LITTLE LEAP FORWARD - Horse + Bamboo Theatre...

In a creative partnership
with Barefoot Books and
the Royal Exchange Theatre
Horse + Bamboo Theatre
presents
LITTLE
LEAP
FORWARD
Royal
Exchange
Theatre

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
FROM ALISON DUDDLE
A POSTER FROM THE CHINESE
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
We were first given LITTLE LEAP FORWARD to read two years
ago by Tessa Strickland, the Editor in Chief of Barefoot
Books. It had not yet been published, and she was very
excited about the story that Clare Farrow and Guo Yue had
written. When we read it we could see why she loved it so
much, and we felt instantly that it was a perfect story to tell
using masks, puppets and music.
We were overjoyed that Barefoot Books wanted us to work
on the story, but the next important thing was to make sure
that Clare and Yue were happy for us to take their very
personal story and translate it into a piece of theatre. We
agreed some very important things when we met them for
the first time. We agreed that because Yue’s style of flute
playing is so unique, the sound of the flute should only be
heard in the show when he played, so, when you hear the
flute in the play, it is Yue playing. We also agreed that whilst
we would stick closely to the central story of the book, that
we would have to leave out certain things and add in other
things in order for it to work as a piece of theatre, in
particular one without words.
It has been a great honour and an exciting journey to make
this show. We dedicate it to the millions and millions of
people who have lost their lives or their freedoms as a
result of oppressive regimes both in China and around the
world, in the past and still today. And we offer with it a
hope that everyone who sees it will feel inspired to play,
paint, write or invent the very special, beautiful song that
they have in their own hearts.
ABOUT HORSE + BAMBOO
Horse + Bamboo Theatre make theatre in which images, music and
story-telling are very important. Their work is normally made
without using words; instead they employ a wide range of other
techniques to tell a story.
Horse + Bamboo tour within the UK and internationally but also
have a strong commitment to their local community in Rossendale.
Their space, the Boo, is a venue and creative space for other artists,
as well as a centre for visual theatre and is the workshop where
Horse + Bamboo create their own productions.
ABOUT BAREFOOT BOOKS
The play LITTLE LEAP FORWARD is based on a book, written by
Claire Farrow and Guo Yue, illustrated by Helen Cann and
published by Barefoot Books. Publishers work with authors and
illustrators to prepare and print their stories. Barefoot Books
work with illustrators and storytellers from all around the
world. They want to create books which are beautiful, playful
and interactive, which celebrate art and story, which encourage
independence, creativity and discovery and which celebrate the
world’s diversity.
WHY NOT? Imagine you are setting up your own
publishing company. Write an advertisement to recruit
artists and illustrators, telling them about the kind of
books you want to produce. What themes would you
like the stories you publish to focus on? What would
you like your books to celebrate?

THE CHARACTERS
Little Leap Forward, an 8 year old boy.
Little Little, his best friend. He goes to school with
him and likes to play with him at the riverbank.
His mother, a teacher. She was sent away to be ‘reeducated’
in the countryside, as were many educated
people – doctors, teachers, dentists. Chairman Mao
believed that education and ‘high culture’ separated
people and made some people think they were better
than others, so he had intellectuals sent to learn how
to labour in the countryside.
Little Leap Forward’s older sister, Victory. She makes
food for the family and looks after the house. In the
book, Little Leap Forward has more sisters than in
the play.
Clear Waves, Victory’s sweetheart, the bicycle rider.
He is a sort of father figure to Little Leap Forward, as
his own father, who was a talented Erhu (Chinese
violin) player died before this story begins.
Blue is a little girl in Little Leap Forward’s class at
school. During the Cultural Revolution girls’ hair was
often cut short as fancy hair was thought to be
un-revolutionary.
The Red Guards were a mass movement of civilians,
mostly students and young people, who were
mobilised by Mao Zedong in 1966 to carry out the aims
of the Cultural Revolution. They carried out public
‘shamings’ of people they accused of being counterrevolutionaries
– often school children attacking their
own teachers.
CHARACTER SKETCHES FROM ALISON DUDDLE’S
SKETCHBOOK
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE IN A
HORSE + BAMBOO SHOW?
