Puppetry

Das

and

ere

The

ater

64

· UN

IMA

-Zen

trum

Deu

tsch

land

· 16

. Jah

rgan

g 20

06 ·

Ein

zelp

reis

6,-

€

www.unima.de

64

2

Impressum

Puppetry in the UK

Since the UNIMA congress in Rijeka in 2004, our maga-zine has spotlighted a different UNIMA country in a special issue each year. After featuring Poland and the Netherlands, this time we are pleased to present an over-view of puppetry activities in the UK.

The historical introduction is in three parts – from the beginnings through to the last century and up to the pre-sent day. Glyn Edwards introduces us to the traditional puppet show Punch and Judy, which still exists in the hands of some practitioners as a vital and authentic expe-rience today. Other articles give an overview of the Scot-tish scene and their puppet animation festival as well as TV puppetry before and after Spitting Image.

You will find further information about academic training opportunities, organisations and festival structures, partly in short articles or short contact lists.

In addition there are images from current companies in the UK. All companies listed with email in the puppeteersUK

yearbook were contacted and invited to contribute. Un-fortunately, only one third came back to us, so the images we have been able to publish do not provide a complete picture.

In one section, we feature individual companies who kindly wrote articles for us or responded to our email in-terview. Those theatres are from many different regions with various main interests: theatre for 6 month to 2 year old children or for children and teenagers with disabilities, theatre with educational programmes, visual theatre, theatre for adult audiences, with film and projection, street performances, specific venues, companies with their own venue, shadow players and paper theatre…

We hope to give you a stimulating insight into puppetry activities in the British Isles. If you are interested and want to see more for yourself, we would recommend that you start by visiting the puppeteersUK website or contacting BrUNIMA representatives.

Best regards, the editorial team

Editorial

Herausgeber:Union Internationale de la Marionnette (UNIMA)Zentrum Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V.c/o Theater der Nacht, Obere Str. 1, 37154 NortheimTel: 0049 (0) 5551-9080779 (Di 14.00–19.00 Uhr)Fax: 0049 (0) [email protected], www.unima.de

Redaktion: Christiane Klatt, Anthony Gaughan, Stephan Wunsch, Silke Technau, Stephan Schlafkec/o Stephan Schlafke, Sanderstr. 26, 12047 Berlin, [email protected]

Übertragungen aus dem Englischen: Anthony Gaughan, Christiane Klatt, Ingrid Paasche

Layout und Satz: Martin Labedat, [email protected]

Druck: Pachnicke-Druck, Göttingen, Druckauflage: 1.000

Bankverbindung:UNIMA-Zentrum BRD e.V.Konto-Nr. 473 999 00, BLZ 260 612 91Volksbank Eichsfeld-Northeim eG

Das andere Theaterist das offizielle Mitteilungsblatt der UNIMA, Zen-trum Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V. mit Deut-schem Bund für Puppenspiel.Die Bezugsgebühr ist im Mitglieds-/Abo-Beitrag ent-halten.

Im Interesse möglichst aktueller Informationen bit-tet die Redaktion um rechtzeitige Zusendung von Terminen, Ankündigungen etc. Nachdruck nur mit Genehmigung der Redaktion. Alle Angaben ohne Gewähr. Keine Haftung für eingesandtes Material. Die namentlich gekennzeichneten Beiträge geben nicht unbedingt die Meinung des Herausgebers wie-der. Die nicht mit Fotografen benannten Fotos stam-men aus Programmheften ohne Angaben oder wur-den von den Theatern zur Verfügung gestellt.

Redaktionsschluss DaT 65: 15. Februar 2007(Erscheinungsdatum März 2007)

ISSN 0944-2324

Frontpage: "Wriggling Figure", Stephen MottramPhoto: Simon AnnandBackpage: The Cleaner in "Low Life", Blind Summit,Photo: Nick Barnes

3

content

Editorial 2

BrUNIMA 4

Puppetry in Great BritainBritish Puppetry to 1925 4

From 1925 to 2000 5

Overview of the contemporary scene 7

John Wright’s 100th birthday 11

Individual Company FeaturesLittle Angel Theatre 12Garlic Theatre 12Horse and Bamboo Theatre 13Norwich Puppet Theatre 14Movingstage Marionette Co. 15Oily Cart 16Jacolly Puppet Theatre 17The Wright Stuff Theatre of Puppets 18Green Ginger 19Blind Summit 20doo-cot 22Faulty Optic 22Stephen Mottram 23Ruffege Shadow Theatre 24New Model Theatre 25Theatre-rites 26Forkbeard Fantasy 26

Impressions of British puppeteers 27

Punch & Judy yesterday, today and tomorrow 30

TV Puppetry in Britain 34

Puppetry in Higher Education 35

Puppets in Scotland 36

Visit to the Puppet Centre TrustInterview with Peter Charlton, president of BPMTG 38

Organisations, Festivals and Museums 39

Meg Amsden

Glyn Edwards

Ray DaSilva

Clive Chandler

Susanne Forster, George Speaight

Glyn Edwards

Simon Buckley

Matthew Isaac Cohen

Simon Hart

Anthony Gaughan

4

British puppetry to 1925

Thanks to the tireless research efforts of the late George Speaight in tracing tantalising images and fragments of text, British puppeteers are able to claim a native ancestry for their art form dating back at least seven hundred years. It was not, however, until Ben Jonson’s famous play Bart-holemew Fair (1614) included a scene featuring a comic puppet show based on the story of Hero and Leander that any full length script was recorded. This puppet play de-monstrated all the coarse knockabout comic energy at which hand puppets excel and this legacy has perpetuated itself within the Punch and Judy tradition to this day.

In 1662 the ancestor of Punch himself was first recor-ded in London (under the name of Policinella) by the di-arist Samuel Pepys, although the puppet was at this time a marionette with a rod to the head. Punch (who is the subject of a separate article in this publication) had his origins in Italy but became the dominant puppet on the English puppet stage for the following two centuries, earning his place as a key character in the nation’s popular culture.

In addition to the touring puppet shows which perfor-med at the various great Fairs of the era, the 18th century saw the development of a number of building based pup-pet theatres in London. These performed ballad operas and satirical divertissements (with the ubiquitous pres-ence of the crowd-pleasing Punch) and were intended for a more cultured audience than the fairground throng. Directors of these theatres included Henry Fielding (author of Tom Jones) and the composer and entertainer Charles Dibdin, whose hit songs - popular with Nelson’s sailors - can still be heard today. Other famous puppet theatre di-

rectors were Martin Powell of Covent Garden and Char-lotte Charke, firebrand daughter of the Poet Laureate Colley Cibber. George Speaight rightly called the 18th century a Golden Age of English puppetry.

Just as the ancestor of Punch had been first brought to England from Italy, so a second wave of Italian players brought fresh ideas to England at the end of the 18th Century. These Fantoccini shows – as they were known – also featured a character from the Commedia Dell’ Arte tradition as the star. This time it was a marionette of Har-lequin (formerly Arlecchino) who appeared in all manner of stories. But whilst Harlequin’s day as a popular figure in England may be long over, Fantoccini left another legacy which can still be seen. These shows introduced the ever-popular ‘trick puppets’ which – by clever stringing – could effect all manner of changes whilst in front of the audi-ence and are the ancestors of the Puppet Circus entertain-ments which still fascinate audiences even in these digital days. They are also credited with bringing about the chan-geover by puppeteers in England from marionettes which used a rod to the puppet’s head to ones using strings alone, as this facilitated the possibilities of ever more ingenious transformations.

Along with Fantoccini came Ombres Chinoises (Eng-lish impresarios have always liked spicing up their public-ity with ‘exotic’ non-English vocabulary). These were sha-dow puppet shows – a previously under-used tradition in England - which now became popularised by Italian and French performers. These were eminently adaptable to home entertainment and formed the inspiration for many a homespun performance, with the story of The Broken Bridge being the perennial favourite.

Puppetry in Great Britain

British UNIMA is in an unusual position compared to many other centres in that we are only one of several pup-petry organizations in Great Britain, all of which are ser-ved by an umbrella organization - Puppeteers UK (of which we are a founder member). Because of the remar-kable networking and information PUK provides for na-tional companies and events, we are able to concentrate mainly on international puppetry matters. We also have a comparatively small membership and do not currently organize events, other than our AGM day and annual John Phillips Memorial Lecture.

When I became chair of BrUNIMA in 2000, we had just completed a membership survey that showed that most of our members were over 50, which is not a very healthy situation. We decided to reform ourselves in order to attract a larger number of young members. We recrui-ted some younger people onto our Board, commissioned a website and two years ago launched a new puppetry magazine, Puppet Notebook, which is mainly for mem-bers, but also for anyone with an interest in puppetry. It comes out 3 times a year, is edited by Eleanor Margolies, and has been an enormous success. Issue no.7 will be out some time in November. We have an increasing number of overseas subscribers, and also have back issues available

– see our website www.unima.org.uk. As a result of these changes, we have increased our membership and now have a younger average age!

Our General Secretary Diana Bayliss has had to retire recently, but (I’m glad to say) will remain on the Commit-tee. Our new Secretary is Miriam Murtin, who joined the Palatine programme at Lancaster University as a Research Assistant in February 2004. Her interests include film-making, theatre in education, puppetry, stand-up come-dy, site-specific theatre, choral singing and animation. She also works as a freelance translator of Dutch.

Our last event was an afternoon and evening of puppet shows and the AGM, in Preston, Lancashire on Thursday October 26th (in association with the Charter Theatre, DNA, and Horse and Bamboo).

Please contact me: [email protected] or Miriam: [email protected] if you are visiting the U.K. and would like to link up with us or our members.

Meg Amsden, president BrUNIMA

British Unima in 2006Puppetry in Great Britain

George Speaight dressed as Samuel Pepys at the

1987 Festival celebrating Punch’s 325th ‘birthday’

5


Meanwhile, Punch was no longer performing as a ma-rionette. His show had transformed into a glove puppet play (for reasons debated by puppet historians) and the marionette stage was developing afresh. During the 19th Century, marionette showmen presented scaled down versions of the melodramas and pantomimes that had been the province of human actors. This century saw English marionette companies rising to a height of popu-lar fame they have never surpassed. Names like Bullock, Barnard, Tiller, Clowes, Holden and Delvaine were be-hind major touring operations; they travelled portable theatres up and down the land presenting spectacular en-tertainments combining plays, variety turns and pantomi-me. The greatest of these companies toured far beyond England, bringing their prestigious performances through-out Europe and round the world to Australia, as well as across the Atlantic to America.

These entertainments did not survive far into the 20th Century, when Europe became engulfed in turmoil and the complexities of a touring puppet show could no lon-ger be maintained – nor find a ready audience. Meanwhi-le, the very concept of the puppet had been seized upon by artists from movements as disparate as the Art and Craft Movement (for whom puppetry gave the artist ulti-mate control - from the god-like creation of figures out of primal materials, through to animating them to speak the artists own words) to the Symbolists and the manifesto call of Edward Gordon Craig to “Do away with the actor and you do away with the means by which a debased stage realism is produced and flourishes; no longer would there be a living figure to confuse us into connecting actuality and art." Thus the first part of the 20th Century saw a number of individual artists exploring their own vision of puppetry. Among these was Walter Wilkinson, who tra-velled the villages pushing his simple puppets on a hand-cart and who wrote a series of books detailing his expe-riences. Glyn Edwards

From 1925 – 2000

The publication of Everybody’s Theatre & How to Make It in 1923 by Harry Whanslaw rekindled interest in the Victorian Juvenile Drama (Paper Theatre) and led to the formation of the British Model Theatre Guild in 1925, later to become the British Puppet & Model Theatre Guild. It produced a newsletter, held meetings and beca-me well known for its annual exhibitions of members’ work. At the same time, there was a gradual revival of in-terest in touring marionette shows, although productions were on a much smaller scale than those of the turn of the century showmen. The best known towards the end of the 1920’s were Clunn Lewis (still in the old style and praised by Craig), William Simmonds who made exquisitely car-ved figures, and the Gair-Wilkinson group presented by Lily and Arthur Wilkinson. The figures of all groups ten-ded to be realistic; they all presented variety turns and short plays, usually with recorded music. Arthur Wil-kinson however (a painter and brother of Walter), would sit on the side of the stage and accompany the marionet-tes, operated by Lily Gair and their daughter, with origi-nal tunes on a guitar.

Several amateur groups appeared and small experimen-tal puppet theatres for invited audiences were set up by Olive Blackham in Birmingham, and Whanslaw with

Waldo Lanchester and Jan Bussell in London. In 1930, the London Marionette Theatre presented the world’s first television broadcast with puppets and also performed at the Liège UNIMA Congress. Waldo and Muriel Lan-chester then set up their own theatre in Malvern for the public, and in 1939 organised what was probably the first puppet festival in the UK (which included ‘Chès Cabo-tans d’Amiens) and later presented Shakes vs Shav a play especially written for them by George Bernard Shaw. Other husband and wife teams set up touring companies and continued to present short playlets and variety turns, invariably including a marionette circus. Notable among-st these was Jan and Ann Bussell as the Hogarth Puppets, who brought to puppetry their experience from television and the human theatre.

Meanwhile, Olive Blackham had moved to a farm in the Cotswolds and set up an experimental theatre in a barn, where she was joined by several students and artists - including George Speaight, who gave up a paid job to go and live at the farm for nine months in 1939. They pre-sented performances at the barn for a local school and initiated a series of puppetry summer schools which at-tracted more students from far and wide. In her book Puppets into Actors, published in 1948, she explained her thoughts on puppet heads “I am not inclined to attach as much importance to the head of the puppet as do some people. …. to my mind, the puppet expresses himself most clearly in his movements and in his appearance as a whole, of which the head is a small though important part.” Illustrating those thoughts, she produced “Lima Beans” by A. Kreymborg with two marionettes; one with a plain cube head and the other a sphere. An alternative audience with an interest in literary texts was beginning to develop, and there was some cross-fertilisation of ideas with puppeteers of Europe and America. The journalist Gerald Morice, one of the founders of the Guild, orga-nised trips to the continent, and a number of foreign troupes performed in the UK – the Italian Podrecca com-pany provided inspiration for John Wright. Both Paul Brann and Lotte Reiniger came to live in England during the 1930s and 1940s and had considerable influence on the marionette and shadow theatre respectively.

In the 1940’s the Guild continued to thrive and imme-diately after the war commenced the publication of “The Puppet Master” which continues to this day. During the war there was an increased interest in all types of puppet, especially hand puppets, and also figures made from junk and found objects, particularly in schools. This sparked off the formation of the Educational Puppetry Associati-on (EPA) in 1942 with Whanslaw as vice president. It published Puppet Post, a magazine with a particular inte-rest in the uses of puppetry in education and therapy. This organisation’s London headquarters with resident puppe-teer/writer/philosopher Alexis Philpott (Pantopuck) soon became a Mecca for puppeteers and teachers. Many schools set up their own puppet groups and performed plays at annual week-long festivals organised by the EPA. The 1948 festival included marionette plays presented by John Wright, who in 1946 had returned from South Afri-ca and set up a studio in London. Wright was both a brilliant craftsman and a man of the theatre with an early preference for producing classical fairy tales with mario-nettes –notably “The Little Mermaid”. In 1948 Bob Pel-ham started the manufacture of Pelham Puppets – toy marionettes which provided the initial inspiration for ma-ny puppeteers; membership of the Pelpup Club peaked at 22,000 world-wide.

Ann Bussel with Muffin the mule (Hogarth Puppets)


Meanwhile, Punch was no longer performing as a ma-rionette. His show had transformed into a glove puppet play (for reasons debated by puppet historians) and the marionette stage was developing afresh. During the 19th

Waldo Lanchester and Jan Bussell in London. In 1930, the London Marionette Theatre presented the world’s first television broadcast with puppets and also performed at the Liège UNIMA Congress. Waldo and Muriel Lan-

and you do away with the means by which a debased stage realism is produced and flourishes; no longer would there be a living figure to confuse us into connecting actuality and art." Thus the first part of the 20th Century saw a number of individual artists exploring their own vision of puppetry. Among these was Walter Wilkinson, who tra-velled the villages pushing his simple puppets on a hand-cart and who wrote a series of books detailing his expe-

6

The first post-war theatre building to open in the UK with performances for the general public was the Belgrave Mews Puppet Theatre in Edinburgh in 1951. It was con-verted from stables and garage at the home of husband and wife Miles Lee and Olivia Hopkins, who ran it until 1961 when Miles Lee left to take a position in Uganda. 1958 saw the opening of the first purpose-built puppet theatre, the Harlequin at Rhos-on-Sea, North Wales by Eric Bramall (who coined the phrase “New Puppetry” – an unconventional approach with the accent on the pup-petesque quality of the puppet, often using simple ob-jects). The theatre is now operated by Chris Somerville during holiday seasons. Puppeteers continued to experi-ment and develop the artform and were beginning to perform in full view of the audience. In 1958 the Guild held its first summer school which continued annually until 1968. There was an increasing desire to present mo-re serious works and for adult audiences despite the gene-ral public perception that puppets were just for children: an impression created by numerous television programmes - and by many puppeteers themselves.

In 1960, John Wright sank his life savings into the conversion of a ruined temperance hall and, with his futu-re wife Lyndie Parker, opened it as The Little Angel Theatre, which is still in operation. The company later received wide spread recognition under Wright’s direction with full stage productions of Menotti’s ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’ and Stravinsky’s ‘The Soldier’s Tale’. The development of tape-recording in the 1950s and 60s ma-de it much easier to present musical works and also to employ recorded voices of first-class actors for plays. This was particularly useful for the large scale presentations of the Caricature and DaSilva companies, where voices of the puppeteers without radio microphones would other-wise have been indistinct.

1963 saw the first international conference in London

– a meeting of the UNIMA Presidium, followed by the first major international puppet festival in the UK. This was a week-long event held at Colwyn Bay organised by Eric Bramall. It was a momentous occasion attracting re-presentatives from 40 countries and broadened the hori-zons of many English puppeteers. Performers from Ger-many were Anni Weigand’s Rod Puppet Theatre, Die Hohnsteiner, students from Deutsches Institut für Pup-penspiel, and Harro Siegel; others appearing included Lucien Caron (France), Llords International (USA), Fred Schneckenburger (Switzerland), Sergei Obraztsov (USSR), and Arlekin (Poland). The British Centre of UNIMA was formed in the same year. A second festival was held at Colwyn Bay in 1968 and Jan Bussell was elected Interna-tional President of UNIMA at a Presidium meeting. Fes-tival performances by British companies included Carica-ture Theatre of Wales, DaSilva Puppet Company, Harle-quin Theatre Company, Stavordale Marionettes, and Barry Smith’s Theatre of Puppets. Barry Smith, who had been inspired by Paul Brann, concentrated throughout his career on productions exclusively for adults.

