Writer/Producer of Princess Pumpalot: The Farting Princess, Robin Mitchell, explains how the Princess came about.
While on holiday in Ireland in August 2011, the children's character Princess Pumpalot: The Farting Princess was born. I was staying with family in Dublin and on one particular rainy day, the idea for a farting princess was hatched.
It was the name – Princess Pumpalot - I liked at first. It made me laugh. It made anyone I told laugh. I instantly saw Princess Pumpalot as a ‘tom boy’, so introduced her to the game of rugby. She needed a sidekick, so Guffy was born.
The other characters inhabiting the fictional world of Wiffyville (The King, The Queen, The Two Princes’, The Low-Flying Gnomes, Geoffrey the Giraffe and the Bearded Witch) took a little more time to develop.
The book was published in July 2012 and shortly after this I met Theatre Director Liam Rudden, who liked the story so much, he suggested producing a stage show based on the book. Well, I didn’t expect anything to happen overnight but when you’re dealing with Liam, things tend to happen before you even suggest them. So by the summer of 2013 we were producing an Edinburgh Festival Fringe show which premiered at The Assembly Rooms.
I’ve been asking as many people as I can who buy a copy of Princess Pumpalot: The Farting Princess to take a photo of themselves with the book. The photos have been added to Flickr online and by October 2015, over 200 photos had been uploaded to the site.
There was such a great response from 2013 show both from the audiences and the critics we knew we had created an enjoyable child-friendly production. Plans were soon underway for the 2014 show which took place at The New Town Theatre and our third incarnation was staged in August 2015 at Sweet Venues in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket.
Also in June 2015, The Italian premiere of Princess Pumpalot: The Farting Princess with a stage production, based on the original text of the book, took place in Northern Italy. The production was performed by the Benvenuto Players - an English speaking Youth Theatre Group run by Theatre Producer Alison Parnell.
A new show has been written for the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, called Princess Pumpalot: The Radio Show - Live On Stage! I based the new story around Princess Pumpalot and Guffy’s quest for the powerful purple super-farting bean. An early version of this show was tested at The Leith Festival with a lot of positive feedback.
On the back of the Fringe shows, the animation rights were snapped up by Mandragora Productions and Arcus Animation Studios. I never realised farting could travel so far. It’s quite remarkable how the Princess has taken off. She’s certainly gone from strength to strength and she hasn’t finished farting yet.