Sock-Jung-un: A sock puppet spoof of Kim-Jong-un

A sock puppet show (which its makers rate PG-13) spoofs North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un. Get ready for a Samurai-meets-Star Wars affair.

A sock puppet show (which its makers rate PG-13) spoofs North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un. Get ready for a Samurai-meets-Star Wars affair.

A son of an extremist dictator, Sock-Jong-un is undergoing an identity crisis after the disappearance of his father.

He gathers a team of genius scientists and locks them in a dungeon till they discover the formula of time travel. This is the premise of the sock puppet show, Cold Feet: A Japanese Sock-urai.

But don’t expect a puppet show for kids. In fact, the show comes with a cautionary message from the team behind it. Director-writer Ashwin Choithramani (23) says, “Implement PG-13 please. While there’s no profanity involved, there’s certainly a heavy dose of sexual innuendo. Lots of adult supervision is required. So, if you ask me, ‘Can I bring my kids for the show?’ I would say, ‘Think twice’.”

Choithramani, who heads an events company, and psychology student Raihaan Attawala (21), had staged their first show — Cold Feet, an Italian gangster sock puppet story, last year. And quirk seems to be a running theme in their productions. A Japanese Sock-urai is “very loosely” inspired from Star Wars and the life of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. “We have fused together shades of the most famous fictional father-son relationship from Star Wars and the most popular post-modern father-son bond of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un. But it’s far from reality; it’s set in Japan where samurais are embarking on a journey of bloodshed,” explains Choithramani. The new 30-minute-act is a coming-of-age tale exploring a father-son relationship.

Although they got a positive response after their debut show at The Hive in October, the writers don’t want to extend the length of their performance. While a shorter attention span is one of their reasons for doing so, Attawala points out a more important factor: “Stretching your arms for up for 30 minutes is painful. It hurts like crazy. It’s perhaps our only technical difficulty.”

For their upcoming shows, they plan to venture into sci-fi and even parodies. “The challenge is that at any given time, we can only have four characters, so that can be a bit limiting,” says Attawala.

Catch Cold Feet: A Japanese Sock-urai on March 5, 8pm onward, at The Hive, Khar (W) . Call 96199 62969