Tim Austin and I were lucky enough to be invited to the “No Strings Attached” showcase launch event hosted by RTS NW at the Lowry which was a celebration of the new “Furchester Hotel” series on CBeebies and of North West puppetry in general.
Before we went in we had time to look at the Lowry’s exhibition on TV puppetry with many of our personal favourites making an appearance (see pictures above). It was a real treat to see the original puppets up close and see how they were made. I was surprised to see that Basil Brush’s front teeth appeared to have been made of wood!
We also had a very brief conversation with Joe Godwin (director of CBBC)!
At the main showcase event,there were two puppeteers from “The Furchester Hotel” (Andrew Spooner – Fergus & Sarah Burgess – Phoebe) with their puppets plus one of the puppetry interns who had been working with them. Other speakers included Phil Chalk from Factory Transmedia who created “Strange Hill High” (a part rod puppet part CGI tv series) and also a fellah called Ian Mackinnon, who’d worked with Cosgrove Hall back in the day as well as on modern Tim Burton films such as “Corpse Bride” and “Frankenweenie” plus the puppeteers of Hacker (Phil Fletcher) and Dodge T Dog (Warrick Brownlow-Pike) with their puppets.
They were all invited to talk about their work at some length and we were able to watch some clips of them in action on a projection screen and at the end we were invited to ask questions. Right, right at the end I went up to nosy at the puppets close to and had conversations with the puppeteers as well.
CLICK HERE for a link to the RTS facebook post about the evening and they have more photo’s there too.
Puppet Lady 