The Muppets get naughty in Irvine

Live show by Muppets creator's son turns audience suggestions into sketches.



The Muppets get naughty in Irvine

Patrick Bristow, a comedian and improv expert, plays host, passes audience suggestions on to the performers, and decides when to end each improvised sketch in Stuffed and Unstrung.
Patrick Bristow, a comedian and improv expert, plays host, passes audience suggestions on to the performers, and decides when to end each improvised sketch in "Stuffed and Unstrung."

'Stuffed and Unstrung'

Where: Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine

When: Dec. 29-Jan. 2. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 7 and 10 p.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday

How much: $38-$55

Tickets: 949-854-4646

Online: www.thebarclay.org

"Stuffed and Unstrung" will forever change your assumptions about Muppets. When the kids leave the room, they can transform from cute and cuddly creations into foul-mouthed, over-sexed fur balls.

Those who knew Muppets creator Jim Henson wouldn't be surprised, said Henson's son Brian. He's the mastermind behind the new show, which reveals his late father's loveable puppets in an entirely new light. "Stuffed and Unstrung" makes its local debut Dec. 29 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

"The thing is my dad had a very naughty sense of humor that he seldom used on camera," Henson said. "He and (his fellow puppeteers) were very natural and talented ad-libbing comedians. They'd sometimes veer from the script. My favorite moments were watching what they'd say and do after the director yelled 'Cut.'"

Henson thinks that astute observers of the Muppets can sense that they're often thinking naughtily.

"You know when you're watching the Muppets that there are two levels to the dialogue. They're often not saying what they're thinking. Our show just unleashes what's going on inside the heads of those characters."

That unleashing is achieved with the help of the audience. The director and host of "Stuffed and Unstrung," comedian and master improviser Patrick Bristow, encourages audience members to shout out suggestions about characters and situations. Six performers then create a scene based on those instructions.

"Occasionally we get somebody throwing something impossible out," Bristow said. "It really challenges the performers if they have to do an activity that's hard to pull off with a puppet – swimming or being in zero gravity, for example."

Bristow is in charge of choosing the suggestions and relaying them to the performers.

"I try to take the first thing I hear. That's hard when there are hundreds of people all shouting at once."

Audiences vary widely in the tone of their suggestions, Bristow said.

"Australian audiences – the more bloodthirsty it was, the better. And at Edinburgh, the audiences liked things dark and edgy."

Bristow has only a few rules about audience requests, but they're not ironclad.

"We try to avoid the really lowbrow stuff and (bathroom humor). But even with topics like that we're really good at finding original twists."


"Stuffed and Unstrung" was born in 2006 when Henson, who with his sister runs The Jim Henson Company, decided he wanted to sharpen his performers' comic skills.

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