Category Archives: Rod Puppets

Stone Puppet Festival a Tremendous Success

Posted on by Collette Knowles
Reply

 

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

 

 

You can find more photo’s on Stone Festival’s Facebook page by clicking HERE

and pictures, reviews and videos on the festival page by clicking HERE

Stone Puppet Festival is a brand new festival which was organised by David Leech & Richard Jones.

Having read “The Sentinel” newspaper’s review of the festival I am astounded to find that it claims that this is the first puppet festival ever for the whole of Staffordshire.  If it is true then it is wonderful that people like David & Richard have seen this gap in the cultural life of Staffordshire folk and have made it happen.

We were very busy for much of the festival performing our “Alice in Wonderland” show, as we had 4 performances over 2 days.  This was great, as we really enjoy performing this particular show and the audiences we had were very appreciative.  However, this did mean that what with travelling, setting up, checking into the hotel room, actually performing and of course packing up at the end we did not get to see a great deal of other people’s work.

We did see a few familiar faces such as Clive Chandler, John Parkinson and Oliver Valentine (Upfront Puppet Company), and Chris Wylie (performing with Treasure Trove) which is always nice at puppetry events.

The festival was supported by the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild and all of the performers were Guild members.  This was great because a lot of the BPMTG events are held in places that are a very long way from where we live and this gave us the opportunity to meet many puppeteers who we had previously only heard exploits from via the Guild newsletters.  There was a sort of cabaret on the Saturday night where amongst other things we finally got to see Joseph Peek perform, (who I think may still be the youngest guild member at 12 years old).  Joseph did a fantastic performance with 3 different marionettes and was also enlisted to operate a Billy Preston marionette in the festival finale.  I also understand that he performed in Professor Panic’s Circus Tent at Glastonbury this year, (as we did last year).  There was also a very interesting shadow theatre performance based on Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale “The Fir Tree” which I think I had come across before but a very long time ago, (like much of his work it is very sad indeed).  This evening and the finale summed up the way the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild brings together people from all walks of life, both professional and hobby puppeteers of all levels of experience were free to perform, have a go and try new things.

We also discovered that the “Supermarionation Recreations” exhibition of Classic Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet models and marionettes was practically next door to where we were in the Crown hotel so enjoyed wandering over to have a look in between some of our performances.  Later on we also found time to take a look at some wonderful marionettes and rod puppets exhibited by Ian Denny and Glen Holden.  We had already seen David’s fabulous Pelham Puppet exhibition, (including the first ever pelham puppet he owned as a child) as this was in the room where we were performing.

The finale was wonderful because we had finished all our shows and could relax and enjoy other people’s performances.  These included a truly delightful and well rehearsed “Lonely Goat Herd” puppetry and dance routine by local young people from Rooftop Studios and they also performed an “I’m a Believer” dance routine based on Shrek.

What impressed me in particular about these young people was the lack of embarrassment and professionalism they displayed, often performances by young people can often be marred by their unwillingness to wholeheartedly throw themselves into a performance for fear of looking uncool in front of their peers, but that was definitely not a problem with these performers’ fantastic contribution.  This was followed by marionettes of The Beatles and Billy Preston re-enacting their famous final rooftop concert.  These were made by David Leech and operated by himself, Joseph Peek, Richard Jones and staff from the Swan pub!

A definite strength of this new festival is that unlike some other festivals who just fly in top acts from around the country and overseas there was a concerted effort to include local people who were just beginning to learn about puppetry and give them a chance to perform in front of real audiences.  This is in addition to the schools puppet making workshops who also participated in the puppet parade and also Professor Pop-up’s puppet & mask making drop-in workshop on both days of the festival.

David & Richard also did an excellent job of including the local businesses and I understand that the traders reported a boost in sales on the festival weekend.  The Crown Hotel was an excellent venue with room for a whole host of shows and exhibitions at once and the historic nature of the architecture, fixtures and fittings of the building were stunning.  In particular the decorative stained glass ceiling window and wooden panelling in the room we performed in were gorgeous.  It was perfect for a show like “Alice in Wonderland” which is a Victorian story celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

Please feel free to contribute your own comments on the festival by replying to this post 🙂

If you would like to book our “Alice in Wonderland” show for an Autumn/Winter or Christmas event, please get in touch by clicking HERE

A Trip to the Puppet Circus

Posted on by Collette Knowles
Reply

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of visiting Upfront Puppet Theatre‘s new purpose built puppet theatre building near Penrith for the first time.  We had previously visited the Upfront Gallery for our first Puppeteers UK AGM when John Parkinson was in the process of planning the new building.  I believe John had previously staged his performances in some of the old farm buildings on the site.

We decided to go along and see the Stanelli’s Super Circus which had visited Skipton Puppet Festival in the past but we had unfortunately not managed to see it.  It is a rare treat to see a proper marionette show and so close by to where we live.

Upfront Puppet Theatre received heritage lottery funding to purchase Stan Parker’s trick circus marionette collection.  By purchasing the collection John was able to keep the puppets together as a performing troupe rather than being dispersed to private collections around the world and potentially not used for performance at all.

I have heard a lot about trick circus marionettes and even seen some before at the Victoria and Albert Museum including dissecting skeleton marionettes but this has been my first opportunity to actually see them in action.  Cabaret marionette performances used to be a popular and common place entertainment in this country and indeed Stanelli’s Super Circus toured with Stan Parker all over the world.  Not really needing a script, you can see how entertainment like this transcends language barriers and is of course equally enthralling for tiny children through to older audience members.  You can read all about the Stan Parker marionettes on their dedicated website if you CLICK HERE.

A gentleman sat next to myself kept commenting on how it was really very good wasn’t it?  He seemed to have a tone of surprise as if expecting a puppet show would hold few charms for himself as an adult.  It just goes to show what I have always said, that puppetry is a very flexible medium which is suitable for everyone not just for children.  There was also perhaps the implication in his comment that something designed to entertain children perhaps need not be of a high standard.  I find that a lot of people assume that something suitable for children need not be of high quality.

This of course is simply not true.  There are a huge number of theatre companies and television shows that are of an extremely high standard but do not receive the recognition they deserve in the theatre and arts world as a whole because they choose to make shows for children.  I believe that children deserve at least as high a standard of performance and artwork as any other age group and work for children can be far more imaginative and lacks a lot of the boundaries placed upon material that is supposed to be for adults.

Tim Austin (my husband and co-performer) and I were very fortunate to see backstage and have a lovely chat with John Parkinson about the new space, their plans for the future and also got to see what he called his “puppet cupboard” but which in reality was more of a puppet room.  It was considerably larger than Rough Magic Theatre’s puppet room but then I think John probably has more puppets to fit into it.

John has got (as well as many marionettes which he has made for their own shows) an enviable collection of wayang golek (Indonesian rod puppets) which I was very interested to see.

We hope that John’s new theatre building will go from strength to strength and constantly have the full houses that the quality of the work deserves.  So tell all your friends about the excellent new puppetry space we now have up in the Northwest and if you have not visited yet then do go and see a show as soon as you can!