Ancient Giants
Ancient Giants is a large scale puppetry show inspired by the ancient South Asian tales a young girl named Shanti has heard throughout her childhood. Shanti imagines an epic battle between Hanuman the Monkey God and Ravana the Demon King, where this extraordinary encounter is brought to life through an exciting fusion of large scale puppetry, dance and martial arts.
As Shanti imagines this battle taking place, she explores her own strength and courage, and the complex struggle between good, evil, honour and loyalty. Hanuman and Ravana are majestically depicted in this dynamic pop up performance, an interpretation that’s been inspired by a pivotal moment in the original Ramayana tale, when these two powerful characters meet and face each other. ​
​After two years of R&D, we developed Ancient Giants into a touring show, as part of the Without Walls touring programme.
We have travelled across the country to several festivals, taking our show to new audiences and new settings.
The tour continues in 2025, and we're currently busy rehearsing and preparing the show with this year's cast and creative team.
As part of our 2025 tour, we are also launching the Ancient Giants audio book which uses creative audio description to communicate the story.
An audio description of Ancient Giants, which takes you into the visual and sensory world of the story, narrated by the central character of Shanti.
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This audiobook is available in two formats:
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Entire audiobook - to be listened to all the way through without breaks
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Chapter version of audiobook - separated into 4 shorter chapters
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We recommend that you listen to either version before the show, but this audiobook could also be a post show listen.
Produced by Inspirate
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Creative Team
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​Cast:
Chandni Premgi
Karla Jones
Mahtab Grimshaw
Maisy Luk
Paloma Styles
Rayo Patel
Reyyän Hammad
Sanjay Dattani
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Puppet Designer & Maker - Tom Cleaver
Puppetry & Rehearsal Direction - Rayo Patel
Choreographic Mentor - Shreya Vadnerkar
Martial Arts Choreography - Chirag Lukha
Soundtrack composed by Devesh Sodha
Executive Producer & Co-Creator - Parmjit Sagoo
R&D process supported by Without Walls Blueprint funding and Arts Council England
Originally commissioned by Just So Festival and Brighton Festival, as part of the Without Wall Creation & Touring Programme