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Happy New Year & 2025 in review!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Like a lot of people (especially creatives) I often suffer from imposter syndrome.

Although it may seem a little boring to see yet another overview of what someone did over the course of the previous year it is really important to remind yourself of what you have achieved. I am a perfectionist and I recognise that this can be a very negative mindset because perfection is something we can never achieve. Social media can also be a very negative thing as you see all the best possible pictures of people’s finished work or sped up time-lapse of a project that took, hours, weeks, months or even years of work in a matter of seconds and it is tempting to think that we can only be worthwhile if we create things that are the same as what others are putting out there in their feeds.

So, stocktaking and reflecting on what we have actually achieved in a year can give a big confidence boost when you realise that while you may not have ticked off everything on your perfection wish list, you have done a whole bunch of really great stuff. This can give you an “oh, yeah! I am doing pretty well” moment and an opportunity to pat yourself on the back.

If on the other hand you feel like 2025 was an absolute waste of time and space for you, try not to let that worry you either. Just remember that without even doing/”achieving” anything that you are a Wonder of the Universe just for existing. There has never been, and never will again, be anyone exactly like you. We don’t have to “achieve” things to be worthwhile and if you are able to slow down and appreciate the little things around you in the present moment instead of worrying about the past or the future that can be very good for your spiritual and mental health.

So below is my list of things I did in 2025 that I’m proud of and links to the blog posts with more pictures/videos etc. for you to peruse:

🎆I was featured in David Currell’s New Book “Puppets & Puppet Theatre“. Big thanks to him.

🎆I worked very hard on making an astounding number of shadow puppets for our New Fairytales shadow puppetry show for smaller venues like schools and libraries: “Fairytales of Wit, Wisdom & Witchcraft” including 6 fairytales (The Frog Prince, The Enormous Turnip, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Chicken Licken). See following blog post links: New Year, New Shows!, Fairytale Shadow Puppets take shape, More New Fairytale Shadow Puppets, Nearly All Puppets Complete, More Shadow Puppets for Little Red Riding Hood Story Take Shape

🎆We were thrilled to be invited back to Congleton Food & Drink Festival with our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party walkabout show (CLICK HERE for show page).

🎆I was booked to run workshops and perform my Shadow Puppet suitcase shows for the opening of the new Sound & Vision Gallery at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. CLICK HERE for blog post.

🎆I performed as “Mom” and “Kai” for our first ever “Al & Kai’s Faboo News LIVE” show in Blyth at “The Happy Space” Inflatable Venue from Stellar Creates. This was part of the “Blyth Celebrates” events.

🎆I attended lots of theatre, puppetry, light festivals and networking events including Newcastle Puppetry Festival to see Matthew Robins “A Million Tiny Ants”, Stockton International Riverside Festival, Lightpool – Blackpool, Light Up Lancaster, Lumiere – Durham, “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” at Blackpool Winter Gardens, and Skipton International Puppetry Symposium, (where I also ran a shadow puppetry workshop and performed my shadow suitcase shows).

🎆I participated in many of the fantastic events held for the Centenary of the British Puppet & Model Theatre Guild including an online Q&A with TV Puppetry legend Phil Fletcher, an online show & tell event and last but not least the fantastic Marionette Masterclass with Ronnie le Drew held at the Harlequin Puppet Theatre at Rhos on Sea, in Wales.

🎆I auditioned for Theatre by the Lake with a Shakespeare monologue and also for a Peppa Pig show with puppets.

🎆I also created a quick marionette using KNEX, which I even used to make a little festive demo video with. When I have time in between everything else this year, I will be renovating/restringing a wooden vintage Pinocchio marionette I got off Ebay so if you fancy keeping up to date with that and all my other news, please “follow” the blog (you can also subscribe to have it sent to you via email as a newsletter).

I’d love to hear something you are proud of from last year or what you like to do in January to reset and get ready for the New Year in the comments 😊.

Making a Practice Marionette from KNEX

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Separating all the parts
Creating the head and shoulder bar
Re-modelled head and shoulders to incorporate nodding and turning joints
Finished Model, though I added extra to the head later.

At the Marionette Masterclass I went to at the Harlequin Puppet Theatre (CLICK HERE for previous post), Ronnie Le Drew talked about how important it was to have your own marionette to practice with at home and that if you wanted to improve it was important to practice every day, just like when you are learning a musical instrument. Indeed they were keen to stress that learning to use a marionette well takes years, rather than the hours that we had spent on that 1 day masterclass.

I didn’t feel like I had money to spare to buy a really good marionette so I bought a vintage Pinocchio marionette with a missing nose that I figured I could repair and restring from Ebay as well as some of the special vintage marionette cord (of the same kind recommended by Mike Dixon).

In the meantime, however, I was too impatient to wait for this to arrive so thought I might have a go at putting together an experimental marionette out of KNEX that my son had in a box in his room (and hadn’t touched so far since I bought it). I got the idea from the experimental mechanism I put together for the “Pony 3000” show automaton out of an old wooden Meccano set previously and would have used that again except that it was at my Dad’s house in an unknown location.

I had never actually made anything using KNEX before so I sorted all the parts into piles and tried to work out the different ways they fitted together by glancing at the instruction sheets for various models that was in the box.

It also occurred to me that it would be potentially interesting as a workshop for schools looking at “joints” as I had been booked by a school in Skipton previously when they were exploring joints as a topic. On that occasion we made wooden spoon rod puppets (you can read more about this HERE).

So I did my best to put the joints together in the way that those actual joints on a human being work. Creating the elbow and shoulder joints proved to be a bit beyond the physical limitations of the parts that I had in the set, so it is not jointed exactly as a human would be. I think the finished puppet will have to be something in the robot/fantasy/alien line as it will definitely not be looking like a realistic person.

Once it is strung, I may find that it would be better to reduce some of the movement/joints to make the puppet operate better, as total realism is not always the best idea in puppetry.

I was also aware that the way the KNEX works means that there would be lots of sticky out bits for the strings to snag on so while an amusing experiment, it would probably not be a very practical puppet long term. It would, however allow me to practice making and using an upright marionette control of the type that we used in the Masterclass.

I couldn’t remember exactly how the controls of the puppets at the masterclass were constructed. So, I adapted instructions, from a David Currell book I have, to what materials I had lying around the house.

These attachment points for the head weren’t right as you can see the head is tilting backwards.

As I haven’t got a proper gallows to hang the controller and puppet on to string it, I had to manage as best I could with a clothes airer and a piece of string. Not ideal, as the weight of the puppet pulled the string down but I managed fairly well anyway.

I secured the head crossbar with string both because that meant I could remove it for repositioning or to replace with a different size and also because the slot I cut was a little too big.

I will get a video of him moving at some point.  I tried weighting the feet with blu tack to get them to move correctly, but I haven’t got the positioning right yet and they have a tendency to flip backwards.

Since then the Pinocchio puppet has arrived. I will post more about him once I start doing him up a bit.