As a follow up to my post about how I made an experimental marionette out of KNEX, below are some videos demonstrating the marionette in action after stringing/attaching it to the upright control I made. I was inspired to make it by the Marionette Masterclass I went to at the Harlequin Puppet Theatre as part of the British Puppet Guild Centenary celebrations. The importance of daily practice in order to improve was mentioned so I thought I’d try the KNEX model as a quick experiment.
I feel the process has helped me to learn more about how the stringing and upright controls work. The KNEX does have many limitations for this purpose compared to conventional marionette materials (at present, as I say in the video below) the knees are able to bend in both directions, which is not ideal. It also has helped to reveal what kind of joints are useful on a marionette and which are less useful.
I am looking forward to further learning opportunities when I restring and refurbish the vintage wooden Pinocchio marionette I bought off Ebay, (he currently has no nose and his leg strings are attached to his feet rather than his knees). I think given that Christmas is creeping up very fast now that this will be a job for when I have time in the New Year.
This door was affected by fire damage from an arson attack and had been replaced when I last visited but hadn’t been repainted yet. This decoration was recreated by Tim Sykes based on photographs of the original door.
The British Puppet Guild put on this special day long event as part of their Centenary Year celebrations.
I had visited the theatre previously when Chris Somerville was still alive. He gifted ownership of the theatre to Mike Dixon in his will. You can see my previous post about the theatre by clicking on the link below:
The format of the day was really good including hands on practicing with the vintage marionettes at the theatre under the watchful eye of expert marionettist Ronnie le Drew as well as demonstrations of the long string marionettes and demonstrations of the cabaret marionettes by Ian Denny and Glenn Holden.
We also had some interesting talks from Mike about the history of the building including its creation by Eric Bramall and Chris’s subsequent employment by him and the latter days when Chris was running everything as a one man show.
News for the future of the theatre, if you were not already aware, is that Mike (together with other skilled puppeteers) is putting on performances for the public again now. The first one of which is “A Christmas Carol” this December and I understand is already sold out!
Mike, and his partner Jo Slater, are currently in the middle of upgrading the lighting and sound equipment in the building. When Mike took it on, all of the original electrics and equipment were still in place and in working order, but not up to modern standards in terms of quality, safety and energy efficiency.
As well as directing and giving pointers on our technique, Ronnie treated us all to a wealth of reminiscences about his career and early days at The Little Angel Theatre and the people he worked with there. The puppets at the Harlequin and those made by John Wright of The Little Angel both use an upright style of control which (according to my research) is often referred to as a “British” or “English” upright control and features a separate leg bar.
Below are some of the photos Mike kindly shared from the day as well:
We were practicing with a set of puppets that had been made to perform as a set of Music Hall acts and after one rehearsal put on a little show taking into account the feedback we were given. My puppet was performing the song “Henry the Eighth I am” which was great because I know that song quite well. There was a pre-recorded backing track that we had to move the puppets in sync with and the patter of the M.C. character and the links between the tracks were hilarious (in my opinion anyway). I was reminded very strongly of Henry Gordon Jago from the Tom Baker Dr. Who story “The Talons of Weng Chiang”. Big congratulations to Tom on his recent MBE.
Below is a video which takes a tour of the Harlequin Puppet Theatre by The UK Theatre Tour which gives a lot of the history and also shows the Music Hall Puppets that we used:
The Harlequin Puppet Theatre Website is also an excellent resource containing lots of pointers on making, performance and materials for making and stringing puppets Harlequin Puppet Theatre style! CLICK HERE for the site.
Puppet Lady 