In 1968, John Blundall opened Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre based at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birming-ham. As director/designer, Blundall’s work was heavily influenced in style and repertoire by the state subsidised theatre of Eastern Europe. The three national member-ship organisations continued to do good work for their members but sometimes with overlapping problems. In 1972, the EPA lost its headquarters and later became ab-sorbed into the Puppet Centre Trust which was establis-hed in 1974 with headquarters in South London as a point of reference for both puppeteers and public. It com-menced the publication of a monthly magazine, Anima-tions, in 1977, which continued to 2000. In 1978 the DaSilva Company moved to Norwich and converted a medieval church into Norwich Puppet Theatre which opened in 1980. With a raked auditorium of almost 200 seats, it continues today with Luis Boy as Artistic Direc-tor. The Puppet Theatre Barge was established in 1982. Seating 50, it is based in London and to this day presents marionette productions for adults and children at several locations along the Thames.

The 1980s saw the formation of more puppetry organi-sations including the Punch and Judy Fellowship as well as the Punch and Judy College of Professors, and also re-gional groups – notably The North West Puppetry Forum and Puppeteers East, later the Midlands Puppetry Forum. In Scotland, Malcolm Knight initiated a Glasgow centre named ‘The Garret’ in 1981 which became Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre in 1989 with workshops and an 80-seat studio theatre and other amenities. Also in Scotland, the Biggar Puppet Theatre opened in 1986 and is still in operation run by the Purves family. Training courses for puppeteers were initiated in 1987 by London School of Puppetry (now based in Yorkshire), at the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre and undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

There were attempts in the 1980’s and 90’s to bring the various puppet organisations together and to define their roles thereby reducing unnecessary duplication of effort. A series of weekend mini festivals was held in Norfolk to which all organisations were invited and an association of puppeteers support groups emerged from the 1993 event which eventually led to the formation of PuppeteersUK in 2000. Ray DaSilva


Norwich Puppet Theatre

Barge (1950)

Puppet Theatre The Barge

7

Overview of the contemporary sceneClearly the making of any assessment of the current state of British puppetry is fraught with difficulty. There is al-ways the danger of viewing things from a particular per-spective or bias, or basing opinions on limited knowledge or understanding. We all tend to see things from our own point of view, and any assessment will be influenced by the subjective position of the person making it. However, the formation of PuppeteersUK has made it possible to gain an independent overview of the whole UK puppetry sector. At the heart of this co-operative and inclusive pro-ject is a database of information which is open to all sta-keholders. PuppeteersUK is a collaborative framework in which the pre-existing national membership organisa-tions have come together alongside other organisations, companies and individuals. The online directory which has developed over the last few years represents the most accurate mapping of the sector ever developed. The num-ber of entries increases day by day and the information it contains is continually updated by members. Whilst the database in not exhaustive and some names are clearly missing it does provide the best information available.

This database currently has about 350 entries repre-senting both individuals and companies. This is probably a fair estimate of the total size of the sector. These entries are divided into various categories, with many companies and individuals having entries in more than one category (often performers also see themselves as makers and tea-chers, for example).

Britain is very fortunate to have four national member-ship organisations. These are The British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild, BrUNIMA, the Punch and Judy Fellowship and the Punch and Judy College of Professors. These organisations have approximate membership num-bers of between 15 and 250.

British Centre of Union Internationale de la MarionnetteThe British Centre of UNIMA is a registered charity which supports the status of puppeteers and puppet theatre by raising public awareness of the value and im-portance of puppetry as an art form in its own right. It encourages improved standards of performance and pro-motes the use of the art form in education, community programmes and therapies. It arranges an annual meeting of members, an annual lecture, and other occasional mee-tings and events which take place at different locations throughout the country. Students and young people may join BrUNIMA at a considerably reduced rate which en-titles them to receive an emailed copy of the publications, plus all the other benefits.

Punch and Judy College of ProfessorsCollege members are among the leading practitioners of Punch & Judy in the UK today and have organised, and performed at, numerous festivals locally, nationally and internationally.

The College promotes the highest standards in the performance and presentation of the traditional show. It has a particularly robust attitude towards upholding the reputation of Mr. Punch as an imp of mischief whose role

in society is occasionally misunderstood by humourless self-elected guardians of public morality and it argues Mr. Punch's case with vigour.

The British Puppet and Model Theatre GuildFounded in 1925, the Guild is the longest established UK puppetry organisation. Its aims and objectives are to pro-tect and promote the skills of puppetry and the model theatre; to improve the standards of puppetry in all its forms; to establish a basis of communication between its members in both Great Britain and all parts of the world.

Membership is drawn from a wide spectrum of both professional and amateur puppeteers. Regular meetings, festivals, publications and a web site keep members regu-larly informed and involved.

The Punch and Judy FellowshipThe Fellowship aims to preserve and promote the tradi-tions and skills associated with the presentation of the Punch and Judy Show. It seeks to improve and maintain standards of performance, and to encourage public appre-ciation of the show thereby ensuring that it continues in-to the future.

Members receive bi-monthly issues of the PJF News-heet. The AGM and Punch and Judy Festival are held in October each year.

Many practitioners belong to more than one of the above organisations. Some people do not join organisa-tions at all. Indeed, it is important to note that many practitioners working in what would be recognised as puppetry in the widest sense are not necessarily keen to be labelled as Puppetry. Many would prefer to be classed as ‘Physical Theatre’ or ‘Object Theatre’ or indeed just plain ‘Theatre’. In many situations, the puppetry “pigeon hole” may be less than useful. There are also a number of people whose independent mindedness makes them wary of join-ing organisations at all, and those who in the past have distanced themselves from getting involved in the dif-ferences between organisations. It does seem to be the case that many of these people are attracted to the concept of PuppeteersUK. This means that some people are mem-bers only of PuppeteersUK, although it should be noted, without going into great detail, that PUK is set up in such a way as to actively encourage membership of its constitu-ent organisations.

As well as the national membership organisations there are six other important bodies who actively promote pup-petry.

London School of PuppetryThe London School of Puppetry was the first organisati-on to establish formal training in puppetry in the UK in 1987 - starting off as the Puppetry Summer School. It runs long and short courses and the Professional Puppe-teers Diploma. Courses are designed to serve all aspects of the puppetry profession and to enhance and develop the practice of puppetry.


8

Midlands Puppet ForumThe Midlands Puppet Forum represents the interests of all aspects of puppetry in the Midlands region and is connected to a network of puppeteers and puppetry en-thusiasts worldwide.

Puppet Animation FestivalThe Puppet Animation Festival is the UKs oldest and largest performing arts event for children and young peo-ple. (A longer article about the work of PAF can be found in this issue by Simon Hart.)

Puppet Centre TrustThe PCT was founded in 1974 to support and advocate the art form of puppetry and the needs of British puppe-teers.

In 2004 the Puppet Centre Trust became a develop-ment agency for the art form of puppetry with an overall mission to: support new work that includes puppet and object animation; encourage the use of puppetry within a variety of other performance disciplines and contexts; advocate the art form.

The Centre exists as a practical resource and agency for all forms of puppetry. Activities include: organising trai-ning opportunities for British practitioners alongside na-tional and international artists of excellence; commissio-ning art form development and research projects; running the web magazine Animations Online and a range of other activities working to increase the accessibility, awa-reness and practice of puppetry in collaboration with other relevant organisations. PCT also works with local schools and local groups to give the community opportu-nity to participate in the art form.

PuppetLinkPuppetLink is an arts organisation, based in the West Midlands and funded by Arts Council England to deve-lop and promote puppetry in the region. It is based on a consortium of five professional companies who between them perform to a quarter of a million people a year in a wide variety of settings, including festivals, theatre ve-nues, and schools. As well as touring their own numerous productions, the members of PuppetLink organise a number of annual festivals, and regularly travel to festivals in many lands.

Scottish Mask & Puppet CentreSMPC was founded in 1981 by Malcolm Knight and is a national and international resource which promotes and advances the art of puppets, masks and performing ob-jects. It functions as an independent arts centre with its own studio theatre, library and multimedia room, display gallery, cafe, mask studio, puppet-making/carving work-shops and office complex. The Centre also offers a two year full-time training course for adults, the HND in Puppet Theatre Arts, in partnership with Anniesland Col-lege. SMPC currently offers two national touring exhibi-tions to museums and art galleries - The Magic of Masks and Puppets and Behind the Mask. The Centre has an on-going Cultural Diversity Programme and hosts and promotes intercultural companies and exchanges from overseas as well as an education outreach programme to schools, community and voluntary organisations. Master-

classes are offered twice yearly in April and June, and an Annual Puppeteers Day is held on the first Sunday in Ju-ne. The Puppeteers in Scotland Saturday Programme hosts visiting companies on a weekly basis combined with birthday party workshops. The Centre is also home to Grant Mason Make-Up Effects which provides a wide range of services to film and television.

Then there are a whole range of companies and indivi-duals that make up the 350 entries on the database. The PuppeteersUK directory pages offer contact details and links to a wide range of companies and individuals. These are separated in different categories which include: Puppet Makers (196), Provider of services (150) Puppet Friendly Venues (3) (this is a new category), Puppeteers (271), Teacher/Academic (69), Non performing enthusiasts (18) Festival or Events Organiser (4). It is important to note that many people appear in more than one category.

As well as courses at Central School of Speech and Drama, and at London School of Puppetry, companies such as Horse and Bamboo, Norwich Puppet Theatre and Forkbeard Fantasy also offer occasional short courses. The Puppet Centre in London and the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre also offer opportunities as do many of the festivals that take place across the country. In recent years, the Puppet Centre has been able to offer (as it has in the past) bursaries to emerging or developing artists in the sector.

A scan through the entries in the directory reveals that the British Sector does not have a great deal of building based structure. In terms of building based full time pro-fessional companies with dedicated performances spaces and other associated resources, one can only talk in terms of Norwich Puppet Theatre, The Little Angel Theatre


Horse and Bamboo on Tour, H+B 2006


classes are offered twice yearly in April and June, and an Annual Puppeteers Day is held on the first Sunday in Ju-

(London), and Biggar Little Theatre (Scotland). To this should possibly be added the excellent facilities of Horse and Bamboo. Whilst producing and hosting a range of excellent work none of these has the kind of funding support and scale of resources that would be expected. It would be true to say that in general the British sector is very under resourced compared to many other countries.

Most of the sector is made up of small touring compa-nies –many of these are very small indeed. It is rare to see a show with more than four or five performers and is much more common to see shows with one or two. This is true not only of touring companies but also of the ve-nue based companies. Despite this, these small companies do have a good national - and in many cases international - reputation. Many of them regularly feature strongly on the international festival circuit – companies such as Green Ginger and Steven Mottram, Hand to Mouth, Storybox Theatre.

In the realm of small companies, it is perhaps not sur-prising that Britain is well blessed with a large number of Punch and Judy Professors (66 in this database). Many of these also travel to festivals all over the world.

One unusual example which is small in every way and also delightfully eccentric is the Theatre of Small Conve-nience in Malvern which is in the Guinness Book of Re-cords for being the smallest theatre and is housed in a tiny converted Gentlemen’s Toilet. It is the home to the work of the wonderfully eccentric and inventive Dennis Neale.

Another unusual venue is the Puppet Theatre Barge. The first performance on the barge was presented in 1982. Described as one of London's more elusive tre-asures, it is an established 50 seat theatre with comfortab-le seating and all modern facilities and is unique. Fully heated in the winter and cooled in the summer it is rich in atmosphere and provides the ideal setting for the ima-ginative shows produced by this company. The theatre presents marionette and rod puppet spectacles throug-hout the year, spending the winter in Little Venice, cen-tral London and the summer on the River Thames from July to October giving performances at Henley-on-Thames, Marlow, Cliveden and Richmond-on-Thames.

We also have a number of practitioners in the art of Model or Toy Theatre. Leading exponents include Joe Gladwin of Paperplays. Paperplays Puppet Theatre is run by Joe Gladwin and his partner Sarah Bolshaw. Their theatre productions include six Toy Theatre shows (Cin-derella, Beauty & the Beast, Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Blue Beard and Dick Whittington) and a large-scale marionette production (The Sleeping Beauty), the latter of which was premiered in December 2004. It also includes, a variety of educational workshops and a demonstration/lecture, both of which have been formula-ted particularly for schools and special interest groups.

Venues for performances include schools, museums and shopping centres and other public spaces as well as formal theatres. Many companies who tour theatres also present a high proportion of work in educational settings particularly in early years and across the primary age ran-ge.

There is a general perception that puppetry is for children, but there are many companies presenting work for adults and more general audiences. One such compa-ny is doo-cot.

There are approximately 30 museums which have been recorded as having some sort of Puppet Collection. Many of these are small with only a handful of figures; some are much larger with hundreds of figures. Overall only a small proportion of the figures are on permanent display. There are notable collections to be seen at the Biggar Puppet Theatre Museum, The Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh, and the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. We seem to lack a single national collection that is easily accessible. John Blundall has created a very impressive collection which is open to the public at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. Unfortunately a large and important collection of figures created by John for the former Cannon Hill Puppet Company remain languishing in the basement of the Midlands Arts Centre where they have been for many years.

A recent development in Britain has been the establish-ment of a range of puppet festivals showcasing work from overseas and abroad. The well known Visions festival in Brighton seems to have fallen by the wayside, but a recent conference of festivals in the UK showed just how strong the festivals part of the sector is. The conference featured representatives from no less than 13 festivals (and other festivals have sprung up since). One example is dynamics, a new festival in the West Midlands. This biennial event received £62,000 in Arts Council support in 2005 and has been offered a similar amount for a second festival in 2007. It is clear that together these festivals offer a very strong opportunity to bring fresh influences into Britain but also to demonstrate the strength of our home grown talent. The strength of this form of development is the extent to which it is highly practical as opposed to theore-tical and very much practitioner-led. Once again a spirit of co-operation between the various events is producing benefits for organisers, the public and the artists involved. A full report is downloadable from the PUK site.

We should also note puppetry often forms a significant part of the programming of other British arts festivals 9


Biggar Puppet Theatre

"Peacock", doo-cot 1994Photo: Ann McGuinness

"A Spoonful of Stories"Hand to Mouth

"White Woman from Harvest of Ghosts", Horse and Bamboo

"Bambi", Green GingerPhoto: Marcus Smeets

(London), and Biggar Little Theatre (Scotland). To this should possibly be added the excellent facilities of Horse

There is a general perception that puppetry is for children, but there are many companies presenting work

Puppetry in

10

such as the London International Mime Festival and the Edinburgh Festival.

There is no doubt that Puppetry as an artform has been able to benefit from recent shifts (in the last ten years or so) in funding strategy with the Arts Councils. This is particularly true in Arts Council England where schemes such as Grants For The Arts have made significant amounts of money available to projects. The combination of ha-ving a large pot of money and a simple and transparently fair application process to access it, has been a huge help to many. As this funding arises from the National Lottery there is a clear agenda to spend it on accessible parts of the arts and this favours many aspects of puppetry. This has put popular forms very much on the agenda. This is perhaps one of the main reasons for a flourishing of festi-vals. Another advantage of this funding stream is that it is open not only to organisations but also unincorporated groups and individuals. In a sector dominated by smaller groups this is clearly helpful. The amount of money available and the regional structure responsible for its distribution have meant that a wide variety of initiatives can be substantially supported at the same time. This plurality of support have meant a move away from the cash-strapped past when support for one thing meant no support for another. Thus the development of new work

and the touring of that work has been much assisted. However this has led to an emphasis on project based funding which may not help some of the bigger and buil-ding based structures to survive and thrive in the long term. There is a sense that secure revenue funding has become harder to come by so that some organisations can exist only by stringing projects together. This makes it harder to develop long term infrastructure.

One important part of the infrastructure of the sector is the Little Angel Theatre in London. It has been very heartening in recent years to see this theatre as a long-es-tablished centre of excellence survive a funding crisis pre-cipetated by the loss of long standing and regular funding from a particular trust. Their future now seems relatively secure again thanks to Arts Council England support. This has allowed some excellent development such as collaborations with the The Royal Shakespeare Company on productions of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, and a

wonderful realisation of Venus and Adonis which showed just how good British Puppetry can be – given the chance. This achieved real critical acclaim.

These productions are not alone in showing the growth of puppetry, and an growing awareness of its potential. We have seen productions from the National Theatre of His Dark Materials featuring puppetry, West End runs of The Lion King and the current success of Avenue Q.

The Little Angel is one part of the infrastructure of the sector. Although the infrastructure is not extensive its constituent parts are very significant. This includes the building based companies, and centres like Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre and The Puppet Centre in London. However any analysis would lead to the conclusion that we are very short of such infrastructure and this makes strategic development very difficult. Even where organisa-tions and companies have long term funding agreements, they are often left wondering whether they it would be better to access more funding on a project to project basis. Puppetry is sometimes the poor relation when compared to other sectors.

The difficulty in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland is that the pots of money available seem to be so small that organisations are in danger of competing on an eit-her/or basis for what is available. The Scottish Animation Festival is currently benefiting from Scottish Arts Council support, and has been able to extend its remit to year round activity.

What seems to be the case is that Britain is awash with highly creative individuals who, given half the chance, can make very exciting things happen. Now and again we see flashes of brilliance which excite the mainstream the-atres, but behind all this there is a strong body of ongoing solid work. We also have companies with a deserved inter-national reputation that pop up regularly at festivals all over the word. The bredth of the activity is enormous from the best of popular street theatre to sophisticated main house productions. Much of what is achieved bears testament to the creative energies of those involved rather than well resourced infrastructure. Perhaps there is a case that artistic freedom flourishes partly due to the lack of structures, but one can’t help feeling how much more could be achieved if the sector could stabilise and further develop such structures.

To access all that is happening in the British and UK sector visit www.PuppeteersUK.com where you can link to all the organisations, companies and individual practi-tioners mentioned here as well as many more.

Clive Chandler


Little Angel Theatre

10 on productions of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, and a

11

John Wright’s 100th Birthday on October 7th, 2006

It was celebrated by his family : Lyndie Wright, his wife, and Sarah and Joe Wright, his children, and by as many that knew him, had learnt from him and had loved him that could fit into his theatre: The Little Angel Marionet-te Theatre in London – Islington. His finest and most reknowned marionette show The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen was performed, and few in the audi-ence managed to hold back their tears realizing the loss of that uniquely poetic puppetmaster John Wright.

In 1961 he founded the theatre which, for a long time remained the only puppet theatre in England and was called The Home of British Puppetry. I doubt whether there is a puppet company on the British Isles today that has not at some time or other worked for John. But not only in Britain, also on the Continent and in South Africa. I, Susanne Forster, spent over 10 years at the theatre, Stefan Fichert 8 years, before we became an independant company – The Puppet Players.

John Wright was a charismatic person and a person who not only had visions, but managed to translate them into reality. He represented the focus for many artists and friends, and his small cottage next to the theatre was fore-ver a place of hospitality and inspired conversation. In the early 60s he married Lyndie who became and still is a most inventive and congenial puppet-maker, puppet-ope-rator and production advisor.

What follows is the biography of John Wright and the appreciation of his artistic work by the famous puppet historian George Speaight.

Susanne Forster

John Wright was born in South Africa in 1906. After trying his hand at farming he gave it up and studied in Cape Town. He worked his passage to England in 1935 and worked as an assistant stage manager for the Ballet Rambert. It was at this time that he saw a puppet perfor-mance by Podrecca‘s Piccoli and was enthralled by this art form.

