok, 2005
Avast, it's the JOLLYSHIP! Pirate puppets
will be pillaging . . . .
(read
the article)
-The Nation (Bangkok, December 29, 2005)
DEPRAVED NEW WORLD: Jollyship the Whiz-Bang
. . .Whiz-Bang makes a solid case that artistic innovation
and grandiosity need not be confounded with tastefulness.
Low budget showmanship, improvised dialogue and a predilection
for ribaldry imbues the episodes with a spirit of joyful anarchy.
While critical to the show’s audience appeal, this illusion
of spontaneity often conceals the meticulous degree of precision
and labor harnessed to synthesize its many components . .
. (read
the whole article)
-Brooklyn Rail (July/August 2005)
for "Songs to Drown By" (album)
After having to listen to hundreds of boring hipster rock
band clones, a little novelty music is pretty refreshing.
This is a "musical pirate puppet sea saga." I suppose
the live show is where it's at, what with the puppets and
pirate ship stage set and all, but these songs aren't half
bad either. Reminds me of Bobby Conn with a nautical theme.
I like "Kill it if it Don't Got Feet" and "Pyrate
Love." Fans of kooky stuff like Flossie & the Unicorns
or Dame Darcy will dig this.
-VICE (Music Issue, April 2005)
for SLEEPLESS FISHES (running 12/05/03 - 8/13/04)
When my friend Steve called me up and insisted I go down to
the Bowery Poetry Club and see Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, a
crazy "electro-rock puppet show," I could only think
"Holy shit! How can two of the best pleasures of the
modern world be combined into one?" . . . Aquatic ballyhoo
plus electric accordion plus guitar solos equal a guaranteed
good time. When you break it down, the whole 90 minute affair
is like being inside the animated Yellow Submarine: there's
quite a few hot tunes, a cast of notably zany characters and
the big swirls of giddy psychedelia. Okay, so the Beatles
never fucked with any puppets, but when the alternative to
this lysergic rock fest is standing at some bar with your
arms crossed trying to chat up some hoity-toity stranger,
you gotta dive in.
-The Fader #27 (Jan/Feb 2005)
"The show is so inventive and such a good time; it is
the epitome of what good off-the-wall New York theater ought
to be."
-In-nyc.com
RECOMMENDED:
"A swashbuckling puppet show that's a little bit raunchy
- and a lot rock and roll."
-TimeOut NY
PICK OF THE WEEK:
"We never understood the appeal of The Rocky Horror Picture
Show or Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but many of you apparently
enjoy them. Nick Jones has created a twisted musical that
we can all enjoy. Jones, the quirkiest sex symbol around,
keeps updating his Jollyship the Whiz-Bang adventures of pirate
puppets and filthy sea shanties. Cheer on the sweet cabin
boy, Tom, as he challenges the traditions of ocean crime and
sodomy, and hope for a happy ending that may never arrive.
Sit up front if you can."
-NY Press
"The creators of Jollyship the Whiz-Bang elevate what
could have been a simple gimmick into the realm of serious
series entertainment."
-ELJ All Arts Annex
"Awesome. . . utterly ridiculous. . . the performers
are obviously having fun with their semi-improvised dialogue,
and it’s infectious. Call it the theater of low expectations
– everything is so lo-tech here that a simple action
like a puppet kicking his feet when he swims can elicit applause,
and an ambitious act like sending a puppet over the audience
on a wire seems like a more impressive piece of stagecraft
than a chandelier collapsing on a Broadway stage. And it helps
that the songs fucking RAWK!. . . it's theater that makes
you feel good. It has the feeling of “Hey let’s
put on a show” – except that the performances
are actually really tight - you don’t get that level
of songs and elaborate sets without some hard work."
-Culturebot
"Loud, low budget, raggedy, and with a few beers in
you, pretty freaking funny."
-Time Out NY
for OTHER SHOWS, tours, one-offs, and residencies.
. .
"The final fling of the evening was given over to a
gang (perhaps I should say 'horde', as there were about a
million of them) called Jollyship the Whiz-Bang. With a name
like that, you'd probably guess that here you have a band
that could comfortably be described as 'eccentric'. For sheer
entertainment and a certain youthful zest and diablerie though,
they were hard to fault. Besides, I can't but feel an affinity
for a band whose members all look like they regularly got
the shit kicked out of them in school."
-Somebody's Blog, after a show in Limerick ("stab city"),
Ireland
"The scurviest puppets to ever pull into port . . .
YARR!"
-The Portland Mercury
"As the crowd slowly moved in, it was engaged in the
adventures of Captain Clamp (a traditional Balinese rod puppet),
first mate Skeevy (the character played by Azar) and Tom the
cabin boy (a stuffed clown). In search of Party Island, the
trio met two new sea creatures along the way: pedophile puppet
Glenn, who spends his time enticing Tom to the underwater
world, and Tudley, a piece of reef that wants to become the
new cabin boy. . . A night of theatrics combined with musical
elements, creating an off-beat show. . . .
-The Western Front
"Dirty dirty dirty, scurvy scurvy scurvy . . . Give me
some of that PIRATE LOVE!"
-Nonsense NYC
"Shows that really kick ass. . . grab your eye patch
and staple a stuffed parrot to your shoulder."
-NY Press
Creepy, but funny."
-Carter, Sonna's K-1 Class
Review of "The Colonists," a new show (non
pirate related) created by Jollyship the Whiz-Bang for Hoontown
puppet festival in Bangkok
"The show itself was a singular mixture of hi-tech and
low: in one scene, the Queen Bee (manipulated by a puppeteer
in jumpsuit) carefully fertilizes a honeycomb, and each cell
lights up one by one as she graces it with her larvae. A few
feet away, puppeteers wiggle cardboard honeycomb and jump
in place to the music. The story moved forward at a rare,
dreamlike pace amidst crowded, century-old homes and residents
hawking spicy papaya salad and sticky rice.
(read the whole
article)
-"Bangkok's Puppet Town," Dragonfire
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