Opposable Thumb is the co-creation of Dik Downey (co-founder of Pickled Image) and Adam Blake (associate artist with Wyldwood Arts and co-founder of Open Attic Company).
Dik and Adam have been working together since 2013 when they performed together in The Shop of Little Horrors. The show toured extensively and a successful performing partnership was forged. Dik invited Adam to work with him again on Coulrophobia – a groundbreaking clown and puppet show made at Nordland Visual Theatre, on the remote Lofoten Islands, in 2014. Coulrophobia has been touring ever since, showing at numerous international festivals, generating rave reviews and standing ovations.
In 2021 Adam and Dik started to make Big Boys Don’t Cry, directed by Emma Williams. After intermittent global lockdowns this show premiered at the London International Mime Festival in 2022 and toured within UK and to Europe several times from 2022 to 2024. Based in large part on the performers’ relationships with male members of their families, this was OTT’s most personal show to date.
In 2025 the company produced Don Quixote (is a very big book) a solo show created by Dik, Emma Williams (also director) and Chris Collier (also Lighting and Sound Designer). This premiered at Nordland Visual Theatre before playing multiple sold-out performances in UK and a wonderful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026. It has toured internationally (Spain, Germany and widely in Scandinavia) and we look forward to it flying far from 2027 onwards.
Dik Downey
Dik started his performing life at Glastonbury festival in 1983, painted yellow, playing kazoo whilst someone lay on a bed of broken cornflakes. He then ran away with the hippyPunks, travelling through Europe as a crap juggler, fire-eater, cabaret artiste, escapologist and clown. Dik eventually returned to the UK to train (briefly) at Fool Time Circus School, eventually finding his natural home with renowned anarchic, Dada-esque street theatre company Desperate Men. A few years later, he was lured in from the cold by Green Ginger, performing and making for their shows ‘Slaphead’, ‘P.R.A.T.S’ and ‘Frank Einstein: Rewired’.
In 2000, Dik co-founded puppetry & theatre company, Pickled Image. Over the next 19 years, Dik conceived, designed, constructed and performed in most of their highly successful shows. He also makes puppets and masks for other companies and even finds time to teach puppet making at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
Adam Blake
Adam went to uni to do Biochemistry with Molecular Biology, dropped out, did crap office jobs for a few years then moved to Bristol and slowly became a Clown. As well as his work with Dik he is an associate artist with Wyldwood Arts who specialise in inter generational projects, running improvised story sessions with primary school kids and residents of care homes. Adam also co-founded Open Attic Company, is a regular collaborator with The Wardrobe Theatre and has worked with notable companies such as Mufti Games, Beyond The Ridiculous, The Adventure Bureau, Terrestrial and Soap Soup.
Adam has now created his own company: Adventure Arts; a wildly creative arts organisation based in Todmorden, West Yorkshire.
Adam is a father and husband and loves his family very much.
Emma Williams (Associate)
Emma and Dik have been collaborating on shows for over twenty years. Emma directed Wolf Tales, The Chatterbox and The Shop of Little Horrors for Pickled Image, and for Opposable Thumb she directed and devised Big Boys Don’t Cry and was writer in the room, co-deviser and director of Don Quixote (is a very big book).
Her own work includes writing, podcasts, and mentoring. She is co-artistic director of Em & Vic, a theatre company championing new work that delivers unapologetically weird live performances.