His first performances were given in the old Cape Dutch farmhouse Libertas, outside Stellenbosch. With the success of these early shows the company were invited to perform in Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg. They then travelled overland through Rhodesia and the Congo eventually reaching England in 1946 where he set up a workshop and studio theatre in Hampstead.

His productions were marked by the fine carving of the wooden figures, the delicacy of the manipulation, the well scripted texts and well chosen music.

In 1953, John and his company set off again and toured Europe and Southern Africa only to return to England in 1959. John was now convinced that he had to obtain a permanent theatre as a base for his work, if the artistic possibilities of the puppet were to be fully realized. He found the ruins of a bombed out temperance hall which he bought with his life‘s savings and restored it as a puppet theatre to which he gave the name of The Little Angel Marionette Theatre, Angel being the nearest Un-derground station. It opened in 1961. The company‘s work with marionettes became world reknowned and they were invited to represent Britain at 25 International Fes-tivals. John was then awarded the M.B.E. by Her Majesty the Queen.

His productions were always beautifully lit and care-fully composed, owing much to his personal enthusiasm for ballet. In the difficult task of earning a living from the puppet theatre in Britain, he never lowered his standards. In the even more difficult task of winning for the puppet theatre a place in critical esteem as an authentic form of contemporary art, he was a standard bearer.

John Wright died in March 1991. He was master of marionette construction and manipulation, one of the leading puppeteers in the world, and an artist of great sensitivity. He devoted the last thirty years of his life to the realization of a vision with the establishment of the Little Angel Theatre.

George Speaight

John Wright’s 100th Birthday Puppetry in Great Britain

Susanne Forster and John Wright in front of the Little Angel Theatre (1972)

"Mr und Mrs Noah" Puppets: John Wright

11

most inventive and congenial puppet-maker, puppet-ope-

What follows is the biography of John Wright and the appreciation of his artistic work by the famous puppet

Susanne Forster

sensitivity. He devoted the last thirty years of his life to the realization of a vision with the establishment of the Little Angel Theatre.

George Speaight

fully composed, owing much to his personal enthusiasm for ballet. In the difficult task of earning a living from the puppet theatre in Britain, he never lowered his standards. In the even more difficult task of winning for the puppet theatre a place in critical esteem as an authentic form of

John Wright died in March 1991. He was master of marionette construction and manipulation, one of the leading puppeteers in the world, and an artist of great sensitivity. He devoted the last thirty years of his life to the realization of a vision with the establishment of the

George Speaight

Little Angel Theatre

12

"Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox", Puppets: Peter O'Rourke; "The Snow Queen", Puppets: Damon Shaw, Photos: Adam Crosthwaite

Garlic Theatre was established in 1996, by the co-foun-ders Mark Pitman and Iklooshar Malara. Mark had a back-ground in mime and mask work after his training at Le Coq in Paris. Iklooshar had a background as a musician and act-ress, having worked with many companies in the UK.

Garlic Theatre has the aim of combining traditional forms of puppetry with more experimental and physical theatre. Each production is approached through the desire to push boundaries and work with a wide variety of theatre people with different specialist skills. All productions are created through a process of improvisation and experimentation, and the Company likes to take time to allow for high quality work to emerge. In each new production, the Company is excited to explore new directions in clowning and puppetry and play with audience expectations of theatre.

Puppetry/animation allows the Company to follow their dreams and to try and create the impossible. The question “why use puppets?” is one which is foremost in our minds when creating a show. This in turn leads us to explore the relationship between puppet and puppeteer and to focus our work on narration through images and through movement.

Our productions to date have been for family audiences. This means that the productions work on different levels. The Company is inspired by the challenge of creating an imaginary world for young people to enter into.

The members of Garlic Theatre offer workshops on mime manipulation and mask work for adults and children and regularly organise residencies for the students at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Mark works as a director for various companies, such as Tineola Theatre in Prague.

Funding for the Company is project based and has been successful, although the Company prefers not to rely on funding as this can be undermining in the present climate of cuts in the arts in Britain.

The website www.garlictheatre.org.uk gives details of which productions are touring and is continually updated. The newest produc-tion will be touring as from May 2007. Called The Magnifi-cent Flying Machine , it is directed by Steve Tiplady and will be a poetic and comic piece of theatre encompassing mime and puppetry without words.

Both Mark and Iklooshar from Garlic Theatre would like to continually develop and change their work to meet new challenges: to create inspiring and dynamic theatre and to reach new audiences.

www.garlictheatre.org.uk

Garlic Theatre

After John Wright died in 1991, the work of the theatre continued apace under Lyndie Wright.

In 1993 Christopher Leith, who originally learned his craft at The Little Angel Theatre many years before, himself became the theatre director. During the following seven years he encouraged new collaborations with writers, di-rectors, designers and performers, including John Agard, Ken Campbell, Gregory Motton and Henk Shutt.

Touring was hugely developed until, as well as a resident company working throughout the year at the theatre's Islington home base, up to 3 touring companies were also on the road at any one time. Twenty new productions were created, including such Little Angel classics as The Sleeping Beauty; Joey Grimaldi King of Clowns and The Secret Garden, and the puppet operas Ju-dith and Holofernes by David Lang for ENO and Philomen and Baucis, conducted by Trevor Pinnock, for the Haydn Festival at Eisenstadt, Austria (revived in 2003).

The Little Angel Theatre entered the new millennium with Loretta Howells as its new Artistic Producer, and as of January 2004, Steve Tiplady took over as the company's new Artistic Director. Since January 2006 Peter Glanville, formerly Artistic Director of Kazzum, has been in post as Artistic Director.

Our productions now use every type of puppet and draw their themes, styles and stories from a wide range of cultural traditions. We also programme a wide variety of visiting puppet companies into our theatre, giving London audiences a marvellous opportunity to experience the diversity of our art form.

Our lively and imaginative Education Programme works with schools, youth groups and Education Authorities; it is a strategic plank in the theatre's ongoing work with children and young people. Last year we gave 579 perfor-mances to a total audience of over 63,000 children and adults.

www.littleangeltheatre.com

"Fiddlestick"

"The Sorcerer’s Apprentice"

"Billy Goats Gruff"

13

Horse and Bamboo TheatreWhen was your company established? 1978. Horse + Bamboo toured from 1979 using horses to pull drays and wagons that carried our shows. The first shows were performed outdoors, in specially created theatre spaces made of cloth. The first tour was “Pictures from Breughel”, and the distinctive style was already in place. Later, the shows took place in a marquee. In the mid-1980's, we started taking our shows into community spaces - normally villa-ge halls. The horses and carts helped us make links with the communities we visited, and created a way of life on the road that helped create a strong bond within the touring company. However, by the mid 1990's changing in funding patterns, and the growth of motorised traffic on the roads, came together to make horse-drawn touring very difficult. We continued for a number of years, touring in Ireland and Eastern Europe, but in 2000 we finally stopped our horse-drawn work - which lives on in our memories, and in our name. How do you work? Big question. We have a core team of 5 administrators and 2 artists, and a pool of up to 12 regular performers. The programme is devi-sed, directed and managed by the core team. Our central work is national and international touring of medium-scale theatre productions, but we also operate a local Outreach programme. Our trademark is the integration of masks, puppetry and specially-composed music to make narrative visual theatre. What is the most important for you in your work? Quality. What are the main motives/objectives in your productions, what informs your work? To communicate through stories. To create a narrative theatre of depth and profundity that uses a visual language and music rather than text. How and why do you use puppetry and/or animation? Because of its universal appeal. What age group do you perform for? And why? If you perform for adults and children, do you use different approaches? All age groups, and yes we do use different approaches when necessary. Are you involved in work other than theatre productions? Do you offer other ser-vices (workshops, exhibitions, etc.)? Yes - workshops, exhibitions, festivals, professional training. Where are you performing? Currently in the UK and the USA, but all details are on our website www.horseandbamboo.org How do you fund your work? The Arts Council of England, Lancashire Coun-ty Council, Rossendale Borough Council - and selling our work. What is your recent project? Again, best to look at our website as we have seve-ral projects happening simultaneously. What are your future visions or dreams that you like to achieve? To continue to create meaningful and distinctive visual theatre and associated programmes of work. www.horseandbamboo.org

The Cleaners from "Legend of the Creaking Floorboard", all images H+B 2006

"Charlotte and the Angel" "Punch and Judy"

"Plaited Path" 1989

When was your company established? 1979 - the Norwich Puppet Theatre actually opened on 1/12/1980 but the touring company was working before then.

Who was involved, what experience do they have? Ray DaSilva was the foun-ding director - his company DaSilva Puppets was looking for a "home"; and Norwich businessman Tony Ede was a supporter of the arts, particularly puppetry, having seen it on his travels through Europe. The two came toge-ther and established a steering committee, which raised funds, and chose the Medieval Church of St James to be the home of the new puppet theatre.

How do you work? The Theatre works as a producing house - plays are cre-ated by our artistic director Luis Boy, who works in a workshop style of crea-tion, drawing not only on his own experiences but also on the skills of the individual puppeteers. He is exploring theatrical expression with the use of puppets and objects.

The venue also receives visiting puppet companies from the UK and bey-ond - for example Figurina from Hungary and Duda Paiva are performing with us this week. As well as performances at the theatre, our company tours to schools and venues throughout the UK and also attends festivals in Europe and beyond.

We host a City & Guilds course in puppet making (the only one in the UK) which enables adult learners to attend one night a week to gain skills and a certificate in puppet making.

What is the most important for you in your work? To find the precision in meaning and the fluidity in the play and providing high quality, challenging yet entertaining theatre of animation.

What are the main motives/objectives in your productions, what informs your work? Our work often started with popular myths such as the Odyssey, Pinoc-chio, Snow White ... and in the process of creation we make them our own, placing them in relation to our contemporary society.

Many disciplines are incorporated into the work, across and between art forms - e.g. dance, puppetry, music. Live music is an important part of our work.

How and why do you use puppetry and/or animation? It starts with a reason to use puppets/objects in the play. In Jack we used toys, as our personal expe-riences with puppets and their use is connected with the way we played with toys.

In Snow White, we explore melodrama with rod marionettes; in Pinoc-chio, physical theatre.... Besides, Norwich Puppet Theatre is a registered charity whose core remit is to develop the art of puppetry/theatre of animati-on.

What age group do you perform for? And why? If you perform for adults and children, do you use different approaches? We perform mainly for a family audi-ence. Here already exists a market to sell the shows. We programme work for all age groups: broadly, 3-5 year olds, 5-10's, 10+ and adults – a mixture of our own work and visiting companies. As a venue, we attempt to cater for all ages; our touring company concentrates of family centred work for the 3-5's and 5-10's. Yes, we use different approaches in the way of language and sub-jects.

Are you involved in work other than theatre productions? Do you offer other services (workshops, exhibitions, etc.)? The Theatre has two performance spaces – a 197-seat raked auditorium and a 50-seat studio. The spaces are also used for puppet making and performance workshops – primarily for children, but adult sessions are offered as well. There is a small exhibition area but large exhibitions can be accommodated in the Theatre foyer. The foyer area (for-merly the south aisle of the church) displays puppets made and used at the Theatre over the last 25 years.

Where are you performing? Currently, Emperor's New Clothes is touring venues in the UK, Pinocchio will be touring from November to April (ap-pears at the Bath and Scottish Puppet Festivals).

How do you fund your work? Core funding is gained from Arts Council England East, Norwich City Council and Norfolk County Council: this rep-resents about one third of our income. The rest of the money is from ticket sales at the Theatre and touring income from shows on the road. Project funding for new work is gained from our reserves, Arts Council England East and trusts and foundations which support the arts and/or educational work.

What is your recent project? Our most recent production is a revival of Emperor's New Clothes, based on a 1998 co-production with Green Apple Theatre, Helsinki.

What are your future visions or dreams that you like to achieve? Hopefully working with orchestras - Chamber Orchestra Anglia (Soldiers Tale - Stravin-sky) and London Symphony Orchestra (Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl) - on pieces incorporating puppetry with large scale music; a fuller programme of "adult" puppetry at the theatre; refurbishment of the venue to provide more up to date light/sound equipment for performers and seating for audi-ences; making the Norwich Celebration of International Puppetry an annual event (the first one was in 2005, the second to be in 2007)…

www.puppettheatre.co.uk


14

"Lovely Pinocchio" Circus Master from "Pinocchio" "Snow White"

Gren and Juliet established Movingstage in 1979 with the aim of producing marionette theatre. They soon discovered that this type of theatre requires all ele-ments to be in accord, including the venue. In 1982, after extensive touring, the company opened a theatre on a river barge. The theatre seats 55 and has all the conveniences and facilities of a modern venue. The Theatre Barge has been open for 25 years and during that time it has hosted thousands of performances. It is now an established venue on the London theatre scene and is based in Little Veni-ce, close to Marble Arch. Each year during the summer, the floating theatre makes a tour of the river Thames.

It took some time to find a suitable vessel, as the size was all important, eventu-ally one was found measuring about 80 feet long by 14 feet wide, this gave enough room to squeeze in a stage with a proscenium opening of about 8 foot by 4 foot by 12 foot deep, a foyer and an auditorium with raked seating for 55-60. The conversion was done in a shipyard on the Thames. It took a year to convert into a theatre, after the construction work a full complement of theatre lighting and a specially-constructed double bridge stage was installed so that the marionettes could pass in front of each other freely.

The barge is a Thames lighter of riveted construction built in the thirties. There is a published photograph, circa 1950, of the barge, horse-drawn and loaded with logs. The theatre is comfortable and rich in atmosphere and provides the ideal setting for marionette shows.

The company aims to present innovative quality theatre with a view to raising the status and profile of puppetry in this country and Europe. It therefore conti-nues to commission new scripts and musical scores, whenever possible, from contemporary writers and composers.

Movingstage have undertaken a number of British Council sponsored tours and were invited by the city of Mainz to perform in their festival in 1996. They have toured Pakistan from Karachi to Rawalpindi sometimes moving the stage equipment with an ox cart. They helped to establish a marionette company in Palestine following a tour of the region which included Gaza. Very recently they attended a festival in Pakistan. Here is a report, by Juliet, on the experience:

“Each year the extraordinary family Peerzada, of Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, run an Arts Festival in Lahore. This year, Movingstage were invited to perform and after some deliberation decided to accept.

“It is never easy to decide to travel anywhere with over 25 marionettes and ac-companying props, special effects, gauzes, backcloths etc., let alone 8000 miles. The 2 months before leaving was taken up with arrangements, bargaining, nego-tiations and beauracracy between ourselves, the host company, the British Coun-cil, the Pakistan High Commission and so on. Finally a deal was struck but not until the eleventh hour and we needed nerves of steel to sit out the last few days. Thank goodness for emails. At least communications are swift and sure nowadays even if language can be ambiguous.

“All our efforts were worth it. The World Performing Arts Festival Lahore, as it now calls itself, is a major cultural event. In 1992, which was our second visit to Pakistan, the festival was dedicated to puppetry but now 10 years on, the Peerza-das have expanded and developed their artistic field and for the last 8 years the festival has promoted theatre, puppetry, music and dance. Puppetry has the same status as the other art forms and this year was well represented.

“The day of our first performance was full of agitation and frustration. Lighting

and sound were to be provided but just did not materialise. 2 hours before the first performance we have some lamps in place, wired on to wooden T pieces the car-penter made up. It is not possible to trim them accurately onto the stage, focus or spot them up or down. The floods are better, lying on the floor with gel laid on top that keeps frizzling up into little balls. No gel holders or barn doors. The sound is wired up and our CD is ready. The house is packed and a sofa has been placed in the centre of the front row for the main sponsor of the festival. The show goes on. It is wonderfully received ….spontaneous clapping throughout and a crowd of enthusiasts stay behind to smile, nod and touch the puppets afterwards.

“The frustrations of the day melt away and one realizes these are small compro-mises and adaptations to make in order to communicate with people and make this important cultural exchange, at a time of unease and conflict between the west and the Islamic world. We were asked so many times 'How do you like our country?' and 'How do you find the Pakistani people?'. They are worried about their image in the west, particularly since July 7, and it was reassuring to agree over many stilted conversations that all of us wanted world peace and harmony and that a few extremists, government and religious leaders were not the voice of masses of people like ourselves.

“We watched folk puppets, which had their origins in Rhajistan but are now performed by itinerant puppeteers all over Pakistan since partition. Then there were Sri Lankan, Indian, Polish, Argentinian and a strange German show billed as puppetry, but was in fact a man inside a latex balloon changing shape. The Polish and Argentinian shows were actors with objects, with the actors taking centre stage. The Pakistani and Sri Lankan shows were very simply staged (one was 2 upturned bedsteads with cloth stretched between) accompanied by drumming and singing. All the characters are traditional and mainly dance or fight, but the movement is intricate and fascinating and the singing can make reference to local or topical events. Like Punch, they can be rebels or stirrers; one man used a swazzle.

“The final night was a coup for Faizaan as President Musharraf attended the festival. Security was very tight and the atmosphere tense, but he came. As well as receiving a cheque for the earthquake relief from the festival box office, his pres-ence made a clear statement that he is not in step with the hard line Islamic clerics but would take a softer line, supporting this event and welcoming performers from abroad. In this way he coincides with the vision of the Peerzadas, which aims to foster peace and harmony between Islam and the west through the arts. It was a privilege to take part and return a little wiser to our base.”

A number of people work for Movingstage, many of whom have worked with the group from its inception to the present day. These include specialist designers, composers and actors who are employed for different projects and sometimes they accompany the Middletons abroad.

The policy is: 1) To promote live animation. 2) To give the audience an expe-rience of the imagination 3) To present new music and writing where and whene-ver possible 4) To ensure excellence in voice and music recordings 5) To be aware of: - The equal importance of every element within a presentation - The scale and perspective of light - The centre of gravity of the marionette - Silence and space

- Live animationLive animation is a fine art with a history alongside classical sculpture and

drama. The medium has the depth required to crystallize and distil text from such diverse writers as Shakespeare and Beckett, as well as being able to present magic and fantasy. It is a form capable of diverse theatrical illusion and effect. The work produced is not ephemeral but long lasting; in this respect, marionette theatre is crucially different from other live performance arts, all of which are essentially ephemeral. www.puppetbarge.com

Movingstage Marionette Co

15

"The Birdman"

Masked Dancers

"Ant & Seb"

16

Are We A Puppet Company?Oily Cart is a theatre company that tours throughout the UK, with occasional forays into Europe. We specialise in work for two audiences: children, from 6 months to 6 years old; and young people, from 3 to 19 years old who have a complex disabilities or an autistic spectrum disorder.

For the past ten years we have been based in a South London primary school, which includes a nursery unit (for 3 to 5 year olds) and a Language Unit (which educates and as-sesses young people who it is thought may be on the autism spectrum.) Being on a school site is extreme-ly important to us; it enab-les us to research and try out material for both our audiences, and we preview all our productions with the staff and children of the school.

