She's a Princess and she farts. What more do you need to know?
A fast-paced, fun-packed, fart-powered show for all the family.
The Story So Far
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 union. 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, FAQ, Geoffrey the Giraffe, The Prisoner, Prentiss the Plumber, Malcolm the Mummy, Rat-A-Tat, Werewolf Steve, Cookie Crumble and the Bearded Witch) took a little more time to develop.
The original book - Princess Pumpalot: The Farting Princess - 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 famous Assembly Rooms in George Street.
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 was written for the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, called Princess Pumpalot: The Radio Show - Live On Stage! (later re-named Princess Pumpalot: The Quest for the Purple Super-Farting Bean). 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) thereafter transferring to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The second book in the Princess Pumpalot series, Princess Pumpalot: The Super-Farting Bean Mystery, was published in July 2017.
Since then, I’ve been asking as many people as I can who buy a copy of Princess Pumpalot: The Farting Princess or Princess Pumpalot: The Super-Farting Bean Mystery to take a photo of themselves with the book. The photos have been added to Princess Pumpalot's Flickr gallery and by May 2021, over 360 photos on this site. Our 'Pumpy Pose' success rate is about 7% of all the purchased books (but that's okay. It's not for everyone!)
In 2019, Princess Pumpalot celebrated SEVEN consecutive years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a NEW show, Princess Pumpalot: The Ghostly Farting Monk Hunt and we were delighted to be back at Le Monde (Venue 47) in George Street. It would have been EIGHT consecutive years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe but we all know what happened next. Read about the Wiffyville Lockdown entitled Truth is Stranger than Fiction in our Palace News.
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.