INTERVIEW WITH PERFORMERS
MARK WHITAKER, NICKY FEARN
AND FRANCES MERRIMAN
What is it like to perform with a mask on?
FM – At first it can seem quite daunting; because you can’t see
in a mask as well as you can normally. But once you get used to
wearing it, you tend to look, think and feel past the mask itself,
so that you almost forget you are wearing it. Also, because it
is often harder to hear in a mask, and you have much less
peripheral vision, you have to develop a very heightened sense
of where you are and a great awareness of other performers in
the space. All your senses have to be on hyper-alert.
Why do you use masks and puppets to tell the story?
MW – Masks and puppets have a lot of things in common. They
both rely on movement to communicate and both work better
if you don’t use words. Masks and puppets also make it easier
for a small number of performers to play lots of characters. In
LITTLE LEAP FORWARD 4 performers are able to play 11 people, 2
birds, 2 dragonflies and a fish!
Why do you like using masks?
FM – I like performing with masks because, if you allow them
to, masks can let you in to a whole new world, physically. They
can release you from the constraints of your actual self – what
you actually look like, and how other people see you or cast you.
You can explore a character that may be a very different age
from you, from a very different country, or even from a different
world. I like the fact that a mask doesn’t even have to look like a
person and, if used well, an audience can still believe in it and
read expression on/in it. I think the same is true for puppetry.
How do you make masks change their expression?
NF – The masks look like they are changing expression because
of the way the performers use their bodies – performers can
change their body shape and head angle to make the mask
appear to portray a different emotion. Lighting or music can
also help to change the mask’s expression – if the audience
expect to feel a particular emotion because of the lighting or
sound, then they will “read” that from the mask. The audience
does the work.

DESIGNING THE SET
The set design had to include spaces for lots of different
performance styles: film, shadow puppetry, glove and tabletop
puppetry and mask performance. The designer, Bob Frith,
felt that with all these performance styles, there was a
danger the set might look disjointed – as if it was made up
of lots of different sets that didn’t all match. To stop this
from happening, the different areas needed to be visually
linked, for example, by colours or shapes. Bob Frith needed a
strong visual image to make this link.
To find ideas, he looked at the graphics which the
Communist Party used during the Cultural Revolution. These
were often woodcuts – pictures printed from a carved wood
block. The woodcuts were largely black and white designs
with simple but powerful blocks of colour, in particular red,
and strong messages about the revolution. Using woodcuts
as inspiration for the set design gave Bob Frith the visual link
that he was looking for to unite the different spaces. It was
also a way of echoing the time and place of the story, as
these woodcuts were very common in the late 60s.
WHY NOT? Imagine you had to design the set
for a play about Manchester in the 1940s. On your
stage there needs to be a space to use puppets, a
space to show films and a space to perform in masks.
Research the time and place where your play is set to
find a visual style which you could use to link the
different spaces.
MASKS
Most of the shows Horse + Bamboo make use masks – usually what
we call ‘helmet’ masks, like those in LITTLE LEAP FORWARD. They are
made from papier-mache, so they are really lightweight. First of all a
model of the head is made in clay, then it is covered with a layer of
clingfilm (so that the mask will come off the clay afterwards!), which
is in turn covered by 5 layers of heavy brown paper softened in
wallpaper paste. The secret to making them strong is to really smooth
the paper onto the mould and make sure there are no air bubbles.
CHAIRMAN MAO’S
LITTLE RED BOOK
PUPPETS
Puppeteer Mark Whitaker explains about the two main
types of puppets used in LITTLE LEAP FORWARD: tabletop
and Chinese hand puppets.
The tabletop puppets are inspired by Japanese Bunraku
puppets. These puppets are about 60cm tall and are
moved on a tabletop or “playboard” by puppeteers who
stand behind the puppets in full view of the audience.
They are mostly operated by one person, but traditionally
a Bunraku puppet would be operated by three
puppeteers.