Although we often in-clude puppets and object theatre in our shows, we have never actually defined ourselves as a puppet com-

pany. Our approach has been to look at the requirements of our audiences, and then use whatever approaches we need to achieve our objectives.

But many of our productions have puppetry at their core. In fact, our roots lie in one of the oldest puppetry traditions in the U.K. – Punch and Judy.

The three founder members of Oily Cart: Claire de Loon, who designs all our shows, Max Reinhardt, who composes the music, and I, the writer and director, first began to work together on a Punch show in the late 1970’s.

Although it was wonderful to work within the Punch tra-dition (and, indeed, I still perform Punch from time to time) we noticed that we were often performing for very young audiences. We came to feel that while it was possible to per-form a version of the traditional show that would not alarm the small children, this resulted in a dilution of the power of Punch.

We decided that the time had come to develop a theatre show specifically for children under five. At the time, the early 1980’s, the conventional theatrical wisdom was that such young children had the attention span of a goldfish, and would spend most of a performance looking at the wrong end of the room, crying, or going to the toilet. We discovered that the combination of Max’s live music, Claire’s beautiful designs and puppets and my own clowning were quite en-ough to sustain their interest and even enjoyment for 45 minutes.

We have often speculated about what makes the puppet characters in our shows of such interest to our very young audiences. One consideration is that our productions for the very young often centre on a character who is small, alone and vulnerable in a threatening universe: clearly a suitable role for a puppet.

To give an example, one of recent shows, BAKING TIME (2003), took place during the actual time it took for us to make and bake bread rolls on stage. As the wonderful aroma

of baking bread began to fill the theatre, the two actor/ba-kers, made up a story using bread dough and kitchen imple-ments to create puppets, masks and scenery. The central character was a tiny creature, moulded of bread dough before the eyes of the audience, who escaped from the kitchen, pursued by an ever-expanding yeast monster, and who was finally saved by friendly creatures constructed from whisks and sieves.

But such productions for children under five are only a part of the Oily Cart’s output. In 1988 we were invited to take our work for the very young into a school for young people with Severe Learning Disabilities. The pupils in the school were between three and eighteen years old, and we could not see how our work for the very young could be age appropriate for the older students. We decided to research and develop a piece specifically for young people with severe intellectual disabilities.

We quickly discovered that many accepted theatrical ap-proaches were irrelevant in this context. We needed to make theatre that would communicate with audiences some of whom could not see, some of whom could not hear, some of whom could neither hear nor see. What wass more we nee-ded to connect with people whose intellectual impairments might mean that they would have forgotten how a story had begun before it had reached its end, or who could not under-stand concepts such as cause and effect. Conventional narra-tive would be irrelevant to them.

Over the years we devised a form of theatre that was multi-sensory: yes, we addressed the senses, of seeing and hearing, but we began to work as much via the senses of touch, smell and taste. Our performances became highly interactive, so that the performers could adjust what they were doing to the specific requirements of a particular audience member. No-wadays we spend much of our time in these performances working one-to-one.

In our efforts to communicate with these young audiences we created work in hydrotherapy pools, on the surfaces of trampolines and within giant inflatable structures. In BIG SPLASH (1999) we took our own version of Vietnamese water puppets into the hydrotherapy pools

After a while it began to dawn on us that similar multi-sensory, non-linear, highly interactive approaches might be relevant to our other audience – the very young, children under five.

In productions like KNOCK! KNOCK! WHO’S THE-RE? (2000) we created installations where our young audi-ences walked through the fourth wall into the world of our play, where they would find stimuli for all five senses and actively engage with the characters.

In JUMPIN’ BEANS (2002) there were two distinct ver-sions of the show. One was for children from 2 to 4 years old, and while multi-sensory and interactive, was plot-driven and reliant on a good deal of spoken language. The other was for children between 6 months and 2 year-olds and their pa-rents, and was much less dependent on verbal language.

We were astonished at the reception of the 6 months to 2 year-old's version of JUMPIN’ BEANS. When we began preparations for this, we had assumed it would be about leading the parents through a sort of play session. We would be providing a lovely setting, props, music and a series of cues to facilitate their play with their children. In fact, as we

"Big Splash" (1999)

"Baby Balloon"

Oily Cart

17

We asked Jacqueline Ilett and Holly Griffin from England a few questions about their company, Jacolly Puppet Theatre.

DaT: When, where and how was Jacolly founded?

Jac: In 1977. In Devon – the most beautiful county in Eng-land, in our opinion! I had worked as an actress, and had performed and made puppets for several puppet companies, including the Little Angel, Da Silva, Lilliput and Polka. But, in fact, my love for puppetry was originally sparked in Ger-many! I was a student at the time (studying Drama and German at Hull University – pity that my German language skills are so evidently rusty these days!) and happened to wander into the puppet collection at the Munich City Muse-um. I was enchanted and immediately asked the director of the collection to somehow help me find work experience in puppetry. As a result, the Munich Marionette Theatre had to put up with a completely clueless puppeteer for a while! … That’s a long time ago now, though.

Hol: I had already started making hand puppets at the Ply-mouth College of Art and Design – although I was actually specializing in photography and filmset design. Later, my life was directed by my two main passions: sailing boats, and making puppets which I sold in my own Tudor craft shop. But I finally decided to sell the shop, stowed the remaining puppets in the hold of my yacht and left England to sail around the world. But we only got as far as the Mediterrane-an before the boat developed engine trouble and we had to stay in port. It was then that I first had the idea of actually using the puppets: they might be able to help us pay our re-pair bills by performing! I enjoyed performing with them so much that I decided to give up the sailing plans and returned to England to become a puppeteer. Shortly after, I met Jac, and Jacolly was begun.

DaT: Where do you perform?

Jac: We tour around Great Britain. We have also worked nine times in North America, including two international festivals in Canada. Although our shows are often performed in the-atres, they mostly play in primary schools and the majority are educational.

DaT: Many of them deal with the environment, don’t they?

Hol: Yes, we have three different environmental shows. “As-tra and the Waste Monster” was originally commissioned and funded by Devon County Council to help make school-children aware of the dangers of energy-wasting. It’s about the crew of a spaceship who have travelled from another

planet to investigate whether the Earth’s ecosystem is similar to their own. Here they find a new world which is similar to their own planet but unimaginably more beautiful. It beco-mes clear, however, that Earth is in terrible danger! It seems that many Earthlings want to destroy it and themselves! As a result of their massive waste of energy, they have begun to destroy the ecological system on which their very lives de-pend. None of this makes any sense to the crew of the space-ship until it is discovered that this insane behaviour is the result of a mind virus which is being deliberately spread by the evil Waste Monster. So, then aliens and audience team together to set up an anti-Waste Monster campaign.

Jac: “Real Bugs” was developed together with the University of Plymouth. They wanted to show biodiversity and food chains amongst insects in a creative, theatrical way. This was supported by a biological research organisation called the BBSRC. Puppetry is used to allow people to enter the world of minibeasts ~ which can sometimes be a fairly frightening experience, because the insects get magicked to become forty times lifesize. There is a battle for survival with an aphid in-festation and both insects and audience find themselves thre-atened by a giant beetle. But the story has a happy ending … more or less!

Hol: Maybe we have given the impression that both produc-tions are very sober and serious. But even though the central issues are treated seriously, there is still a lot of humour. That is certainly true of “Dogworthy’s Summer Magic”, which is about caring for the seashore. Dogworthy – a magic dog who plays the lead in many of our productions aimed at younger children – has a wonderful adventure getting to know some of the creatures which live on the beach and in the sea.

DaT:What have you produced recently?

Jac: Something completely different. The Arts Council of England has helped us to develop an interactive play called “Elf Tales”, aimed at helping children deal with the problems of bullying. And now we have a lot of new projects in the pipeline.

Hol: Yes, but I’ve just remembered something important that’s missing from that list!

Jac: Really? What?

Hol: A puppet sailing boat!

www.jacolly-puppets.co.uk

began to perform the piece it was startlingly apparent that the babies and the toddlers themselves were our primary audience – they had been gripped by this non-verbal non-linear and multi-sensory piece, in their own right.

Our current touring production BABY BALLOON, is just for 6 month to 2 year olds and their families and takes place in and around one of our giant, glowing inflatables.

So are we a puppet company? I’d like to think so – even if there are some Oily Cart shows in which no puppet appears. Our roots lie in puppet work. What’s more, we are profoundly influenced by that attitude, much more common in puppet companies than in the English theatrical tradition, which sees that the art of communication lies in the synthesis of numerous dif-ferent art forms, amongst which can be numbered music, design, dance, poetry, video and, of course, puppetry.

www.oilycart.org.uk

Jacolly Puppet Theatre

"Elf Tales"

"Real Bugs"Photos: Derek Adams/Natural History Museum London

18

When was your company established? 1994

Who was involved, what experience do they have? I (Steve Wright) founded the company as a solo artist and began to employ workers on a project by project basis. I had no formal drama or arts training. After starting my own company, I be-gan to work with other UK puppet companies Faulty Optic and Green Ginger, gaining valuable experience of devising, writing and touring perfor-mances across Europe.

How do you work? We now present street shows, cabaret performances, educa-tion projects for teenagers and theatre productions. We also produce DVD resources for schools and youth groups, inclu-ding young offenders and other social services.

What is the most important for you in your work? Live performance and meaningful connection with our teen-age audiences. Above all to enjoy and develop a unique career and profession.

What are the main motives/objectives in your productions, what informs your work? Our work is informed by UK urban and contemporary atti-tudes, Northern comedy archetypes and a cast of established characters growing like a family.

How and why do you use puppetry and/or animation? We use Bunraku style full and half figures with mainly latex heads, most likened to Spitting Image style characters, but not famous caricatures, all our puppets are original creations. We use them in live, table top style performances or in short films, both set based or in real world locations.

What age group do you perform for? And why? If you perform for adults and children, do you use different approaches? We mainly perform for teenagers and adults, although occa-sionally for younger children. Our style is aimed at older people to allow free use of street language and contemporary themes and references.

Are you involved in other work than theatre productions? Do you offer other services (workshops, exhibitions, etc.)? We market our own range of DVD resources, create original resources involving young people as voice artists and deliver performance and making workshops with a variety of youth groups across the north of England. We also occasionally make puppets for other people, most recently a cast of pup-pets for Billy Elliot the Musical in London’s West End.

Where are you performing? Next week involves a cabaret performance in Sheffield, a compering job on a scratch night in a theatre, a sexual health workshop with young people in prison, and a presentation for a group of young people on an arts day in Middlesbo-rough. A typical varied week in the life of our company!

How do you fund your work? Commissions, bookings and grant application to Arts Coun-cil and / or other public funders. Also earned income from DVD sales through the internet or other marketing routes.

What is your recent project? Coming up for 2007 is a theatre production based on the life and works of Robert Louis Stevenson called: Do I Look Strange? We have written and designed the production and will rehearse and produce from January 2007.

We have also just finished a DVD project looking at the youth criminal justice system entitled Ride it Out.

What are your future visions or dreams that you like to achieve? To be able to live and work as a puppeteer for the rest of my career is my primary aim.To develop film and television projects on a national level and to produce more shows for the streets and adult cabaret performances. Also to develop web based resources for national and interna-tional audiences. Some of our characters have their own My Space accounts:Bez: http://www.myspace.com/73893997Jerome: http://www.myspace.com/77944152Flik:http://www.myspace.com/78819330Shifty:http://www.myspace.com/79043312

To move upward and onward in this wonderful profession.

www.thewrightstuff.co.uk

The Wright Stuff Theatre of Puppets"Bez"

Workshop

Zombie in Trafalgar Square

"Shifty"

19

Green GingerWhen was your company established? 1978

Who was involved, what experience do they have? Terry Lee began street performing with InterAction, going on to work with Barry Smith, ITV's Spitting Image plus several Jim Henson/ Frank Oz films. Designer and maker Chris Pirie joined in 1986 after work with site-specific company Indus-trial & Domestic.

How do you work? We aim to create theatre for streets and stage with complementary educational activities for most ages and all abilities. We find that our brand of innovative and accessible theatre featuring puppetry is in demand for tours throughout the UK and extensively abroad. For stage shows we usually decide that the touring company will be technically self-sufficient with three basic require-ments of the promoter: mains power, a darkened room and an audience. This flexibility ensures performances in venues with basic facilities, non-theatre spaces or areas where arts provision is limited. Green Ginger is proud of the accessibi-lity of its material; always low language and highly visual, thus limited understanding of English should be no barrier to its enjoyment.We do not stage other people's works, although we have created parodies of classic texts. We like to tell engaging and original stories; the 2 or 3 year process often begins with plucking any single idea from those that the core members have been toying with. This fragile seed is taken carefully into an intensive R&D session (2-3 days duration) where scabs are picked and itches scratched. These days are general-ly opened up to a larger team comprising regular collabora-tors plus other theatre artists, film makers, writers and tech-nicians whose work we admire.Then follows a writing/designing period with further R&D sessions as necessary before an intensive production and re-hearsal period.The touring team owns the material and all productions de-velop show by show on the road. What is the most important for you in your work? Keeping a 27 year old company afloat, and ensuring that the work remains vital, sharp and relevant.

What are the main motives/objectives in your productions? To amuse and engage without being didactic. To stimulate thought and discourse. To encourage a generation of young people and adults to choose theatre as an alternative to the many choices of electronic entertainment / media.

What informs your work? Street theatre. Our vast experience of outdoor work will always inform all of our work to a large degree. The films of Jeunet & Caro, Terry Gilliam, Coen Brothers...

How and why do you use puppetry and/or animation? How? In any way that seems suitable and useful at the time. Why? Because it is the ultimate special effect that breaks all natural laws of time and space, rendering it the most versatile and obvious tool for any theatre maker or storyteller.

What age group do you perform for? Street Theatre: All ages. Theatre shows; our current production is aimed at young people from 12 yrs + all adults.

If you perform for adults and children, do you use different ap-proaches? No.

Are you involved in other work than theatre productions? Film and TV, educational workshops, both as Green Ginger team members or individually as freelance theatre workers. The company enjoys regular collaboration with major arts organisations, including Welsh National Opera, Ecole Su-perieure de la Marionette, Aardman Animations and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

Do you offer other services (workshops, exhibitions, etc.)? We can be hired/commissioned to write/direct shows, de-sign, create puppets, sets, props and special effects for any event or project for screen, stage or street.

Where are you performing? Whilst concentrating its commu-nity and production activity in the UK, we tour regularly in Mainland Europe, Africa, the Middle East, North and South America and Japan. We will be next in Germany, hopefully Erlangen / Nurmburg in May 07.

How do you fund your work? We apply and occassionally re-ceive UK Arts Council funds for new projects but we survive day by day by selling our shows, not paying ourselves proper-ly and never borrowing money.

What is your recent project? RUST

What are your future visions or dreams that you like to achieve? To keep Green Ginger on the road long enough for its two Co-Directors to create another show together! They have been working in isolation in two very different strands of work; Chris concentrating on creating and producing a live touring production and Terry developing his socio-docu-mentary style for a series of puppet films www.greenginger.net

"Rust", Photo: Carla Kogelman

"Slaphead", Photo: Marcus Smeets

"Mme. Zero", Photo: Mick Brown

"Gaston & Pedro", Photo: Carla Kogelman

20

When was your company established? Nick Barnes founded Blind Summit Theatre in 1997. This is how it happened: He went backpacking in China and while he was there he met an old Chinese man called He Liyi. He Liyi was an English teacher who had gradua-ted in 1956 just as the Cultural Revolution began. As a result was condemned as a “righ-tist”, was not allowed to teach, and was sent away to correction farms. He was “an enemy of the people” for 30 years. When the revolu-tion ended, Mr. He was finally asked to teach again. He was about fifty years old, and in order to revise his knowledge of English he wrote out his life story which was later publis-hed. Now he runs a cafe called the “Mr. China’s Son Café”, where Nick visited him and was inspired to try and tell his story using puppetry.Nick came home and made three puppets of Mr. He – as a young man, as a boy and as an old man. He also made a puppet of Mr. He’s wife, Cuilian, and a tiny puppet of himself as a traveler. The puppets are about 3 feet high, highly realistic and closely modelled on the people they represent. They are designed to achieve as real movement as possible, inspired by Bunraku puppets but with a contemporary twist. Nick won some funding to employ 4

performers, spend 4 weeks working with the puppets and Blind Summit was born. One of the performers he employed was Mark Down who became the co-Artistic Director of the company.The name of the company “Blind Summit” comes from road signs on the side of the road to Edinburgh (the A68). A “blind summit” is a hill where you can’t see the top until you are on it; then everything is clear. It seemed like a good me-taphor for the creative process.

Who was involved, what experience do they have? Over the past 10 years we have worked with lots of different people - actors, dancers, puppeteers, singers, designers, musi-cians, etc. A few have become long-term collaborators. We had very little experience in puppetry and our approach has always been to learn everything ourselves by trial and error. The good thing about this is that we come to everything fresh, question everything and take nothing for granted. Nick Barnes trained at Hull University and The Slade in Theatre Design. He worked for 10 years as a theatre designer before forming Blind Summit Theatre. Mark Down was a doctor of medicine. After working for a couple of years in Emergency Room he went to Central School of Speech and Drama and retrained as an actor where he discovered puppetry. Finn Caldwell is an actor and also specialises in mask work. He makes masks and puppets. Giulia Innocenti is an actress with exceptional comic timing and physical skills. Fiona Simpson is a West End lighting designer who agreed to come and work with Blind Summit to take on the challenge of lighting puppets and people in the same space. Bob Mitchel says she “hates puppets but loves Low Life and The Space-man”! She has a special sensibility for the work though and has now worked with us for 2 years.Battersea Arts Centre – By including Blind Summit as “Sup-ported Artists” within that broader context they helped us get our work seen as more than just puppetry.

How do you work? Our working method has evolved through several stages, but fundamentally we have always focused on exploring the pup-pets and their relationship to the puppeteers.

We begin by devising with the puppets and are led by them towards some sort of story. From the outset, we concentrated on the interaction between the puppet and the puppeteers, and as soon as we began presenting the work there was no doubt that this is what the audiences enjoyed most.We wanted to make puppetry for adult audiences in the UK, inspired by the work of Philippe Genty and Handspring Theatre Company. We were also influenced by the work of contemporary dance companies – Adventures in Motion Pictures and DV8.We are based at Battersea Arts Centre where they have a sys-tem called “scratch”. This is a way of showing unfinished work to an audience and using their reactions and opinions to help guide the development of a new piece. This was es-sential in the early stages of the company to help us develop our own style of puppet theatre. Through this process, we developed an audience for our work.

Mark and Nick work together as kind of co-creators, with Nick concentrating on design and Mark concentrating on direction and story.We discovered a method of going back and forth between people and puppets called “shouting with puppets”. This was a very effective way of breaking down the “cuteness” of pup-petry and tricking performers to try more adventurous things. It also led to our first really successful piece called “Pirate Puppetry” where puppets run amok in the theatre foyer and the puppeteers try and catch them.

