SHAM & MARLOW TRAILER

The original concept of the Beat Hotel was to invite musicians to come and play at the in the ballroom of the hotel. The idea was to create caricature puppet versions of bands that were really on tour and have them play a gig at the hotel. We approached a bunch of music managers in the UK & America, and everyone was into the idea. But attracting musicians & labels required a broadcaster to be on board. When we pitched to broadcasters they wanted the artists & labels on board. Catch 22.

Then a strange opportunity & a generous gesture lead to a chance meeting with Snoop Dogg’s management in LA.

The meeting opened with a pack of Snoop Dogg cigarette papers & a business card sliding across the desk.

We pitched the show, they loved Rusty Lane, and we said we’d create a Snopp Dogg puppet for his forthcoming album .. now released. Unfortunately when we got back to Ireland radio silence followed after we fired through the pictures & videos of the puppet.

Since we’d paid for the puppet we thought we should try and come up with something for the puppet.

I was watching Pulp Fiction one day and the John Travolta & Samuel L bit in the car sparked an idea, and so we decided we’d create another puppet to go in a car with Snoop. We settled on Marilyn Manson .. h’abviously.

We were very conscious of having created puppets that looked like well known musicians, so we came up with names & a story-world that had nothing to do with the original people.

And so Sham & Marlow was born. SHAM & MARLOW

Sham : A chipper taxi driver

Marlow : A manic depressive secret service pencil pusher

The Location : Ireland .. everyone in the world can trace their roots to Ireland .. FACT!

The Story : At some point everyone in the world will find themselves tracing their roots back to Ireland. In 2011 this was proved beyond doubt when the Holy Trinity of Obama, The Queen & the Dalai Lama came to Ireland .. in search of their roots! But the secret service think there’s something fishy going on. Someone driving these Chinese whispers. And someone must go to find out, someone no-one will suspect.