The Chinese hand puppets are a traditional kind of glove
puppet used in China (particularly in Beijing and Fujian
province) and Taiwan. They are about 35cm tall and fit on
your hand like a loose glove with your index finger inside
the puppet’s neck, your thumb in one arm and your other
three fingers in the other arm. With practice it is possible
to make these puppets move in a realistic manner, and
because they are loose on your hand, they can do
impressive acrobatics and even “jump” from one hand to
the other.
Many of the characters in LITTLE LEAP FORWARD appear
in different versions: as mask characters, tabletop
puppets and Chinese hand puppets. By having the same
characters in different sizes you can make very different
pictures on stage. If you just use actors, they are mostly
the same size, but masks and puppets can be really big or
extremely tiny. It is possible to make characters seem very
close or very far away. It also makes it possible to show
the very different places in the story – from the Hutongs
where Little Leap Forward lives, to the riverbank where he
plays with his friends.

MUSIC
Music is very important in LITTLE LEAP FORWARD. It is important to the
team making the play, because they can use music to tell the story.
Composer Loz Kaye explains:
“Much of the music of LITTLE LEAP FORWARD is based on Chinese
traditional music, which has a quite different feel to western music. This
is because of the groups of notes it uses known as the ‘pentatonic
scale’. These are groups of five tones – you can get the effect by just
playing on the black notes of the piano.
Chinese music also has its own range of instruments. In the show you
can listen out for Yue playing the bamboo flute. You can also hear the
guzheng (a plucked string instrument) during the animation near the
beginning, and metal percussion gongs during the school scene.
Music is used to create different moods and help tell the story of the
show. I create a sense of menace for the Red Guard soldiers by using a
marching rhythm for instance, and use quieter gentler string sounds for
the kite flying scene to make a relaxed feel.”
Music is important to the characters in the story too. The Chinese
Government housed people of the same profession together in the
same courtyard, “like boxes of ingredients in a grocery book” it says in
the book. Little Leap Forward’s father was a musician and so he grew up
surrounded by musicians and is aware of the music all around him, even
in the natural world. He wants to make music with his bird, Little Cloud,
and his mother imagines him creating music for his silk worms to dance
to. Chairman Mao understood the power of music too. The Communist
Party used music and singing to influence people’s thinking. The only
songs allowed were revolutionary songs which praised Chairman Mao
and the Communist Party.
HELEN CANN’S
ILLUSTRATION
FROM THE BOOK
“LITTLE LEAP
FORWARD”
DIRECTOR ALISON DUDDLE MAKING IN THE HORSE + BAMBOO WORKSHOP
WHY NOT? Make up a tune just using
the black notes of the piano.
WHY NOT? Ask your friends or family to
pick a piece of music or a song which is
important to them. Ask them why that music
is special – does it remind them of a
particular place or person? Does it make them
feel a certain way? Use their answers to create
a collage of words and pictures showing all
the different things that music can mean to
people. You could even burn all their songs
onto one CD and use your collage as the
album cover.
WHY NOT? Go outside with a small
group, looking and listening for creatures.
Look out for squirrels in the trees or even
worms in the ground. Quietly watch how they
move, and then back inside, try to create a
piece of music to suit their movements.
WHY NOT? Find a recording of
traditional Chinese music to listen to. As you
listen, let yourself doodle – don’t plan what
you’re going to draw, just draw the images
which it creates in your mind.
POSTER IMAGE FROM THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION -
IMAGES LIKE THESE INSPIRED THE SET DESIGN

LITTLE LEAP FORWARD is inspired by Guo Yue’s real
experiences as a child growing up in China. Guo Yue was
born in 1958 in Beijing. His father was a violinist, and he
grew up in a traditional courtyard, with his five brothers
and sisters. In 1982, he came to England, to study the silver
flute at the Guildhall School of Music in London. As a
musician, he now travels the world performing, making
recordings and playing on film soundtracks. Guo Yue wrote
the book with his wife, Clare Farrow, a freelance arts writer.
It is the second book they have written together, their first
book was called MUSIC, FOOD AND LOVE.
WHY NOT? Think about who you know who
was alive in 1966 (the year when this story is set).
Interview family, teachers or friends asking them
what they remember about that time in their lives.
How was their life in 1966 different from Yue’s?