In the last two years we have really concentrated on manipu-lation. We have worked with an ensemble of four performers to develop a style of puppetry improvisation that has allowed us to direct the puppets almost as if they were an actor or a dancer. This allowed us to create “Low Life” and the role of Madam Butterfly’s child with Anthony Minghella.

We are about to begin a process with a script for the first ti-me.

In our training, we try to teach puppetry by a mixture of improvisation and direction. Improvisation inspires perfor-mers and gives them a feel for the power of the medium. Direction helps to bed down the skills.

What is the most important for you in your work?The relationship between the puppet and the puppeteer – puppetry is about our relationship with “things” – the inani-mate world. This relationship is powerful – such as our rela-tionship with money, cars, success, God. Puppetry explores the power in that relationship. For this reason we see no rea-son for puppeteers to be invisible, in fact we see the power of puppetry in its clear artifice. The undisguised imitation of “realness” is a metaphor for our unrequited love affair with all things not living.

What are the main motives/objectives in your productions, what informs your work? Expertise – At the root of all our work is a desire to make the most beautiful puppets and move them in the most beautiful way. While we want to continue to innovate the medium to keep it contemporary and exciting, the making and manipu-

Blind Summit Theatre

Mildred in "Low Life"Photo: Nick Barnes

Rehearsal of "Madame Butterfly",

Photo: Laura Karnavicius

21

lation is vital to bring the audiences with us. Audiences come to see the puppets; they come again to see the manipulation (Hopefully!).

Narrative clarity – we have found that we are a company that is most comfortable with narrative. We are often attracted by abstract ideas; we always seem to gravitate back towards narrative solutions. We have found that well-told, clear nar-ratives often solve what appeared to be technical puppetry problems – for example, people would complain about a particular puppet being too small – the solution was to fix the narrative and we found we could play with the same puppet in a much larger theatre!

Puppet/Puppeteer relationship – This is our starting point for all our work. What do the puppeteers represent in this show? What do the puppets represent? Often we still don’t know when we have finished and this keeps driving us.

Movement as story – we are always trying to understand and pursue ways to tell stories with movement. “Low Life” came about entirely from experimenting with movement and then developing it into stories. In “…Butterfly” it was the other way around of course! In this respect, a lot of our work is like a laboratory where we experiment and learn how the puppets work and what they can say so that we can apply it in other projects.

How and why do you use puppetry and/or animation? Not sure! Maybe because:Puppets create a sense of landscape, like a film...Puppetry occurs in the space between people which is the most powerful space on the stage...Puppetry is a metaphor for life... I am really not sure!!

What age group do you perform for? And why? If you perform for adults and children, do you use different approaches? We make work mainly for adults, but we have found on the whole that children enjoy it too. We have made one show aimed at children specifically – “The Spaceman”. This began as an adult work but the material seemed better suited to children’s audiences. Our approach for making the piece was the same as making work for adults, but in performance we learnt there are very clear differences. For example, if you say “hello” to children they say “hello” back like a school as-sembly, if you say “hello” to an adult audience they quite often scowl back at you as if to say “we don’t do audience participation”! Children are less cynical and noisier.

Are you involved in other work than theatre productions? Do you offer other services (workshops, exhibitions, etc.)? We teach at Central School of Speech and Drama, East 15 Drama School, RADA. We run workshops to introduce people to puppetry and to train them in our techniques. Mark directs and performs as an actor; Nick still freelances as a set designer.

Where are you performing? “Madame Butterfly” at Metropolitan Opera House in New York until 19th November 2006. “Low Life” performing in London at Festival of Firsts, Lindbury Studios, Royal Opera House - 24th 25th November 2006; at BAC 22nd January -3rd January 2007. “The Spaceman” in rep at Ommes and Oimel in Köln. For more details and links see our website www.blindsummit.com.

How do you fund your work? We would like to be funded entirely by ticket sales but, as a young company, working in an art form which is not very

well established for adult audiences in the UK that is still a little way off! There is no real puppetry infrastructure in the UK and like other puppet companies we have to be desi-gners, directors, makers and a puppetry school.

The Arts Council of England does not have any official poli-cy to support puppetry except as part of “innovative theatre”. Although we do think that puppetry should be seen as part of the reinvention of modern mainstream theatre, we also think that it should be supported as a form special unto itself in order to help performers, writers and directors learn the art seriously and achieve the high standards we expect from any other live art. We have learnt from experience that inno-vation without quality is pointless and goes unrecognised by audiences.Most of our funding comes from fees, commissions and ti-cket sales. About 20 % comes from the Arts Council.

What is your recent project? We are taking “Low Life” into a final stage of development to make it into a mid scale show with ambition to reach larger audiences. We have begun to work on a theatre production of “Call of the Wild”.

What are your future visions or dreams that you like to achieve? We hope that we will go on having ideas and continue to make work that challenges us creatively.

www.blindsummit.com

"Madame Butterfly"

"Mr. China's Son"2 Photos: Anne Marie Bickerton

22

doo-cot have been established for 13 years - we combine puppetry & technology for an adult audience. We produce devised performances, installations, exhibitions and films. doo-cot's two artistic directors are: Rachael Field - a painter who works with film/digital media creating filmic images live on stage. NenAGH Watson, a puppeteer with a background in sculpture and theatre. Much of our work deals with the tensions between an ancient past and a highly technological future.

The last production was inspired by the Jewish story of GOLEM. Gustav Meyrink’s book entitled The Golem serves as a starting point and fragments of H Leivick’s 1921 play The Golem are used to explore doo-cot’s response to the cabbalistic myth of this creature which has struck terror into people’s hearts for centuries and has become the subject of intense fascination and scrutiny.

NenAGH was fascinated by the notion of the Golem not wanting life and used her puppetry skills to add resonance to this and other elements of the myth. For this production she is working with antique puppets including those of the late Punch professor Joe Beeby and 18th century puppets from Prague. The show features original film footage of Prague which is mixed live during the performance by Rachael Field: cutting edge technology and electronic imaging alongside a magic lantern and lots of puppets. Music was composed and performed by Sylvia Hallett.

The current touring show is FOLD YOUR OWN, based on our experiences of a research trip to Japan November 2005. Fold Your Own is an intimate interactive performance event. This is where two cultures clash and islands collide. doo-cot find comfort in the rampages of Godzilla and terror in the silken hands of the compliant Geisha. This is kitsch-in-synch psychodrama. This is hammer origami. The perfor-mance unfolds like paper. Paper cuts deep.

doo-cot is to be profiled in the next issue of Puppet Centre London - Animations Online, please see www.puppetcentre.org.uk/animationsonline

www.doo-cot.com

Faulty OpticFaulty Optic was founded in 1987 by Liz Walker and Gavin Glover. Faulty Optic currently explores the use of live-feed vi-deo projection, simple film ani-mation and pre-recorded video in its work. The company pro-duces work for adults, often with a macabre and surreal edge, and has toured widely in Western Europe, Canada, the USA and Indonesia. Soiled visi-ted Germany as part of the Fi-dena 2006 festival and their re-cent work horsehead is current-ly touring.

www.faultyoptic.co.uk

doo-cot

"Golem", Photo: Rachael Field

"Fold Your Own" Photo: Amanda Parker

"Fold Your Own", Photo: Amanda Parker

"ODD if you dare" (1995), Photo: Ann McGuinness

"Tunnelvision"

"Horsehead": Porter

"Licked"

"Soiled"

23

Stephen Mottram’s first job was with a traditional mario-nette company, which presented formal plays in which string puppets imitated live actors. Then, in 1982, the Arts Council gave him a bursary to spend some months with the students at the Hungarian State Puppet Theatre in Budapest. Subse-quently, he directed the puppetry for the film ALICE IN WONDERLAND for British TV.

Since then he has worked on many other films – most re-cently the Danish marionette movie STRINGS, and produ-ced five shows of his own. The best known of these, THE SEED CARRIERS, has toured in eighteen countries.

Stephen’s own work – for adult audiences - is without spoken language, based on strong music and exploits the most primary of images and events, often referring to sensa-tions around birth and death:

“I think that for all people everywhere, the basic mysteries of life are the same. A lot of psychiatry is bound up with making sense of a birth and early infancy we cannot even remember, and anxiety about our eventual death. Birth and death are events where the line between what is alive and what is not is very obscure. I have a feeling that the global fascination of puppet theatre is similarly bound up with the way puppets refer to life and death at the same time. Puppets are dead things. They are also very alive - in the right hands. They are primary 'make believe' objects. They encapsulate the uncanny doubt about what is real and what is not. I think it is this which gives all theatre its magic”.

His work over the last ten years has been dominated by attempts to combine electro-acoustic music - produced du-ring long collaborations with the composer – with simple, but dynamic theatrical images which exploit puppets and moving sculpture. This poetic theatre of images and music tries to get under the skin of its audience.

“Electro-acoustic music manipulates the way we perceive sounds. Recognisable types of music with their pre-existing emotional loadings can be mixed with the completely new, invented sounds made possible by the computer. In animati-on theatre, the same is true. The characters, sculpture and events can refer to things the audience already knows and

understands, or can be extra-ordinary and unexpected. For both art forms this mixture provides the poetic elements to tell a unique and new story.

A puppet moving in a particular way with a particular sound might invite an emotional response which it would be impossible to recreate with words. And the absence of words means that the visual and aural experience is somehow allo-wed to enter the audience’s consciousness directly, without having first to be deciphered from the code which is spoken language. My work with puppets now is firmly based on these principles.”

Stephen’s first series of marionette pieces was called, ANI-MATA, produced over several years during the 1980s. The music was written by Simon Waters, Glyn Perrin, Pete Mc-Phail and David Coulter. Some of the material from Ani-mata is the basis for “IN SUSPENSION”, a wordless, solo marionette show performed on an open stage.

Glyn Perrin went on the write the music for THE SEED CARRIERS, directed by Melanie Thompson in 1995. The performance evokes a frightening world where creatures scrabble to survive traps and predators. It probes our sensa-tions of vulnerability and political powerlessness. The stage design – a monster grind wheel worthy of Hieronymus Bosch – is by Jessica Shaw.

Sebastian Castagna was the composer for THE SEAS OF ORGANILLO (2004). Directed by Deana Rankin, this is a story about conception and birth. The environment in which the events and sounds occur is supposed to represent both the primordial seas and the womb. In a world populated by fishes and eggs, the cell biology of sex is cunningly descri-bed.

“Puppets can be much more than little, wooden people in traditional plays. They can be carefully used dramatic instru-ments, which combine sculptural impact with movement, image and metaphor. A fragile, breathing figure being drop-ped and smashed is a much more forceful use of a puppet than making it walk about simply pretending to be a little person.”

[email protected]

Stephen Mottram

"The Seas of Organillo" Photo: David Fisher

"The Seas of Organillo" Photo: David Fisher "The Seed Carriers", Photo: Paddy Somerfield

24

Ruffege Shadow TheatreRuffege Shadow Theatre was founded in 1992 with sup-

port from a local charity and from London Arts Board in the form of an artist’s residency at an Infants School in the East End of London where we live.

Ruffege is Mark Dobson and Helen Fry. Mark’s back-ground is as a musician/puppeteer: he studied cello at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London followed by mime, and after that worked with various companies as a musician/puppeteer including Rosie & Jim and the Little Angel Theatre. He has also composed music for many theatre productions which have been seen throughout the UK and abroad. Helen was originally a theatre director and created over 30 productions, from national tours of Shakespeare to new writing in London’s West End. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London and later in shadow theatre with the Italian company Gioco Vita at the Institut National de la Marionnette in France.

We first discovered shadow theatre when we were working on a community project with children in the early 1990’s and knew this was the medium through which we wanted to express ourselves artistically. It was like coming home and going on a big adventure, both at the same time. We also knew, after years of working in the theatre, creating shows for adults and for children, that what we wanted to do was to create work for children. So, although we do perform in theatres and at festivals, we aim to perform mainly in schools; this is a deliberate choice because what drives and energises our work is the desire to make a difference and we believe that that is the environment in which our work has the most impact.

We are funded by fees and the occasional grant from the National Lottery or a local trust – as a small, two person company we create our productions over a long period along-side whatever else we are doing, collaborating with designers on a show-to-show basis.

Our current productions are Hansel & Gretel for 3-8 year olds, with designs by a wonderful children’s illustrator, and Phaeton (adapted from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) for 7+. Both productions use a variety of techniques (projected 2D and 3D shadows, silhouettes, moving and fixed lights, moving and fixed screens). We work both in front of and behind the screen, and our shows are always underpinned by the drama-turgy. We use quite powerful halogen lights and torches be-cause schools often don’t have very good blackouts. In order to keep the light ‘alive’ we frequently use painted polycarbo-nate to break up the screen and give it more feeling of life. In Phaeton, which we are still working on, we are using a lot of reflected light which has a wonderful slippery and anarchic quality which we feel is appropriate to the story.

As Mark is a musician with a range of instruments, origi-nal, live music plays a large role in all our productions: it is indivisible from the physical show and in rehearsal is created alongside it and sometimes leads the process.

The main challenge for us is how to make a show, to make theatre, in the language of shadows. Working with shadows as part of a theatre or puppetry production, as we had done previously, was comparatively easy compared to making a whole show with just shadows. You can make marvellous static images with shadows, but to make theatre is something else and to make a whole show this way is a huge challenge – especially as we are always discovering new ways to create

shadows and exploring new techniques. We have probably made much the same journey as other shadow companies: our first shows were on an overhead projector, we then wor-ked Karagoz-style with silhouettes directly on the screen be-fore discovering halogens and projected shadows and all the new questions about the interplay between the light, the screen and the object that entails.

The journey with each production is now one where we have to find the most appropriate way to tell the story within these parameters. All the time we are searching for the most expressive way to work – how can we make the shadows most alive, most resonant with metaphor, the storytelling clear? Sometimes we are searching for an image, sometimes a gestu-re. The rehearsal process is often frustrating and sometimes upsetting because we start each time with a completely blank canvas: nothing is fixed, nothing is stable and it is very un-nerving.

In addition to shows, we do projects, workshops and resi-dencies in education and in the community, mainly in the East End of London where we live and sometimes in the ex-mining communities of Kent where there are pockets of high unemployment. These projects usually revolve around sha-dows and we are constantly astonished and delighted by the ability of people of any age to create powerful and beautiful images. This work is always funded: by regeneration agenci-es, local charities and trusts, the Arts Council and the Natio-nal Lottery. www.ruffege.com

"Golden Hairs" (2 images)

"Hänsel und Gretel"

"Happy Prince"

"Inchkin" (3 images)

25

My New Model theatre began creating and performing shows professionally in 1989 and is a totally one man opera-tion – the previous ten years had seen me making and perfor-ming shows mainly for myself and anyone else interested in seeing them.

My starting point was the traditional Toy Theatre but my aim was to create totally original productions with the em-phasis on new design, movement, lighting, sound and music – I developed a grooved stage which enables a faster flow of movement, with transformations of scene watched by the audience. A revolving background is another important ele-ment of all shows. Due to the more complex use of lighting and movement in my shows, all shows have recorded sound-tracks, which often take as long to make as the artwork.

The visual side of the production is often more cinematic than theatrical. Although paper-based I have been interested in using other materials in shows, like metal, plastic and glass. Depending on the subject and atmosphere to be evo-ked, artwork can be made using either watercolour, fibre pens, oil paint, coloured paper and pencil.

The subject matter of my productions varies greatly – much of my commissioned work is from art galleries and museums and will complement an exhibition or collection – I have made shows about the life and work of artists like Turner, Frans Hals and de Loutherbourg for The National Gallery, The Royal Academy and the Tate Britain. Theatre history productions range from pieces about the Victorian actor Sir Henry Irving and Total Theatre to Irwin Piscator’s revolutionary Berlin Theatre of the 1920’s. Historical themes have covered Belzoni - the Egyptologist (performed in its own Egyptian Temple Theatre with moveable proscenium), English Seaside Resort history and fashion, Smuggling, Pira-cy and the Great Storm of 1703 – an audience participation show with 60 ft. long revolving skies and seas and sinking ships. Musical themes include an 8 ½ minute history of opera, full scale opera productions and a recreation, using just coloured lights and screen, of Scriabin’s “Prometheus” for orchestra and colour organ.

I also make productions in their own right, including a purely abstract show and Japanese Kabuki drama. The whole point of all these productions is to entertain, inform and amaze an audience with a unique experience. Most of my commissioned shows are seen by both adults and children and I make very little concession to the younger audience; basically I make shows that I enjoy myself. I have in fact only two specifically children’s shows; one is about pirates and dinosaurs.Workshops are an important part of my work, in schools, colleges and for adults. At the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, we even got business managers of the Haniel Company making and performing 10 productions.

I have written “Model Theatre”, a book explaining my system of new model theatre and how to create it, and orga-nised seven festivals in the UK centred round model theatre and puppetry – including two which combined model theatre and live theatre. At the other extreme I have created and directed open air spectacles involving large figures.

I perform all over the UK and in the last five years do al-most as much work in Germany. New Model Theatre has included seven visits to the USA as well as work in France and Holland.

To make a production I usually get funding from commis-sioning organisations or sponsors and am paid a fee for per-formances. Recent projects have included making three re-constructions of P.J. de Loutherbourg’s large 18th century miniature theatre “The Eidophusikon” – one for the Altona Museum, Hamburg, another for the Yale Centre for British Art, Newhaven, Conn., USA, and one for the Nouveau Mu-see National de Monaco. My future projects include a show

about light and colour based round the experiments in theatre and cinema of the painter Herkommer.

www.newmodeltheatre.co.uk

New Model Theatre

25

"Merry Margate"

"Loyal 47"

"Eidophusikon"

"Mr. Turner Gets Steamed Up"

"Wilhelm Tell"

Forkbeard Fantasy Forkbeard Fantasy was formed in 1974 by brothers Tim

and Chris Britton, who were joined in 1980 by Penny Saun-ders and by Ed Jobling in 1987. Janice May, Deborah Harri-son and Robin Thorburn are also now part of the company.

Forkbeard Fantasy is a theatre and film company which has been touring its shows, films, exhibitions and special events since the mid-1970's, then inspired by Performance Art. Their theatre shows combine comedy with special ef-fects, wild mechanical sets, outsize characters and their unique trademark interactive mix of film, animation and cartoon live on stage.

The new show Rough Magyck recently premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Forkbeard’s new show Invisib-le bonfires will tour from spring 2007.Their endlessly inven-tive use of film, mechanical stage trickery and their insatiable appetite for the comic and the absurd are supplemented in this new spectacle not just by live music but by two hilarious new FF Films.

