Canterbury-based visual theatre and puppetry company Half a String are returning to the Edinburgh Fringe this year with a new show Tiny Planet. Two years on from Breathe in 2024, the company are bringing a new story about Alma, an intergalactic Space Baker, to life at Pleasance Dome, complete with their intricate approach to puppetry and set design. Half a String’s work fuses live music with visual storytelling and I recently had the opportunity to speak to Artistic Director Peter Morton about the origins of the company and find out more about their upcoming Edinburgh Fringe run. I even got to visit their studio and see the final preparations in action.
Origins of the company
Half a String was created to house A Heart at Sea: a collaboration between Peter Morton and singer/songwriter Avi Simmons. With Half a String officially forming in 2017, the show pre-dated the creation of the company and Peter has led the company from the start. The creative explains, ‘the work we do is kind of my practice and then we pull in different artists for each project’. Supported by Robin Hatcher (Tour Booker and Associate Producer) and alongside various associate artists, including designers, puppeteers and illustrators to name but a few roles, Half a String has worked on numerous projects to date and Tiny Planet is their current focus. Referring to the challenges of their work, Peter says ‘we kind of really teeter on the edge of technically advanced theatre in terms of staging and how things work, to then telling a story and making sure those two things don’t clash’.
The making of a Half a String production
When asked about the creation of a Half a String show, from initial concept to the stage, Peter laughs and says ‘it completely depends on the show’. The creative explains ‘all of our shows more or less entirely start with an image I’ve got of a concept for a show’. For Tiny Planet, once an initial concept was established, there was a day of research and development with the wider Half a String team to explore what the show could be. From there, they fundraised and graphic designer Caleb Simmons built an image for the show. Once funding was in, they headed to Woolwich Works for a week of focused Tiny Planet work. Peter says ‘I made a draft planet, we had a draft kind of human puppet at the right scale that I wanted to try. And then we made lots in rehearsals, we made creatures and [considered] how would the planet move? I put it on a bearing as well, so we could spin it. We just explored that devising wise, got some stuff down that we liked, not really looking to create a show… more just to play with ideas.’
They then worked directly with their target audience through the Lakeside Arts summer school. The students were also given the Tiny Planet concept and ended up creating a 25 minute show by the end of an intense week of story writing, puppet design, music and technology. Peter says ‘they had so many really cool ideas’ and the first thing that the company did the week after was have the actors, musicians and writers for Tiny Planet sit and watch the student’s work, highlighting that ‘this is your target market’s way to do this show’.
The next iteration was more research and development, script writing with Louisa Ashton, further rehearsal, design and the show eventually launched in February. Peter explains ‘a lot goes into these shows, into the music and live cameras, and so there’s a lot of working out how the live cameras work’.
About Tiny Planet
The concept comes from The Little Prince and Peter explains that it centres on a ‘person on a tiny planet who can walk all the way around and experience that tiny planet’. The character at the heart of this story is an intergalactic Space Baker called Alma who crash lands on the planet and through exploration discovers that the smallest things hold the biggest stories. The team experiments with cameras and scale in telling this story, showing alternating perspectives on the stage. The music for the show is once again written by Avi Simmons and merges live folk songs with big 90s synth.
A children’s show that appeals to all ages
Even though the target audience is children, Tiny Planet is following in the footsteps of their previous show Breathe and is placed in the theatre category for this year’s Fringe. Peter says ‘what we aim for with our shows especially is there’s a universal enjoyment of it. So ideally with three generations: child, parent, grandparent, all kind of watching the show and really enjoying it for their own reasons, and actually genuinely enjoying it for their own reasons, rather than it being for one of those people and then the others kind of have to grin and bear it.’
Looking ahead to this year’s festival
Peter says ‘there’s a lot more visual theatre [this year] which is really exciting’. Referring to flyering, Peter says ‘we’ll have Alma floating with her spacesuit on up and down the mile I think this year, which will be really fun’.
Having been to the festival ten times now, Peter says ‘I love being in Edinburgh, the kind of festival and the energy up there is brilliant. What I enjoy every year of Edinburgh, especially when we’re up there, is being able to share our work in an industry [setting]. When we’re in Kent working, building stuff, there’s not a huge art scene around and it’s really nice to feel part of this massive art scene, see other people’s shows, discuss them, meet people’.
Catch Tiny Planet at the 2026 festival
It was a pleasure to speak to Peter Morton ahead of the show’s Edinburgh Fringe run. It was so exciting to have the opportunity to visit the Half a String studio earlier this month and see some of the festival preparations in action, enabling me to share some behind-the-scenes photos. Something that stuck with me from the interview was when Peter said ‘[Visual theatre] is universal in terms of its language and you can do so much with it and kind of inspire imaginations’. It certainly highlights the creativity and potential impact of their work.
Tiny Planet is based at King Dome at Pleasance Dome (venue 23) from 5th – 23rd August (not 12th). Performances start at 12:25 (1 hour), with the show on sale via the EdFringe website now. Immediately after Edinburgh, the show will be part of the Gulbenkian Arts Centre’s bOing! Festival on 29th and 30th August, providing local audiences with the chance to see the show. After this, Half a String will go straight back into development for their seasonal show The Snowsmith which will have 56 performances over the festive season.
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