WHY NOT? Think about how important your
freedom is. In the book, Little Little says, ‘wouldn’t you
rather be free, just for a day than spend a life time in a
cage?’. Do you think this is true? Why?
WHY NOT? Draw a picture of your class, as if you
could only see the back of everybody’s heads. How many
different hair styles would there be in your picture? How
many people have different coloured ribbons, bobbles or
clips in their hair? Can you imagine what it would be
like if everyone was made to look the same? Draw the
same picture, this time with everyone’s hair cut so it is
exactly the same.
CHAIRMAN MAO AND THE
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
In the past, Emperors ruled China. The Emperor lived in a palace,
known as the Forbidden City, and from his palace he would
make rules and run the country. Emperors ruled China for
thousands of years, right up until 1911. The people of China were
poor, starving and unhappy. They felt their Emperor Pu Yi was
not helping them. They turned against him, and he was made to
give up his power. Two different groups fought to control China
in the Emperor’s place. Eventually, in 1949 the Chinese
Communist Party took control of the country. Their leader was
Mao Zedong – also known as Chairman Mao.
In the after-word to their book, Gue Yue and Claire Farrow
explain what living in China under Chairman Mao was like:
“…When Mao Zedong became leader of the Communist Party
and founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949, he
introduced socialist thinking, inspired by Russia’s revolution of
1917. Mao was from a poor family in the countryside and did not
trust intellectuals – people with knowledge and education. He
believed that land should be taken away from rich landowners
and that the countryside should be divided into communes –
groups of peasants working and living together. He thought
everyone should be the same…
…The Cultural Revolution, which began in Beijing on the 18 th
August 1966, was a further disastrous step in Mao’s thinking; he
wanted to punish intellectuals, artists, writers, composers,
people from wealthy backgrounds and anyone who criticised
him. A few months after the Cultural Revolution started, my
mother was accused of being a ‘counter-revolutionary’ and was
sent by the Red Guards to the countryside to be ‘re-educated’.
She had to dig heavy mud out of a river and work like a peasant
farmer in the fields. Every day she was publicly criticised. She
remained in the countryside for nearly three years. Only her
spirit was not broken.”
WHY NOT? Think about what makes you an individual – is it
the way you dress? The books you read? The music you listen to? If
those things were banned what would be left that is unique to you?
Write a poem, using these ideas. Start by listing the things that the
government could ban you from doing or having. You could research
the rules the Chinese Communist Party put in place to give you some
ideas. Next, list the things that can’t be taken away. To get you
started, you could include:
• An idea you had that you were really proud of
• A memory of a time when you felt special
• An imaginary friend
• A dream that you remember having
Imagine a place where you could hide
these parts of you – it might be a
place like the riverside in the play,
where you feel most yourself, or a
place you remember from being little,
or it might not be a real place at all – it
might be somewhere special in your
imagination.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHINA DURING THE
CULTURAL REEVOLUTION USED BY THE
COMPANY WHEN RESEARCHING THE PLAY

KITES
Kites have a long history in Chinese culture – they were
probably invented there around 2,800 years ago. In ancient
times kites were used for lots of things besides play – for
measuring distances, testing the wind, lifting men, signaling
and communication. Kites were often decorated with
mythological images and legendary figures; some were fitted
with strings and whistles to make musical sounds while flying.
During the Cultural Revolution traditional, colourful kites were
banned, along with literature, non-revolutionary music and
fine artistic objects – they were considered symbols of the old
China and of elitism.
WHY NOT? Create your own kite using a paper
bag. With a hole punch, make four holes in the top of
the paper bag – you might need to reinforce your
holes with tape so that they don’t tear. Thread string
through the holes to create two loops, and tie another
piece of string to the loops – this will be the handle of
your kite. Decorate your kite with pictures that
represent freedom - you could use paint, crayons, pens
or glitter. You might even want to attach streamers,
made from strips of coloured paper. Once the glue and
paint are dry, the kite can fly. Hold on tightly to the
string handle and run so that the wind catches the
kite. As you run, think about what freedom feels like.