As well as their theatre shows the company creates and tours elaborate interactive exhibitions, films and animated cartoons. The current exhibition, Horsing About can be seen at the Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, where classic animated sculptures including old friends like the shaking hand are waiting to greet you.

www.forkbeardfantasy.co.uk

Theatre-Rites was formed in 1995. The company's aim is to create work which stimulates and challenges children as well as entertains them. The company creates both site-specific and touring work incorporating puppetry, dance, installation art and music, with the spoken word taking a secondary role. “Site-specific” describes a production which has been develo-ped to be performed in a specific location other than a theatre. The production Millworks, for example, was develo-ped and performed in an old corn mill on the Thames. The story of how corn is grown, harvested, threshed, milled into flour and eventually turned into bread was inspired and en-

abled by the location. The audience is led within the buil-ding to different spaces where different scenes play them-selves out. “Hospital Works” was performed within a hospi-tal. To help remove the fear of hospitals that children can feel, the scenes were all generally comic. Theatre-Rites was founded by the late Penny Bernand; Sue Buckmaster is the Artistic Director. www.theatre-rites.co.uk

theatre-rites

26

"The Lost and Moated Land"Photo: Mike Good/Andy Rumball

"House Works", Photo: Penny Bernand/Josie Taylor "Shop Works", Photo: Trine Anstensen "Catch Your Breath", Photo: Alan Wood

"Horsing About" Exhibition "Horsing About" Exhibition with "The Shaking Hand"

"The Barbers of Surreal" (1998)

27

Impressions from British puppeteers

"Shadow show", www.armchairpuppets.co.uk

"Lost Forest", Photo: Gary Morrisonwww.indigomoontheatre.com

www.beresfordspuppets.co.uk

"Prof. Argyle", Kernal Trapp’s Puppetswww.sirkusonfoot.com

"Moving Tales", www.ontheotherhand.em8z.com

"Funky Monkey and the juicy fruits"www.wildboor.com

"Rabbits to the Rescue"Diddley Dee Puppets [email protected]

28

Impressions from British puppeteers

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin"www.professor-popup-puppets.co.uk

"The am-A-zing Thing"www.lempen.co.uk

"The Tinder Box", www.purvespuppets.com

"Sun and Moon"Peter Wynne-Willsonwww.peterww.co.uk

"The Bewitched Baobab Tree"www.puppetcraft.co.uk

Spoonbill & Bee eater aus "Heatwave", www.nutmegpuppet.co.uk

"Major Mustard"www.majormustard.com

Suzanna Rosenthal & The Steam Industry, Photo: Sheila Burnetthttp://freespace.virgin.net/s.rosenthal/scoop/index.html

29

"The Bewitched Baobab Tree"www.puppetcraft.co.uk

Prof. Robanti, www.robanti.co.uk

Des Turner, Photo: Helen Fry

John Styles, www.johnstylesentertainer.co.uk

Mrs Backtofront (Denise L. Pettitt)www.mrsbacktofront.com

Walking Tall Theatre Company, www.clivechandler.com

Konrad Fredericks, www.konradfredericks.com

John Alexander, Photo: Helen Frywww.punchandjudyshow.com

30

Punch & Judy yesterday, today and tomorrowThe Punch and Judy Show is flourishing in the UK

right now and I can think of at least four regional Festivals this year at which the traditional show is the featured theme. In fact a professional Punch performer (or ‘Profes-sor’) can expect the telephone to ring all year round with enquiries ranging from a parent arranging a birthday party, a Shopping Centre wanting to book entertainment during the school holidays, a heritage attraction looking for a ‘historical’ entertainment or a pub organising a Fa-mily Fun Day. The list goes on: schools, museums, galle-ries, weddings, charity events, corporate entertainment agencies, municipal councils, seaside venues and tourist attractions all play their part in keeping Mr. Punch fully in work – and there are some two to three hundred Pro-fessors helping him. What will be missing from the list, however, will be a Theatre or an Arts Centre wanting to book Punch and Judy as part of their season of childrens puppet shows – and the reason for this lies at the heart of explaining how Mr. Punch fits into British culture.

Mr. Punch belongs to popular culture. He is truly ‘of the people’ and has never depended upon the approval of cultural commentators for his survival. He belongs out and about in the real world, so while you might expect to come across a Punch and Judy Show at a free public event, you wouldn’t expect to pay the price of a theatre ticket to go and see one. This stems from the legacy best described by novelist Peter Ackroyd in his book London: A biogra-phy. Writing about Bartholemew Fair - that definitive London saturnalia which for centuries ran for two weeks in each year - “if there was one central character it was Punch, the uncrowned monarch of ‘puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds and bag-pipes’. He is the very es-sence of a gross sexual joke which, in later centuries, has become smaller, squeakier and somehow transformed in-to an entertainment for children”

Children, of course, love entertainment with a frisson of danger and an undercurrent of learning about the world. How else have all those stories of ogres, monsters and Big Bad Wolves remained popular in the nursery? Mr. Punch fits right into this niche because he is the out-rageous character who stands all the accepted rules of so-ciety on their head – but does so to comic effect whilst despatching a variety of potential threats at the same time. Here comes a ghost! Whack, whack whack. There goes a ghost defeated. Fears are confronted and gleefully dest-royed in a burst of raucous humour. Even the Devil gets his come-uppance at the hands of Mr. Punch who all the while goes about his business with that merry cackle and enormous grin which gave rise to the English colloquial phrase “as pleased as Punch”. In the nursery, of course, he had to put aside the “gross sexual jokes” of his wilder days

– but it didn’t take much observation on the part of adults to understand the phallic significance of that big nose, that humped back and that potent stick. For the ‘Profes-sor’ there was, too, a great deal of commercial potential in being a childrens entertainer: swapping the hard and precarious life of the streets for the guaranteed fee that proud Papa would pay in order to have his children enter-tained at home. It is, after all, a show which has been ap-preciated by the Kings and Queens of England and as re-cently as this year was made welcome in the garden of Buckingham Palace as part of the Great Party thrown for children as part of the 80th birthday celebrations of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

There have been sixteen monarchs on the throne of England during Mr. Punch’s career and it was the marria-ge of one of them which was indirectly responsible for the droll puppet making his first recorded appearance in the country. During the 1600s there had been a revolution in England. King Charles I had been tried by Parliament and executed – ushering in the unsmiling republican re-gime of Oliver Cromwell and his puritanical followers. To them entertainment was a sinful frivolity to be banned. Thus for eleven long years there was little public laughter in England until the death of Cromwell, the failure of his revolution and the restoration of the monarchy under King Charles II. This Charles turned out to be a fun-lo-ving, party- giving womaniser who became known as the Merry Monarch and so it is hardly surprising that when he became King the street entertainers of Europe turned their eyes to a profitable new source of income: the fun-starved British public. And when the King married Ca-therine of Braganza, the Royal wedding was the cause of even more public fun and celebrations - and amongst the European entertainers trying their luck with the London crowds was one Pietro Gimonde (known as Signor Bo-logna) and his puppet show starring a certain ‘Pollicinel-la’. We know this because the famous diarist, statesman and courtier Samuel Pepys noted that in Covent Garden on May 9th 1662 – a couple of weeks before the Royal wedding – he came across “an Italian puppet play….the best that I ever saw”. The puppet became the talk of the town, played before the King himself, and started a public career that has lasted to this day.

Gimonde had crossed Europe with his travelling show, stopping off at Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Vienna and Paris, and his star character was a puppet interpretation of the mask Pulcinella – one of the classic figures of the Ita-lian Commedia Dell’ Arte. The English – ever notorious for their inability to pronounce words from other langu-ages – soon called him Punchinello: a name which was eventually shortened to Punch. Not that his show was yet

Set of contemporary Punch figures by Mary Edwards

Punchinello marionette being operated by Mary Edwards

(who made it) at the Puppe-teers of America Festival 2005

31

the Punch and Judy Show that we know today. This pup-pet was a marionette controlled by a rod to the head rat-her than a hand puppet and, accompanied by live music, performed with the other puppets on an elaborate raised stage some 6 metres square.

So succesful was this new puppet comedian that other showmen copied him and spread his name throughout the land. For the next hundred years or so Punch was a regular attraction on the great annual circuit of Fairs - the means by which goods, money and entertainment were circulated the length and breadth of the country in the days before the rise of modern towns and cities. The tra-velling entertainers who performed at these Fairs did so inside booths or tents and here Punch was a star turn in a variety of puppet plays. George Speaight’s classic work Punch and Judy: A history quotes Edward Popham, wri-ting in the 1700s, to give us a vivid glimpse of what you would see if you could travel back in time to sit in the audience “a little man advances with a ridiculous face, a humpback and a vast belly; Punch is his name, and there is none more impudent; he is always intruding into seri-ous scenes, putting everything in disorder with his chatte-ring and his jokes. Ofter, turning towards a tightly packed bench of girls he sits himself down near to them; My beautiful ones, he says, winking rogueishly, here’s a friend come to join you! His double-meanings, hinting at gross indecencies, bring a blush to every modest cheek and broad smiles to the rows of men and boys”. He didn’t yet have a wife called Judy – although he was hen-pecked by one called Joan with whom he quarelled incessantly and who, in one famous illustration, is shown being pushed in a wheelbarrow by her rogueish husband.

So why and when did he transform into the hand pup-pet Mr. Punch, find a wife called Judy and take to the streets in a show that is still a basis for Punch and Judy Shows to this day? These topics provide the liveliest ground for debate amongst the academics and historians of his career. Punch became a hand puppet towards the end of the 1700s but historians differ as to whether this was because the declining Fairground circuit no longer brought enough custom to support large puppet compa-nies or whether it was because the dramatic rise of mo-dern towns and cities suddenly created opportunities for a new kind of smaller urban street performance. A third theory (which doesn’t exclude either of the other two) suggests that a Pulcinella hand puppet performer from Italy visited London around this time and sparked this major change the Punch tradition. For whatever reason, Mr. Punch suddenly found fresh impetus and became the talk of the town all over again.

This is the time when the elements of the classic Punch and Judy Show format are first put in place. The bulky marionette stage is replaced by a small and easily portable one. The large company of puppeteers is replaced by a solo performer. The marionettes – so good at jumping, dancing and capering with comic grace – are replaced by hand puppets who excel at high speed squabbling, braw-ling and playing hide-and-seek as the solo puppeteer pits right hand against left. The style of puppet determines the nature of the performance for now the characters are no longer stringed mannikins aping human form and gestu-re. Instead they are grotesque comic caricatures stripped

down to their bare essentials - and their little show holds up a mocking fairground mirror to the world around them.

It is an era of great social upheaval when the working class created by the new era of factories and mass produc-tion are being kept in their place by the weighty apparatus of the State, the Law and the Church. Public execution is the penalty handed down for countless crimes, marriage is the institution intended to bind society together and Hell is the place that awaits the transgressors. What bet-ter entertainment for the teeming crowds on the streets than to see it all glori-ously turned upside down and mocked by a big-nosed, hump-backed little comedi-an and his fellow puppets? The crowd know they can’t dissolve the marriage bond with a blow, despatch the forces of law and order in the same manner and then – af-ter tricking the hangman into hanging himself – go on to defeat the Devil himself. But they can watch Mr. Punch do it, laugh themselves hoarse, and feel all the better for it. This is at the heart of the Punch and Judy Show’s ap-peal – and the true key to keeping it alive today. Mr. Punch is on the side of the people and against those who would keep them in their place. His squawking mockery still echoes in places of power, for British political cartoo-nists regularly use Punch and Judy as an image when they want to draw politicians in a childish squabble. The cur-rent leader of the opposition party in Parliament recently made an appeal to his followers by promising “an end to Punch and Judy politics” - thereby guaranteeing a laugh from the watching adults for any performer who makes a reference to “Punch and Judy politics” in a contemporary Punch show.

As Britain entered the 1800s out went Joan and in ca-me Judy (perhaps because the audience began to mis-hear the name since “Joaney” and “Judy” sound much the sa-me when spoken through the swazzle and a Judy was a popular term of the time meaning ‘a woman’). In came (briefly) Pretty Polly as Mr. Punch’s girl-friend – a femme fatale borrowed from the cast of The Beggar’s Opera on the London stage. In came Joey the Clown, named for the father of British clowning, the immortal Joey Grimaldi who is the box-office star of the era at the great London pantomime entertainments. And – because hand puppets are adept at holding things - in came Mr. Punch’s slap-stick: a scaled down version of the magic weapon of Harlequin from the ‘Harlequinades’: that short sequence of comic scenes which was also a feature of the London stage and which ,too, featured Commedia Dell’ Arte cha-racters. Also borrowed from these entertainments was the comic scene where a doll (which has been subsituted at the last minute for a live baby) is thrown out and about into the audience as part of the plot. Fronted by a live musician playing the pipe and drum outside the booth and acting as the show’s Master of Ceremonies (and coll-


Old Street Showman. Typical image of bygone Punch in the streets of London

ector of the audience’s pennies) the chief ingredients were all present for a what the Victorian Punch performer in-terviewed by Henry Mayhew in the 1840s described as “one of the greatest novelties in the world”. The show was hugely popular and as the years went by it continued ad-ding elements from other entertainments of its time. Punch might sing popular songs; there might be a comic boxing match between puppets parodying the fairground boxing-booths of the time; there might be chinese pup-pets performing plate-spinning or chair-balancing; there might be a black-faced minstrel in tribute to that popular craze; and there might be a performing dog (called Toby). The end result was not so much a folk-play but a surreal entertainment drawing on all manner of popular themes and presided over the great Lord of Misrule himself – Punch; whose outrageous actions and the ever failing att-empts to catch him were a loose story-line upon which everything else was hung.

If you ask someone in England where they’d expect to find a Punch and Judy Show the answer will probably be “at the seaside” for this is where the show spent the best part of a hundred years. From the invention of seaside excursions by rail in the mid 1800s right through to the middle of the following century Mr. Punch was a popular entertainment on the beaches of England, along with donkey rides, pierrot shows and all manner of similar fri-volities. New legislation had given the urban working masses paid holidays, and railway travel let them spend it away from towns. With thousands of fun-seekers availa-ble throughout the summer, Punch and Judy performers took their shows to the people. This extended spell in holiday mood, coupled with lucrative bookings as a treat for the young, mellowed the show into one suitable for family audiences and began the trend towards being pri-marily an entertainment for children. But the seaside is the place where Punch still abides in the national memory despite the fact that he’s not really been there since the English started taking their holidays overseas a good ma-ny years ago. A tiny handful of seaside shows still exist – but mainly Punch works back in the towns these days. The media sometimes assume that Punch and Judy is dying out because it’s no longer at the seaside – whereas in reality it is the English seaside holiday tradition that has declined whilst Mr. Punch has moved on to earn his mo-ney elsewhere. He doesn’t have to collect money by pas-sing around the hat any more either. Nowadays he is a paid attraction earning a decent day’s wage. Currently a good Punch performer can command for a day’s work the same fee that an actor on minimum wage would earn for a week’s work.

Popular though Mr. Punch is, not everyone loves him: he is far too controversial for that. But although he has always had his detractors, his friends have always signifi-cantly outnumbered his opponents. Charles Dickens, upon receiving a letter from a lady hoping to enlist his support in suppressing Punch as a corruptor of youth wrote back with defence of the show which is still quoted by Professors today. Dickens - who was a fan of Mr. Punch and referred to him in several of his works – re-plied “In my opinion the Street Punch is one of those extravagant reliefs from the realities of life which would lose its hold upon the people if it were made moral and instructive. I regard it as quite, harmless in its influence

and as an outrageous joke which no-one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct. It is possible,I think, that one secret source of pleasure generally derived from this performance…is the satisfaction the spectator feels in the circumstances that likenesses of men and wo-men can be so knocked about, without any pain of suffe-ring” A few years earlier the the Victorian showman inter-viewed by Henry Mayhew said of his more genteel clients “I am obliged to perform very steady, very slow; they won’t have no ghost, no coffin and no devil. And that’s what I call spoiling the performance….It’s the march of intellect that’s doing all this: it is sir!” Today similar argu-ments would be clothed in the jargon of Political Correc-tness, but those arguing against Punch have no more success than was the case a hundred and fifty years ago and are usually viewed as humourless fundamentalists. They get little public sympathy for complaining about an age-old puppet show. Nevertheless, Punch Professors have to keep the show broadly in tune with the times and that is partly what keeps the tradition alive. Mr. Punch over-turns the rules of society – but in order to do that he has to know exactly what those rules are.

When Political Correctness entered the mainstream in

the 1970s it was conceivable that Mr. Punch’s time might finally be up. Within a few years performing animals were no longer culturally acceptable in the UK thus bringing an end to performing poodles and lion tamers alike. Me-anwhile the BBC finally brought down the curtain on its long running Black and White Minstrel Show as this form of entertainment was now seen as deeply offensive and racist. Mr. Punch thus had to say goodbye to a live Dog Toby and to part company with Jim Crow – who had been there since the original entertainer using that name had been a star. Punch certainly dropped out of fa-vour with school teachers who now shunned booking him for the summer or Christmas treat. He was under suspicion of being (to use that wonderful mealy-mouthed term) “inappropriate”. But Punch Professors - acting through the two Punch organisations which by now had sprung up - fought back gleefully with a barrage of argu-ments pouring scorn on their opponents. “Punch and Judy no more promotes domestic violence than Goldi-locks and the Three Bears promotes squatting” was the first of many slogans which (along with the still relevant views of Charles Dickens) were picked up and re-publis-hed by the media who relished the story and who univer-sally endorsed Mr. Punch. As the last decades of the 20th Century ticked by the battle continued, with no snub to Mr. Punch being ignored and left without a counter-at-tack. With the arrival of the internet and the posting of dedicated media pages on the websites of the Punch orga-nisations the information war was won and the tide of battle began to ebb until it returned to being the little skirmish it had always been. The dawn of the new century saw Punch and Judy Shows officially part of the government’s Millennium Dome celebratory showpiece in London and the star of his own Punch and Judy Jam-boree in Birmingham. In 2001 the Queen’s Golden Jubi-lee saw Punch welcome at countless local celebrations. In 2002 a set of Punch and Judy stamps was issued. In 2004 Punch performer John Styles was awarded the MBE – a prestigious medal within the British honours system. In 2005 Punch and Judy was officially classified by the Go-

Tony Blair as Joey the Clown’s companion. Another clown.

Punch stamp. Typical nostali-gia seaside postcard image of

Punch and Judy based on the design for a stamp

32


vernment as a cultural Icon of England and the Arts Council of England funded a cult theatre maverick to write some scenes for a Punch and Judy project aimed at updating the show for adults only. And in 2006 the Punch and Judy College of Professors teamed up with Royal Holloway College, University of London, in order for a graduate student to write their doctoral thesis on Contemporary Punch and Judy in Performance and so bring Mr. Punch’s history up to date.

By now a new generation had grown up who saw Mr. Punch through the lens of post-modern irony. He was so knowingly outrageous that to take him seriously would itself be a joke. And if you started describing a show that featured a bizarre family in a surreal story where visual comedy played a key part along with a sideays look at contemporary society you might find that, actually, you were describing The Simpsons. Animated TV series are now working in a tradition once the province of the hum-ble hand-puppet and some of them portray far more controversial activity than Mr. Punch is ever accused of. Meanwhile the seaside amusement arcades in the resorts where Punch once held sway are now filled with shoot-em-up video games far more graphic than any fights with a little wooden slapstick. Pointing this out to Punch’s de-tractors – and reminding them that Mr. Punch defeats the Devil – ensures that only the diehard Politically Correct fundamentalists are left. And they’ve always had more criticism in the British media than has Mr. Punch.

