DO ZOMBIES DREAM OF UNDEAD SHEEP?
FRIDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2025
8pm (SHERLING STUDIO)
Age guidance: 14+
Tickets and information 01202 280000
A one-man one-puppet musical and visual journey through a zombie outbreak, Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep? – at Lighthouse Poole on Friday 7 February – is written and performed by Dorset-based actor-songwriter The Woodlouse (or John Butler to his friends and family).
The show, which combines live performance, projected animations, and backing tracks on which John plays all the parts, is described by John as “ridiculous, dark, sometimes gruesome, warm, funny and sad.”
The idea for the show came when John was co-organising a regular storytelling night in Bridport. One month he had chosen an old story which ended with an animated corpse. When his co-organiser was disappointed that there wasn’t a cheerful ukulele zombie song to accompany it; John took it as a challenge to write one. Once written, he realised the half melodramatic, half-cheerful song sounded like it was from a musical and thought: “I’m going to have to write the rest of it now, aren’t I?”
John says: “Things escalated from there. In between my regular work as a sustainable building consultant, I spent evening and weekends writing and recording the songs, hand drawing images and animating them to make the films that form the backdrop of the show. Then I had to work out how to make the life-sized puppet that is my co-star, and finally bring the whole lot together to create my first full solo show.”
The show was mostly devised and rehearsed in his spare room, with further rehearsal and development at the Lyric Theatre in Bridport, where the show premiered to a full and enthusiastic house.
“Initially, I was interested in how people and society might react to zombies, to the horror of suddenly seeing their loved ones again when all the undead wanted to do was eat the living; but I couldn’t help thinking about what things might be like from the zombies’ perspective. Do they feel? Can living and undead learn to live together?
“So there are some tender moments too, amongst the zombie-related chaos.”
Regarding the animations, John says he grew up watching Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate’s simple animations in Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog, and reading books illustrated by Quentin Blake; these have influenced his animation style – only with added horror.