SKETCH SHOWING THE
TWO COSTUMES WORN
BY THE MOTHER
ALISON DUDDLE
WITH THE CAST
OF LITTLE
LEAP FORWARD
FOOD
Food has always been an important
part of Chinese culture, but during
the Cultural Revolution it was at the
front of people’s minds for a couple of
reasons. The main one is that people
were hungry. Mao’s decision to change
the way farms were managed meant
there was very little food around. Food
was rationed, and people could only
have a certain amount of rice or flour
per week. People really treasured the
precious few drops of peanut and
sesame oil they might have saved. Also,
because it was forbidden to talk about
art, music, literature or even love, people
really put all their imaginations into
creating amazing dishes of food with
what they had, and into finding ever
more poetic ways of describing it!
WHY NOT? Write a recipe
where you use the way you describe
the food as a kind of code, to
represent your feelings. Imagine
you love someone but you can’t tell
them and so you put all those
emotions into the recipe instead.
MAO SUITS
The lack of individuality during the Cultural
Revolution was even reflected in what people
wore – many people dressed identically in blue
cotton jackets and trousers. They were practical,
hard wearing and unpretentious, but the style
and details of the jackets also represented
principles of the revolution – the four pockets
represented propriety, justice, honesty and
shame. The three cuff buttons represent the
three principles of the people – nationalism,
democracy and People’s livelihood, and the five
centre buttons represent the five powers of the
constitution.

THINGS TO READ
LITTLE LEAP FORWARD: A BOY IN BEIJING
written by Guo Yue and Clare Farrow and
illustrated by Helen Cann
This is the book that the play LITTLE LEAP
FORWARD is based on. When you read the story
look for differences and similarities to the play.
Why do you think the theatre makers chose to
leave out some parts or add others?
WE’RE RIDING ON THE CARAVAN
written by Laurie Krebs and illustrated by
Helen Cann
A rhyming tale about a Chinese family’s journey
along the Silk Road, the trade road that runs
thousands of miles through Asia. Work with a
group or a partner to compose your own music
that suits the moods and locations of the story.
THE CH’I-LIN PURSE : A COLLECTION OF
ANCIENT CHINESE STORIES
by Linda Fang
A collection of ten traditional Chinese stories
translated into English. Choose your favourite of
the stories and think about how you would turn it
into a play performed without words. Work with a
group to bring your play to life.
MODERN CHINA: EYEWITNESS GUIDE
by Poppy Sebag-Montifiore
A fact-packed guide to the peoples, places and
cultures that make up modern China. Choose a
selection of photographs or illustrations from the
book, and use them to inspire the set design for a
play set in modern China.
Royal
Exchange
Theatre
ALISON DUDDLE WITH
THE MASKED AND HAND
PUPPET VERSIONS OF
LITTLE LEAP FORWARD
WHY NOT? Make your own beautiful autobiographical
book. Go to the library and see how
many different sizes and shapes of books you can
find. See if you can you work out how the different
books are made. Some books are held together
with glue, others are made with folded pages held
together by stitches. Books can be tied together,
strung on strings, folded, rolled, and sewn in lots
of different ways. What book shapes can you
create? Experiment with folding and fastening
paper in different ways to create new book shapes.
Choose the right book shape to suit your story –
include pages on where you live, who your friends
and family are, what your school is like. Yue grew
up to be a musician – you might want to leave the
last pages of your autobiography blank, to show
that the future is still to be written…
Produced and edited by the Royal Exchange Theatre,
with contributions from Horse + Bamboo Theatre.
The work of the Education Department is supported by
the Booth Charities, Crabtree North West Charitable Trust,
The Co-operative, D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Duchy of
Lancaster Benevolent Fund, HBOS Foundation, HBOS Lex
Leasing, The Idlewild Trust, John Lewis Partnership, John
Thaw Foundation, Manchester Guardian Society, Norma
Leigh Charitable Trust, N Smith Charitable Trust, One to
One Children’s Fund, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ralli
Solicitors , Scotshill Trust and Steel Charitable Trust.
Royal Exchange Theatre
royalexchange.co.uk
Horse + Bamboo Theatre
horseandbamboo.org
Designed by Dragonfly. All production photographs courtesy of Ian Tilton. Cover illustration courtesy of Helen Cann.
Registered Charity Number 255424