That’s not to say all is completely well with the traditi-

on. Childrens entertainment is a lucrative market in Eng-land and face-painters, balloon modellers, clowns and magicians (both amateur and professional) are in every Yellow Pages. Any of these may well decide to take up Punch and Judy, buy some puppets, start advertising their

services and, because Mr. Punch is famous, they will find work. Thus the standard of shows varies enormously de-pending on the level of intelligence, understanding of the tradition and skill shown by the performer. Some shows are toe-curlingly dreadful and deserve all the criticism heaped upon them. Others are superb and performed by puppeteers of world-class skill. To the general public, however, a Punch and Judy Show is a Punch and Judy Show – and so a poor one reflects badly upon the whole tradition. This is unfortunate because elsewhere a poor puppet show doesn’t reflect badly on the whole art form: it just reflects badly on the particular puppeteer or puppet company. Mr. Punch is an iconic figure, however, and needs to be seen at his best at all times so as to keep up his reputation. Spurred on, too, by what is seen as The Dreadful Fate which befell Punch’s cousin Kasper, the Punch and Judy organisations continue their work to en-sure that the tradition keeps up to date, attracts new per-formers of quality, is showcased at prestigious events and is strengthened in those few areas of the country where for miscellaneous reasons the tradition has been seen less in recent years. So far the first few years of a new Millenni-um have seen Punch in fine fettle and raring to go. It will be up to subsequent generations to carry the baton on through the next century of his career.

Glyn Edwards, [email protected]

33

Festival show. Performers at a festival in Birmingham organised by PuppetLink

Seaside show. Glyn Edwards at Aberystwyth in Wales

Glyn Edwards with Punch and Judy


34

Puppetry has played a part in the life of television in the UK from the very beginning. In 1936 the BBC began its public broadcasting service from Alexander Palace, and many of the early pioneers of the British Puppet and Mo-del Theatre Guild (founded in 1925) took part, amongst them Waldo Lanchester and H.W.Whanslaw who made a marionette called ‘Soko’ specifically to be seen on a black and white television screen. With the resumption of tele-vision in 1946 came Muffin The Mule, the creation of Ann Hogarth and Jan Bussell, which inspired a range of other marionette shows on television: Andy Pandy, the Wooden Tops, Bill and Ben, all of which were designed for pre-school children and shown under the title of ‘Watch with Mother’. Occasionally other kinds of pup-pets appeared: glove puppets in Hector’s House and Pin-ky and Perky, and simple paper finger puppets in Finger-bobs. Individual characters began to emerge as household names and favourites, notably Sooty, a small and very simple golden bear hand puppet operated by Harry Cor-bett and later Basil Brush, the talkative fox created by Ivan Owen, which was possibly the first hand puppet on Bri-tish television with a moving mouth. Basil appeared alongside a series of human co-presenters on his TV show; the rapport between the human and the puppet was ma-gical and in many ways paved the way for what was to come.

The Muppets burst onto British television in 1976. Jim Henson had been trying unsuccessfully to get funding to produce The Muppet Show in the USA but British televi-sion impresario Lew Grade recognised the potential of Jim’s characters and soon Kermit, Miss Piggy and co were firm favourites with adults and children alike, with the show on the ‘must see’ list of every household. It cleverly combined humour that appealed to both children and adults, fantastic puppet characters and human stars of stage and screen, and puppetry techniques that had not been seen before. The early ‘Watch with Mother’ type programmes were, in many ways, traditionally staged ma-rionette shows recorded on television, whereas the Mup-pets brought a new type of puppetry that exploited the technical opportunities that television offered. Their im-pact was enormous and provoked two reactions. Firstly there was that of the traditionalists who felt that ‘proper puppets’ should be made of wood and operated by strings and made disparaging remarks about ‘people waving things made of foam and feathers above their heads’! But secondly there was an immediate stream of copy-cat Muppets, and from then on, virtually every television puppet has had a moving mouth and live hands (like Fozzie Bear) or hands controlled with rods like Kermit.

Though many of the programmes that followed, such as Rainbow, ran for several years, none was aimed at an adult or even family audience: they were all very much aimed at the youngest children and though Jim Henson had helped make TV producers think differently about how to use puppets on television, he had not managed to make them come up with formats for anyone over the age of six or seven. The only puppets that were for older children remained the popular marionette series pioneered by Gerry Anderson since the 60’s: Thunderbirds, Stingray

and Captain Scarlet. But these were described as perfor-med in ‘supermarionation’ to avoid the use of the term puppet with its childish connotations.

Spitting Image completely broke the mould with its satirical rubber caricatures that lasted on British television from 1984 to 1996. Transmitted at 10pm on a Sunday evening it was topical, crude, outrageous and the talk of every office the following day. As well as being sold across the world, it produced several ‘sister’ programmes in Eu-rope and acted as a focal point and training ground for many of Britain’s best television puppeteers. There are continual rumours of its return, but when it was first made it was the most expensive Light Entertainment programme of its time, and since all the rubber puppets have long since been sold or rotted it would be prohibi-tively expensive to make again on the same scale. A real consideration for producers, as budgets today are tightly squeezed, is the substantial cost of making puppets for television and the realisation that to bring them to life requires the skill of often several highly experienced per-formers. Gone are the days when puppets were waggled in front of the camera by a stage hand or willing secretary!

Today there are plenty of puppets on television in the UK. Mostly aimed at young children, such as The Hoobs, and often playing alongside costume characters ( such as on BBC’s internationally sold Fimbles) or as ‘presenters’ alongside human presenters in magazine shows. But it has been a while since a full scale ‘drama with puppets’, has been attempted, and marionettes are as rarely seen as a puppet based programme aimed at adults. The success of the Broadway musical Avenue Q has sent TV producers scurrying round to develop a new adult puppet show, a puppet ‘South Park’ but so far, despite several pilot pro-grammes, nothing has appeared as a series. Alongside animated cartoons, puppets continue to be popular with children and TV schedulers alike, not least for the mer-chandising potential of the characters. Basil Brush has made a come-back in recent years, and this year his show has been nominated for a BAFTA ( British Academy of Film and Television Award) for best children’s entertain-ment. Many other puppet characters are fighting back against cheaply produced computer generated animation and there are signs that, if not exactly winning, they are holding their own and will continue on children’s TV for some time yet.

Simon Buckley, www.simonbuckley.co.uk

Television Puppetry in the UKPuppetry in Great Britain

"Muffin the Mule" with Annette Mills

Behind the scenes on "Spitting Image"

Simon Buckley with charakters from "Fimbles" and "Roly Mo Show"

Trixie and Dixie from BBC TV’s "Fab Lab"

Simon Buckley with"Dave the Hyena",

featured on ITV’s 24 Hour Quiz

35

Puppetry and Higher Education Puppetry and Education

Edward Gordon Craig, who seemed to have an opinion about everything, wrote that Javanese puppet theatre is “a subject [that] needs a lifetime of study devoted to it… in the world. Some folk study in Universities, but that is fatal if overdone” (A.B.C., 1918, “On the Marionette Theatre of the Javanese,” The Marionette 1, no.7: 210). Craig’s reputation and influence in Britain has had its peaks and valleys, but his advice about wayang and other forms of puppetry has generally been heeded. The study of puppets is considered to be a lifetime endeavour best conducted outside universities. Few professional puppe-teers have graduated from higher education programs dedicated to puppetry, and some of the best books on puppets have been written by working puppeteers unaf-filiated with universities. George Speaight, perhaps Britain’s most famous scholar of puppet theatre as well as a dedicated toy theatre practitioner, was essentially an amateur scholar. While Speaight was one of the founders in 1948 of the Society for Theatre Research, he did not have a university degree and never held a teaching post. Many other British writers on puppetry, such as Jan Bus-sell, Michael Byrom, Geoff Felix, and Mervyn Millar, have likewise worked outside academia, balancing their theatre practice as professional puppeteers with writing and scholarship. That being said, puppets do pop up in a variety of academic contexts. Puppetry courses

Currently there are two degree-granting programs dedi-cated to puppetry run by the Central School of Speech and Drama (Central, for short) and the London School of Puppetry (LSP). A third program, a two-year Higher National Diploma course run by the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre for Anniesland College, sadly closed in 2004 after ten years of operation.

Puppetry was introduced to Central in 1992 by Penny Francis, who formerly ran a puppet company with her late husband Derek Francis and founded the Puppet Centre Trust in London in 1974. Central offers specialization in puppetry as part of both undergraduate and MA degrees in Theatre Practice. Practical modules, masterclasses and workshops are delivered largely by visi-ting practitioners, including some of Britain’s best known puppeteers and puppeteers from Europe and beyond. The focus of the course is on dramaturgy for contempo-rary puppet theatre. While students are introduced to principles of making and animating puppets, puppet and object theatre theory, and the history of world puppetry, the course is geared towards students who are interested in devising new work for puppet theatre. Short courses are also offered for part-time students. Central graduates have formed their own puppet companies and are wor-king as professional puppeteers in Britain and abroad.

The London School of Puppetry, run by Caro-line Astell-Burt and Ronnie LeDrew, offers a more tradi-tional course. Students receive in-depth tuition in ma-king and manipulating shadow puppets, glove puppets, rod puppets, string puppets, and object theatre, and show solo and group work in an annual “Festival of

Works” in London. While the school retains London in its name, for the last years most of its courses have run in North Yorkshire, where cost of living is lower and work-shop space more easily available. The course is fully mo-dularized and students can take individual options in supplementary subjects, such as puppets in education and therapy (Astell-Burt’s specialty). Students who com-plete the course (which can be taken over one or two years) graduate with a Professional Puppeteer’s Diplo-ma. Another university program with a strong fo-cus on puppet arts was the MA program in Cultural Performance at Bristol University. This was set up by Professor Baz Kershaw and John Fox of Welfare State International. Students spent the first half of the acade-mic year in Bristol taking academic courses in perfor-mance studies and the second half as a Welfare State In-ternational intern in Ulverston, Cumbria, working on community projects often using large-scale animated fi-gures in outdoor processions and celebrations. In 2006, Professor Kershaw left Bristol and John Fox left Welfare State which then changed function. The MA in Cultural Performance is reportedly not being offered by Bristol University in 2006-7, and the future of this innovative program is now in unknown.

The MA in Visual Language of Performance at the Wimbledon School of Art (part of the University of the Arts London) also allows students to specialize in puppetry. This is largely a practical degree, with a focus on scenography for stage and screen. Tutors have experti-se in automata, prosthetics, and SFX costumes, and practical projects mounted by students often involve ob-ject animation.

Individual undergraduate modules in puppe-try are also offered at a number of universities around the country including Royal Holloway, University of Lon-don (tutored by Matthew Cohen); the Liverpool Institu-te for Performing Arts (under Ashley Shairp); and Uni-versity of Winchester (with Janet Lee). A postgraduate puppet working group has also been recently launched by Matthew Cohen at Royal Holloway, which has the largest contingent of postgraduate research students in drama in the country.

University-based research on puppetry

Academic research on puppet theatre has usually been the product of individual researchers, rather than well-defined research clusters, and most UK-based academics who have written about puppet theatre are not dedicated puppet experts. For example, Robert Leach (currently lecturing at Edinburgh University), wrote his academic study of Punch and Judy as a scholar of European theatre history, rather than a puppet historian. A partial exception to this is the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). While SOAS does not have a drama department and does not currently of-fer any courses on puppetry, SOAS has an impressive re-cord of producing Ph.D.s on non-Western puppetry. These include dissertations by Charles Dunn (on early

Puppetry student from Central School of Speech and Drama at at the PALATINE sympoi-sum 'Teaching Puppetry in Higher Education,' held at Royal Holloway, University of London, 28 April 2006

Malcolm Knight (left), direc-tor of the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre, with James Arnott (right), a puppetry stu-dent in the Department of Drama and Theatre of Royal Holloway, University of Lon-don at the PALATINE sym-poisum 'Teaching Puppetry in Higher Education,' held at Royal Holloway, University of London, 28 April 2006

36

Japanese puppet theatre, 1960), Amin Sweeney (on sha-dow puppet theatre in Malaysia, 1970), and Angela Ho-bart (on Balinese shadow puppet theatre, 1980). Present and past lecturers at SOAS who have written on puppet theatre include Stuart Blackburn, Drew Gerstle, Frances Harding and Christiaan Hooykaas. Ben Arps (now Pro-fessor of Javanese at Leiden University) taught a course on wayang at SOAS in the late 1980s and early 1990s. SOAS also has a world-class research library for non-Western puppetry.

Conclusion

A seminar on “Teaching Puppetry in Higher Education” held at Royal Holloway, University of London on 28 April revealed that while dedicated academic puppetry programs are few in number, puppetry is present in high-er education in Britain in many ways. Puppetry is used to teach computer programmers principles of movement and design. It informs the training of scenographers in many institutions. Object animation is taught to actors

under many guises. Britain does not have a program that provides a comprehensive training in puppetry from be-ginner to advanced practice. Nor is this currently felt to be a desirable goal. Instead, students are encouraged to acquire their skills in the field, working as solo artists and interning with established companies such as Moving Stage (which runs the Puppet Barge) and Little Angel. Academia provides a low ground where students can be introduced to puppetry and a high ground where stu-dents and academics reflect upon and develop professio-nal practice after substantial experience. The middle ground, where a neophyte puppeteer undertakes the labo-rious process of learning a trade and becoming an artist, is to be found… in the world.

Matthew Isaac Cohen

Puppeteers in Scotland are an independent bunch. Hardy and self-sufficient, over the past 25 years they have quietly got on with the most important job of all, provi-ding productions of high quality for children and young people throughout Scotland. For much of this time their valuable work has been almost completely unrecognised and un-remarked upon by our main funding organisati-on, the Scottish Arts Council. Throughout this period the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre has also struggled to maintain itself on a decent financial footing and for this and other reasons has not been able to provide the practi-cal support and vision that the puppetry sector in Scot-land would greatly have welcomed.

Consequently, pioneering companies like Black Box, Kenspeckle Puppets, The Amazing Mr Bones, Ian Turbitt’s Puppet Company and later the Edinburgh Puppet Com-pany had to discover and develop their own styles, tech-niques and creative aesthetics by trial and error. Each company created for itself its own network of contacts, mainly in Scottish schools, that provided it with the basis of a reliable annual source of work and finance. Over the past 20 years Edinburgh Puppet Company (now retitled Puppet Lab) has also developed a considerable touring profile throughout England and the rest of the UK, and newer companies like Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre have also benefited from this much greater number of venues and organisations looking for high quality puppetry.

Between them over the past 25 years these companies have established puppetry in Scotland as a vital part of the

performing arts ecology for children and young people in this country, as well as fostering and inspiring a new gene-ration of puppeteers to join them. Over the past 10 years, companies such as Folding Theatre Puppet Company, Kidgloves Puppets, Puppet State, Shona Reppe Puppets and Yugen Puppets have added their distinctive voices to the increasingly diverse puppetry culture in Scotland. In the last 5 years, Hoodwink, Monsters and Mayhem, Mousetale Puppets and Wee Giant Puppets have also joi-ned the party.

Every year, Scottish puppeteers help the Scottish Arts Council in a significant way to achieve its strategic aims of access to and participation in arts activities of high quality, both in terms of Scotland’s more remote geogra-phy, as well as the creation of work in urban areas of social deprivation that have not been traditionally well catered for.

Puppets in Scotland

Ronnie LeDrew with student from the London School of

Puppetry at the PALATINE sympoisum 'Teaching Puppe-

try in Higher Education,' held at Royal Holloway, University

of London, 28 April 2006

"Each Peach Pear Plum", www.puppet-lab.comHoodwink, www.puppetstate.com

37

Puppetry in Scotland

In the years 1999–2005 Scottish puppetry companies presented 11,849 performances and workshops for 958,804 children, young people and adults throughout the UK. Of these, 10,335 performances and workshops were presented to 797,685 children, young people and adults in Scotland (Figures supplied by the Puppet Ani-mation Festival’s Annual Surveys).

Money has always been very tight in Scottish puppetry; however, the past 10 years have seen further steady and healthy growth and development, both of existing and new companies, working side by side. Overall, the Scot-tish puppetry sector is a very supportive and friendly group of talented people, living successfully in a very Darwinian world where, if no one buys their work, they do not eat. On the positive side, this provides the stimu-lus to create work that people want to see and enjoy. On the negative side, it also means that more experimental work, particularly in the area of puppetry with more adult themes, remains stuck in the artist’s bottom drawer, unli-kely to see the light of day.

Over the past decade in particular the Puppet Animati-on Festival has become the most important single annual focus for puppetry in Scotland. It helps to maintain the present sector through substantial work opportunities for practitioners. It stimulates art form development by pro-viding opportunities for Scottish puppeteers and audi-ences to experience and engage with the work of leading companies from around the world. It also widens its audi-ences through appropriate expansion of its activities, both with existing partners and through contact with new ones throughout Scotland.

The Puppet Animation Festival 2006 was the 22nd annual celebration of puppetry and animation in Scot-land. From its origins as a week of performances at the Netherbow in Edinburgh in 1984, this year the Festival lasted for five weeks, presenting 239 events provided by 26 companies in 131 venues throughout Scotland. The Festival is the largest and the oldest performing arts event for children and young people in the UK. Performance spaces range from city centre theatres, to urban commu-nity and arts centres, to the smallest of village halls. The Festival has a network of partnerships with 24 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, each of whom programmes what is most appropriate for their audiences.

Over the past seven years the Festival has increased:

- The number of local authority partners from 11 in 1999 to 24 in 2006, a growth of 118%

- The number of events from 165 in 1999 to 239 in 2006, a growth of 45%

- The number of venues from 76 in 1999 to 131 in 2006, a growth of 72%

- Attendances from 10,627 in 1999 to 16,585 in 2006, a growth of 57%

(Figures supplied by the Puppet Animation Festival’s Reports)

In 2005, as a result of the Festival’s own success in promoting puppetry in Scotland and its consistent advo-cacy for the art form over the past decade, the organisati-on was awarded an 82% increase in its SAC funding. For the first time ever - through the Puppet Animation Festival’s efforts - the SAC has also provided a substantial annual fund solely for the development of new puppetry work in Scotland. In addition, the Festival is about to announce the winners of its inaugural young Puppeteers and Animateurs Creative Apprenticeship Scheme. It is now also able to programme international work every year and is very pleased to welcome puppen.etc and their production of “Der Tannenbaum”, and Theater Der Schatten and their production of “Peter and the Wolf”, to the 2007 Festival, as well as a short season of the films of Lotte Reiniger, all in association with the Goethe Institu-te.

These are exciting times for Scottish puppetry. Much has already been achieved but there is still so much to do. The whole sector celebrates its many successes so far but is not complacent and continues to move ahead, looking for new opportunities to explore and new goals to achie-ve.

