Giants roam the streets of Liverpool

At about 1 o’clock on Friday morning I was fumbling my way through the park perfectly innocently, ok?  I happened upon a little girl who was slumped fast asleep with her dog sleeping on her lap.  She was alive, I could see her breathing, her chest was rising and falling, and her snoring was extremely loud and noisy.  And she mumbled a bit as she slept, deep throated mumbles.  Manly sounding mumbles. And in French.

As she slept, the night’s police force headed into the depths of the park she’d made her refuge.  They weren’t there to help her but to take photos of each other in front of her.  Bastards, eh?

She slept until around 9:30 in the morning, at which time she was woken by a choir who were gently singing her awake.  She and her dog spent some time getting up and playing and petting before she then had a shower.  A shower.  In the middle of the park.

After a bit of faffing about to entertain the huge crowd that had assembled to watch her, she jumped on board a boat.  A boat.  In the park.  The boat then left the park, carrying the little girl in pursuit of her dog that had left a bit earlier.  Oh, and the girl was about 10 metres high.

Ok.  It all sounds like some very strange dream or the meanderings of somebody extremely drugged up, I know. But, it’s all true.  It really happened.  Honest.

Xolo, possibly the star of the show!

Actually, it was the very start of the three day extravaganza that is the Liverpool Sea Odyssey.

In this huge street theatre with gigantic, erm, (we’re not allowed to call them puppets in front of children) ‘people’, we see the tale unfold of a little girl searching for news of her father.  She doesn’t know that he drowned on the Titantic.

As the little girl searches, her uncle also searches for her to tell her what happened.

Both are slowly walking around different parts of Liverpool, causing massive traffic jams and road closures, not unsurprisingly.  As they walk they are followed by a live band playing the sometimes sad, sometimes jolly soundtrack of the experience, blaring through speakers and able to be heard streets away.

Eventually they will find each other and then head off together down the River Mersey, leaving in their wake literally hundreds of thousands of onlookers, but that’s on Sunday.  Sorry if I spoilt the plot there.

Now then, this wasn’t just two different, erm, ‘people’ being paraded through the street like a boring collection of floats during a carnival, this was a fantastically choreographed piece of ‘reality’ with stuff going on along the way.

The most controversial for those in the mainstream media who love nothing more than to make a mountain out of a molehill, was when she randomly stopped and parted her legs, squatted and had a gigantic wee.  Yep, to the delight of the children in the crowds, the little girl giant urinated in the street like a Scouse girl on a Saturday night out.  This drew a round of applause.  (I mean of course that the little girl giant was applauded, not Scouse girls, who are rarely applauded for their street activities.)

Ok, well, outside of Liverpool Football Club (whatever that is), the little girl removed the yellow sou’wester and waterproofs she was wearing, dismounted from the boat she was travelling on, and started to walk about instead. Cool.

This and many other unannounced activities delighted the crowd and made it so real.  Add this to the fact that the little girl was turning her head and looking at people, moving her eyes, blinking and making all the movements you’d expect from an actual living person, plus the fact that her huge dog was inviting people in the crowd to stroke and pet it, and children to ride on its back, then you have a fantastic visual experience.

At times the dozens of puppeteers seemed to be invisible as they hustled and bustled about like flies in order to keep each movement as fluid and believable as possible.  It was hard to believe that the, er, puppets (whoops, I’ve said it now) were anything but truly alive.

The co-ordination of all the various authorities was also fantastic. Large sections of park walls and railings were removed to allow access, and there were even people from telecommunications companies chopping down various telephone lines that straddled the road from telegraph poles to avoid them being snagged in the machinery as it passed five minutes later (and, I assume, or hope, connecting them back up as soon as everything had safely moved by!).  Hundreds of security, stewards, police and emergency services were on the route to keep things safe (it would be cool if they were always there to help keep the streets safe!).

By the end of the long first day, the little girl giant was asleep in a bed with soft music lulling her to rest whilst her dog played alongside.

Meanwhile, her uncle had reached the place where I’d first found the little girl sleeping in the early hours of the morning.  He too was snoring away.  Fantastic.

Hey, and this was only day one of three!