A Monster Calls: Meet the Monster

With less than two weeks until the curtain rises on this year’s Senior School production, A Monster Calls, we asked the actor who plays the eponymous monster to tell us more about his unusual role and how using puppetry – a first for a King’s School production – adds power and poignancy to the story.

A Level Drama student, Lukas Pold (L6LES), is looking forward to appearing in his fourth Senior School production and has enjoyed bringing to life a very different kind of character to those he has previously portrayed on the Vanbrugh stage. 

He said: “I play the Monster, which is essentially a Yew Tree that comes to life to tell stories to Connor, the protagonist, to help him come to terms with his Mother’s terminal illness.

“The play is much more sombre then the musicals I have been involved in at King’s but it is such a beautiful and touching play with fantastical and powerful storytelling, and I have really enjoyed taking on a different kind of acting challenge.”

The fantastical storytelling is made possible by the amazing puppetry used in the play, the most impressive of which is arguably Lukas’ Monster costume.

Director of Drama, and of the production, Clare Howdon, explained the process they went through to create the Monster.

She said: “There were so many discussions in our early production meetings about how to represent this gigantic, raging, otherworldly, arboreal monstrosity that could appear in the blink of an eye.

“The decision to use puppetry was a pivotal moment in the creative process and I am beyond grateful to the amazing puppet experts we have worked with to find our monster and bring him to life.”

Lukas again: “I have never worked with puppets before and we have all had to adapt to a different way of working.

“However, the more I worked with them, the more I have enjoyed the process; they add so much to the story. The smaller puppets can be very delicately handled to create poignant moments, and then larger ones – such as my monster costume – are very powerful and grand.

“My favourite moment in the play comes at the end. I won’t spoil anything but the poignancy and beauty of the moment is enhanced by the elegant puppetry that accompanies it, and I can’t imagine it being staged to better effect in any other way.”

A Monster Calls will run in the Vanbrugh Theatre from Tuesday, 30 January – Friday, 2 February. Tickets are available online now – https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-kings-school-chester/a-monster-calls/e-raqrda

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