The Zoom camera spins around to show stacks of boxes, suitcases, piles of props, even a dog cage; it’s the paraphernalia for Charlie Vero-Martin’s revival of Picnic, set to be an absurdist one-woman show with laughs, puppets, and a dark twist.
‘It’s for people who are fans of the muppets, but also Inside No.9’ in Vero-Martin’s own description. An intriguing definition, and something that Vero-Martin has been able to dwell on since debuting the show in August at Edinburgh Fringe 2023 (after completing Soho Theatre’s Edinburgh lab). She has since performed Picnic at the Pleasance in November but had to make some copyright friendly amendments. But now the production is returning in its full force, ‘It’s been really nice to get back to the original version of the show, the fringe version.’
‘There are little things I can look back on, and go, why didn’t I do it like this before? Sometimes you need that space away from something to see that.’
Charlie Vero-Martin is Scottish born, but has been on the comedy, sketch, puppetry, improv, and performance circuit in London for the past few years.
Vero-Martin’s relationship with puppetry started years ago when she auditioned for the improvised puppet show Glitch. ‘They were either looking for puppeteers who they could teach to improvise, or improvisers who they could make good puppeteers.’ Having started improv at university and with a background in dance, she was a perfect addition to the group, and swiftly picked up her puppet strings.
All Vero-Martin’s solo shows subsequent to her time in Glitch have incorporated puppets. And thus, years later, Vero-Martin has found herself turning a picnic basket (Mr Basket-Case, in the show) into a puppet ‘that was sort of the genesis to the show…(I thought) this is really fun, what world can this exist in?’.
This kind of blend of genres can sometimes manifest somewhat ludicrous preparations for the production, including going to the house of puppeteer pro Iestyn Evans and spending an entire day seeing if they could turn a long hot water bottle into a puppet.
In the build-up to the Soho Theatre show this week, however, she’s mostly found herself doing a lot of admin. Hence the building pile of props: ‘a lot of things needed to be fixed…one of my puppets legs fell off!’.
Vero-Martin is a jack of all trades when it comes to comedy and performance, with her sketch work (she was a Leicester Square Sketch Off finalist this year), teaching and performing improv, writing (including with credits such as BBC Radio 4 and being shortlisted for Funny Women Comedy Writing Awards for her pilot) all in her tool belt.
‘I’d say I’m primarily a character comedian…I do a lot of things; I struggle keeping the description concise. I just want to give the audience a good time!’
In short, those preparing for an evening with Charlie Vero-Martin can certainly expect laughs, puppets, and of course, the unexpected. ‘It’s a big, fun, silly show…but it does have a very dark twist.’
Picnic will be performed at Soho Theatre, as part of Soho Rising festival, on the 15th February and at Leicester Comedy festival on the 24th February.
Tickets here