Simon Hart

"The Frog Prince", www.kidglovespuppets.co.uk

"Peter and the Wolf", www.clydebuiltpuppet.co.uk

"Cinderella", Shona Reppe Puppets

Wee Giant Puppets

37

"The Frog Prince", www.kidglovespuppets.co.uk

38

Talk with Peter Charlton

DaT: What is the Puppet Centre Trust?P: The PCT was founded in 1974 as a registered charity. In 1996 it was transformed into a company limited by guarantee. It has changed its approach to life a few times. Penny Francis started it, the festivals, the collection and Animations. In the 90’s our funding started to run out. At the same time, Puppeteers UK came into existence as a national body, which prompted us to redefine ourselves as the London Puppet Centre. This let us target London-based funding bodies more effectively. Our main brief now is professional development, not just for puppeteers but also to encourage all professionals to use puppets more. We changed our magazine into the online journal Animations Online because it is cheaper and the print market is saturated already. So the PCT is now a public advocate for puppetry.

DaT: Tell me about the exhibition and library history.P: The exhibition is in storage in various locations. We had a store in Tooting which we rented from the educa-tion authority but they terminated our lease at short noti-ce. After losing a few opportunities a colleague from the puppet guild called Mike Dixon could put most of the collection in storage in Bridgenorth in Shropshire. Mike works at the Museum of Childhood in Bridgenorth and we donated our display cases to them, which allows many puppets to be on permanent display. At some point there was a move to relocate the library to the CSSD, which we rejected because the library attracts visitors from the whole world.

DaT: How iconic is puppetry?P: It’s a wonderful smack in the face for the PC brigade – there was a vote in England recently for icons which rep-resent England and Englishness (the Scots having Bag-pipes and the Welsh having leeks and rugby) and Mr. Punch was voted no. 2 on the list! Wallace and Gromit and Basil Brush also made it onto the shortlist. Punch and Judy being a national icon is great, but when – in the course of this – a P and J performer from Devon was hired by an official body to perform shows throughout London, all the London Professors were not very happy! An Eng-lish Punch and Judy performer was hired by Roman Polanski to play in his new version of Oliver Twist. Of course there are limits to the power of puppetry: I was performing in Regents Park once and we were in the middle of the show when someone shouted “the Queen’s coming!” and everybody left! So there are some things that even Mr. Punch can’t beat!

DaT: How does the PCT relate to other puppetry organisa-tions in the UK?P: The Guild is the oldest organisation, followed by UNIMA, then the Punch and Judy fellowship in the 70s and a few years after the Punch and Judy College of Pro-fessors. It is a history of some animosity. There are still people who won’t come to the PCT because it swallowed up the Educational Puppetry Association. There were some pretty vitriolic meetings with punches being traded. The Arts Council knew about these divisions and what we

needed to secure funding was unity. So we organised a meeting with all the organisations and what resulted was PUK. So now all members of the separate organisations are now automatically members of PUK. It helped raise the profile of puppetry as lines of communication between the various factions are smoother, leading to less friction.The guild’s information database is more State of the Ark than State of the Art but it does have a lot of informati-on.BrUnima’s brief is restricted to international puppetry. Their magazine deals with international performances. So if any international companies were visiting the UK I would expect BrUnima to let me know.

DaT: That’s radically different from the role of Unima in Germany, which seeks to inform members about the domestic scene at least as much as the international level.P: Organisations over here guard their territory jealously. For example, if someone wanted information about toy theatre, they would have to come to the Guild.

DaT: What funding opportunities are there for companies to go for in the UK? How do companies go about it?P: It’s hell. I’m in the middle of an application for our summer festival in Buxton. We have had a difficult time in obtaining funding from the Arts Council, not because our applications were unacceptable but because of over-subscription. So we have started to put in mini bids on a regional rather than national basis. Now the problem is that many funding bodies want to fund successful events but they do not want to do this on an ongoing basis. Also, it’s supposed to be a level playing field across the UK but it doesn’t seem to really be the case. Another problem is incoherent guidelines. For example, I applied for funding for a toy theatre festival in Sutton and was told that to be successful my application needed a clear educational strand. So I proposed that some toy theatre workshops be run in the week before the festival, which would also drum up business. My application was rejected on the grounds that they didn’t fund work in schools. As if this wasn’t absurd enough, I called the person responsible up and asked why, if this was the case, I had received funding from them for a festival in schools in North Wales two years earlier and he couldn’t answer the question. You keep running into these problems. So now puppeteers may be well advised to contact building societies or busi-nesses – commercial sponsoring rather than funding, so to speak.

DaT: What is the entertainments licensing bill?P: It’s a very bad piece of legislation which came into force on 1 October 2005 and we are waiting for the first prose-cutions. Basically, if you have any form of entertainment and if you are charging people to come in you have to have a licence, for which you have to apply to the govern-ment. It amounts to mandatory registration of perfor-mers. If you are booked to appear you are not affected, but if you organise your own performances or perform in pu-blic, you need one. Apart from the terrifyingly complica-ted registration procedure, it is unclear exactly who is ob-liged to register – if you play for a fixed fee, or if you charge entry, or if you collect donations afterwards? For

Puppetry in Great Britain Visit to the Puppet Centre Trust

PuppeteersUKPuppeteersUK is the network organisation for puppetry in the United Kingdom formed by a co-ming together of national membership organisa-tions, national centres, regional groups, companies and individuals. PUK’s aim is to provide a united voice and an effective lobby for increased recogni-tion of puppetry, to increase opportunities for ar-tists, to develop audiences, and help establish a better understanding of the value and cultural sig-nificance of puppetry as an artform, particularly by the funding system (see Clive Chandler’s article).www.PuppeteersUK.com

The Punch and Judy College of ProfessorsFounded 1985 in the Punch Tavern, Fleet St, Lon-don, the College aims to “uphold the reputation of Mr. Punch as an imp of mischief”. Membership is open only to Punch and Judy “professors”.Contact: Brian Davey, Punch’s Wood, 2 Yawl Cre-scent, Yawl, Uplyme, Dorset, DT7 3XL, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1299 266 634. Email: [email protected]. Web: www.punchandjudy.org

The Punch and Judy FellowshipMembership is open to the public subject to ap-proval. Newsletter published 6 times a year. Annu-al festival held in October in Covent Garden, Lon-don (birthplace of Mr. Punch).Contact: Paul Jackson, Hon. Secretary, 123 New-bury Gardens, Stoneleigh, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 0PF UK. Telephone: +44 (0)20 8393 8200. Email: [email protected]. Web: http://www.punchandjudyfellowship.org.uk

British Centre of UNIMABritish arm of the UNIMA organisation. Mem-bership is open to public. Member benefits inclu-

de: Puppet Notebook magazine three times a year; a regular newsletter with notices of companies vi-siting Britain and overseas festivals; free member-ship of Puppeteers UK, the umbrella organisation for puppetry in the United Kingdom. Membership Secretary, Mark Whitaker, 18 Glos-sop Road, Little Hayfield, High Peak, Derbyshire, SK22 2NG, UK. Tel:: +44 (0)1663 747520. Email: [email protected]. Web: www.unima.org.uk

The British Puppet and Model Theatre GuildFounded in London, 29th April 1925. The longest established puppetry-related organisation in the UK. Website includes useful “What’s on” page, outlining upcoming events, jobs offered etc.Contact details: Chairman: Peter Charlton, 65 Kingsley Avenue, Ealing, London, W13 OEH, UK. Email: [email protected], Tel: +44 (0)20 89978236Internet: www.puppetguild.org.uk

The Puppet Centre TrustFounded in 1974, The PCT maintains a library archive in its London office and a puppet collec-tion. Its journal, Animations Online, is available online at http://www.puppetcentre.com/ao.html Contact details: Puppet Centre Trust, Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, Battersea, London, SW11 5TN Tel: +44 (0)20 7228 5335.Email: [email protected]: www.puppetcentre.com

Scottish Mask and Puppet CentreFounded in 1981 by Malcolm Knight. Theatre space and educational organisation. Membership open to public.Membership benefits: quarterly newsletter Mask and Puppet News; an annual copy of bookers and

venues listing called Puppeteers Across Scotland ; a Guide to Material Suppliers ; access to the refe-rence library and internet facility, and free advisory and consultancy services.Contact details: 8-10 Balcarres Avenue, Kelvindale, Glasgow, G12 0QF, UK. Tel: +44 (0)141 339 6185, fax +44 (0)141 357 4484. Email: [email protected]: www.scottishmaskandpuppetcentre.co.uk

PuppetlinkA consortium of five professional companies. As well as touring their own productions, the mem-bers of PuppetLink organise a number of annual festivals, and regularly travel to festivals in many lands. Contact: PuppetLink Ltd, Punchs Oak, Cleobury Rd., Far Forest, Worcestershire DY14 9EB, UK. Tel: 01299 266634. Email: [email protected]. Internet: www.puppetlink.co.uk

Midlands puppet forumRepresents the interests of all aspects of puppetry in the Midlands region and is connected to a net-work of puppeteers and puppetry enthusiasts worldwide.Contact: Jim Morris, 69 Petersfield Road, Bir-mingham, B28 0AU, UK. Tel/fax 0121 777 1488. Email: [email protected]. Internet: www.puppetforum.info

39


example, I perform a glove puppet show titled George and the Dragon, similar to a Punch and Judy show in many respects. Punch and Judy performers need a licence but I was told that I did not. When I asked where they saw the difference I didn’t get an answer. The deeper problem is that venues that currently support theatre and performance may well pull out of public per-formance because obtaining a licence is subject to a health and safety visit, which many venues would not pass. This would lead to an ever diminishing number of venues.

DaT: Do mainstream theatre directors and audiences appre-ciate puppetry as an art and craft more these days?P: Directors like Anthony Minghella and companies like Improbable Theatre have been doing wonderful work with puppeteers and puppet makers because they have

taken the time to work out what they really want and have hired the best people to help them achieve their vision on stage. On the other hand, many people seem to have no idea about the labour or time involved in making good puppetry. For example, I got a call once from someone who asked: “Can you rent me a puppet for a production I’m directing?”. I said “OK, what kind do you need?”. He said “what kinds are there?” “Well”, I said, “There are quite a few different kinds” and I described them. He de-cided on a marionette and after a while settled on a clown marionette that I had. It was then I told him: “The bad news is, marionettes are just about the hardest puppets to operate – who will be working it, a puppeteer?”. No, he said, just an actor. “OK”, said I, “when does the produc-tion premiere?” “Last week”!!! So I think there is still some way to go really!

UK Puppetry organisations

40

From the report “Mushrooming Festivals 1ST Conference of UK Puppet Festivals 10 – 11 March 2006”, where festival organisers in the UK started their networking.

Each of the festivals represented has a distinct and particular artistic vision. The festivals range in timescale from one day to several weeks.

Aberystwyth Puppet FestivalThis festival has been an annual event over three days every August since 2000 and has always fea-tured international performers. It is mostly held outdoors on the seafront and bandstand with a total of 120 performances. The event is hugely popular and the shows regularly attract audiences of a hundred or more, giving a total audience for all events of 5,000 – 10,000. The festival has al-ways featured a strong element of Punch and Judy, and has worked from its inception with the Punch and Judy College of Professors. Recently while maintaining this focus it has become more of a general festival of street puppetry. The event is or-ganised by Clive Chandler acting as a freelance programmer. All the artists stay in the University Halls of Residence.7th Aberystwyth Puppet Festival in August 2007Aberystwyth Town Council: www.aberystwyth.gov.uk

Bath Puppet Festival ‘Snap the String’This festival began in 1999 as an annual event but is now biennial, showing adult work. It is held at Easter for nine days with about 40 performances featuring mostly UK and international adult pup-petry. It is centred on the Bath Theatre Royal and takes in three other theatres, outdoor spaces in the city centre, and created theatre spaces in non-theatre environments. 7th Bath Puppet Festival ‘Snap the String’ (bienni-al) in April 2007Bath Theatre Royal: www.theatreroyal.org.uk

Beverley Puppet Festival This is a three day event promoting diverse puppe-try and family friendly entertainment in a town of 25,000 people which currently has no proper theatre, full time venue, cinema or any regular weekly entertainment of its own. This festival was first held in 2005 and run by Indigo Moon Theatre Company, but henceforth by Beverley Arts Trust, an unincorporated association/voluntary group which was born out of a campaign to reopen Be-verley Picture Playhouse. The 2005 festival with 11 performances spread over three venues with some outdoor activity and acted as a successful pilot. It is yet to discuss whether this should be annual or biannual (possible interlinking with Skipton festival). Beverley Arts Trust c/o [email protected]

Buxton Puppet FestivalOrganised by the British Puppet & Model Theatre Guild in partnership with Buxton Opera house, this festival has been presented annually since 2003. This festival complements the Buxton Lite-rary and Fringe Festival and the Gilbert and Sulli-van Festival by catering for children and family audiences. There are 16 performances spread over six venues plus at least 30 street performances.5th Buxton Puppet Festival in July 2007British Puppet & Model Theatre Guildwww.puppetguild.org.uk/

Covent Garden May Fayre and Puppet FestivalThis annual event organised by Alternative Arts takes place on the 2nd Sunday of May in the gar-den of St Paul's Church, Covent Garden - the ac-tors' church - near the spot where Samuel Pepys first saw Mr Punch in England in May 1662. Punch and Judy professors and puppeteers attend and perform throughout the day.32nd Covent Garden May Fayre in 2007. Con-tact: The May Fayre CommitteeAlternative Arts.Top Studio, Bethnal Green Trai-ning Centre, Deal St, E1 5HZ Tel. 020 7375 0441 / Fax 020 7375 0484

Dynamics 2005This major International festival took place for the first time in 2005. The festival spanned the West Midlands region from Pershore in the South to Wem in the North. It involved some 50 artists, and reached an audience of 15,000 people in eight main venues plus various parks, public spaces and schools. There were 100 performances over three weeks, plus a full education and outreach pro-gramme. International performers came from se-ven different countries, and there were also 15 UK companies. The event deliberately set out to offer a wide range of programming to a diverse audience in a variety of settings.2nd Dynamics (W. Midlands) in May/June 2007.

Norwich International Celebration of Puppet TheatreBased at Norwich Puppet Theatre, the festival pro-gramme is distinct from the theatre’s all year round programming and provides a meeting point for the special and unusual.The nature of the venue lends itself to particular focal areas of puppetry within the festival encoura-ging people to attend a number of themed perfor-mances. It is hoped to make the event biennial with a ‘micro-event’ in the intervening years.2nd Norwich Celebration of Puppet Theatre in October 2007Norwich Puppet Theatre: www.puppettheatre.co.uk

Objectivity Season Established in 2001 and aimed at adults, this is the 2–3 week annual season with around ten perfor-mances presenting masks, object theatre and pup-petry at mac Birmingham.

5th Objectivity, mac (season) in October 2007mac: www.macarts.co.uk/?page=home

Puppet Animation Festival (PAF) This festival covers almost all of Scotland with 29 of the 32 Local Authorities involved. It has been held annually since 1984 when it began at the Netherbow Arts Centre in Edinburgh. It now vi-sits 130 venues both urban and rural, with over 250 performances and workshops by 25 compa-nies. It essentially showcases Scottish puppeteers although acts from all over the world are also invi-ted.23rd Puppet Animation Festival, Scotland-wide in March/April 2007Puppet Animation Festival: www.puppetanimation.org/

Rossendale Puppet FestivalHeld annually over a weekend in June with suc-cessful links to the local community, this event has been running in its present form since 2001, pre-viously for 10 years part of a larger festival. It is organised by the touring theatre company, Horse & Bamboo, and runs at its building-base. There are six to eight performances plus some street work in the town centre.Work for younger children has proved most effec-tive but the company wishes to expand audience and have their building as a resource for puppe-teers/artists from further afield. 7th Rossendale Puppet Festival (Horse & Bam-boo) in June 2007Horse and Bamboo Theatre Companywww.horseandbamboo.org

Skipton Puppet FestivalFirst held in 2005, this biennial festival used Skip-ton Town Hall as the main venue, schools and minor halls for outreach, and Skipton streets. While showcasing a broad range of national and international work, it aims to involve the local community and also be a focal point for puppe-teers.2nd Skipton Puppet Festival (biennial) in Septem-ber 2007www.skiptonpuppetfestival.co.uk/

Walsall Puppets-a-Plenty This event has been held every year for the past ten years in Walsall in the West Midlands. It has taken a few changes in form, but essentially it is a two day event in August in the main high street of Walsall Town Centre. It features popular puppetry, all events being free. It includes participatory workshops and a strong element of international puppetry. 11th Walsall Puppets-a-Plenty in August 2007

Witham Puppet FestivalThis annual outdoor one day festival has been running in its present form since 2000; previously for six years as the Braintree District Festival in

Festivals

41

conjunction with Braintree and Halstead. It now has about 30 performers presenting 40 – 50 static and walkabout performances at several sites in the town. It is managed by a part-time arts develop-ment officer and one assistant. 8th Witham Puppet Festival in September 2007Contact: Alison Dando, Braintree District Coun-cil arts Development. Tel: +44 (0)1376 340803, /344345 (Fax). Email: [email protected]. Internet: http://www.withampuppetfest.co.uk/

Other festivals that include puppetry:

London International Mime FestivalContact: Joseph Seelig and Helen Lannaghan, 35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7637 5661. Fax: +44 (0) 20 7323 1151. E-mail: [email protected]. Internet: www.mimefest.co.uk The London International Mime Festival was founded in 1977.

VisionsContact: Visions, Gallery and Theatre Office, Fa-culty of Arts and Architecture, University of Brigh-ton, Grand Parade, Brighton BN2 0JY, UK. Tel: 01273 643194. Fax: 01273 643038. Email: [email protected]. Internet: www.visions-festival.org.uk Edinburgh FringeContact: Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 180 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1QS, Scotland. Tel: +44 (0)131 226 0026. Email: [email protected] Internet: www.edfringe.com

Puppet & Toy Theatre Festival6th Leicester Puppet & Toy Theatre Festival, BPMTG in August 2007

Bethnal Green Museum of ChildhoodCambridge Heath Road, London E2 [email protected]

Biggar Puppet Theatre & Museum8 Broughton Road, Biggar, South Lanarkshire, ML12 6HAKontakt: Jill Purveswww.purvespuppets.com [email protected] Open only by arrangement Edinburgh Museum of Childhood42 High Street, Royal Mile Admission Free

Horniman Museum100 London RoadForest Hill, London SE23 3PQwww.horniman.ac.uk

Pitt Rivers Museum, OxfordSouth Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PP [email protected]

The Mitchell Library, GlasgowNorth Street, Glasgow G3 [email protected] Contains a puppet collection by John Blundall

Theatre Museum, LondonRussell Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E [email protected] www.theatremuseum.org Admission: free (there is a charge for exhibitions)A branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Re-gularly holds exhibitions on puppet-related work. Stop Press! V&A wants to close the theatre muse-um! Campaign to oppose this has been organised by a group of major theatre organisations. To sup-port the campaign, please follow this link: www.theatremuseumguardians.org.uk

Literature in English

PuppetbooksRay DaSilva58 Shreen Way GILLINGHAM, Dorset, SP8 4HT UKwww.puppetbooks.co.uk [email protected] Telefon +44 (0)1747 835558

Museums and Collections

Puppetry

Documents

zentrum bundesrepublik

beverley arts

wright stuff

puppet centre

battersea

scottish arts

john wright

norwich puppet