Tag Archives: circus marionettes

Upfront Puppet Theatre Museum Now Open!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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This Easter holidays we were very excited to discover that the long awaited Upfront Puppet Museum is now open and visitors with tickets to see the fantastic “Stanelli’s Super Circus” show were able to take a peek at the extensive and diverse range of puppets from all over the world. Visitors with children will be thrilled to discover that not all the puppets are in protective cases but are available for people to have a go in two delightful theatres that I presume John Parkinson has made himself. One is a marionette theatre with a bridge (raised platform) at the back, light switch and working curtain and the other is a glove puppet booth for Punch & Judy. The video and photos show my kids having a go with these plus the overhead projector and shadow puppets. John still has plans for further improvements but opening the museum now means he can get some contributions which will go towards these.

I also got to see another room where more of Stan Parker’s “Super Circus” puppets were displayed when they are not performing. I believe John rings the changes and swaps certain puppets in and out of the show. I noticed that he changed the puppet who was performing as the M.C. character from the last time we watched this show, for example.

I was also delighted to meet Molly Agar (who I met at the Skipton International Puppetry Symposium) again as she was puppeteering the marionettes for the show with John. She did an incredible job considering that this was her first experience working with marionettes. All of the different puppets had their own particular stringing and characteristics to allow them to do their own particular tricks. Molly even used a dissecting skeleton puppet as part of the performance (a very popular type of cabaret style marionette). Learning to do all of that in a short space of time is no mean feat.

I have been to see this show at least 3 times now and it is lovely to see how the show has become honed and improved over the years. It is a very slick, highly entertaining, skilled performance with lots of laughs and audience interaction. As John says in his introduction it is a unique opportunity to see vintage circus marionettes being used in performance rather than hung up in a museum display. Real living history.

So, to conclude, I heartily recommend both the shows and the new museum. Upfront put on performances during school holiday periods so keep your eyes peeled for future showings. They hope to make museum tickets available to book on the website soon.

I have a number of other posts about visits to Upfront Puppet Theatre, feel free to browse some of the back catalogue below:

A Trip to the Puppet Circus

The Snow Queen

Jack and the Beanstalk

Pinocchio

“Catch The Wind” in Morecambe and Catching Puppets at Upfront Theatre

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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For those who are not aware of it, I would recommend a visit to Morecambe for the “Catch the Wind” Kite Festival (run by our lovely friends in Morecambe – More Music) which is always a great day out and happens every year.

As you can see from the photos, one of the main features of the festival are the spectacular giant kites on the beach which are like a kind of puppet really.  The giant kites this year included a whale, a diver, some snakes, a gecko and a lion as well as a giant multicoloured windsock.  Morecambe is the perfect place for a festival like this as they can always guarantee plenty of wind for the kites, (though I believe sometimes the wind gets too strong which can cause problems).

We visited on Sunday the 24th and had planned to try and fly our own kite which we made at a kite making workshop at the Looking Well Studios (Pioneer Projects) in Bentham some years ago.  It was a really good design and easy to fly, and I had been meaning to try it out again for some time.  Unfortunately we discovered that the plastic had perished so we had a good time on the beach with Anthony trying out his bucket and spade/rake for the first time instead.

Afterwards we went to the lovely Brucciani’s Ice Cream grade 2 listed ice cream parlour, which opened in 1939 and still has all the original interior art deco decor.  The Brucciani family have been making and selling ice cream in Morecambe for over 100 years, and still run the business today.  As with most Morecambe businesses, the prices are very reasonable and we are very keen to give our custom to independent businesses like this.

The next day, having found out that John Parkinson had put together a puppet display and talk for an open studio event, we decided this was the perfect excuse to have a day out at Upfront Puppet Theatre and Gallery in Unthank, near Penrith.

We’d visited before for the first ever Puppeteers UK meeting when John was still in the process of building the new theatre and more recently to see the circus show using Stan Parker’s marionettes.  The exhibition we were going to see was of John’s own work, spanning his 40 year career.  It included photographs as well as some beautiful puppets.

Unfortunately we missed the talk part (which was on the Friday) and there were no labels on the puppets or photographs so the captions on the photos are my own guesswork.

We were particularly pleased to see John’s “Alice in Wonderland” puppets up close as Alice is one of our particular favourites.  We do, of course, have our own production of “Alice” as well as the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party walkabout show.  CLICK HERE for more info.

While we were there, we discovered that there was also an exhibition of Commedia dell’Arte masks upstairs so we had a look at that as well.

They were the results of a 2 year residency by David Griffiths at a Leeds school who’d asked him to create commedia dell’Arte masks for them.  As well as the wooden forms, which are the base for all of the other masks, he created a set of flat pack cardboard masks which could be used for schools as well as plastic and leather masks (made using a process only 4 people in this country use, according to David).  You can see more photos and info about his exhibition and workshops on his website by clicking HERE

For those who do not know anything about Commedia dell’Arte, it was a form of theatre from Renaissance Italy which involved improvised drama around a set of stock characters or stereotypes each with a distinctive mask, costume and movements, voice and posture.

Mr. Punch is based on the character of Pulcinella and the Harlequinade, which was a feature of early pantomime in this country, was also based on Commedia dell’Arte characters (Arlecchino became Harlequin).

 

John has invited us to come back and see their show of The Pied Piper of Hamelin (first showing July 20th) so we’ll hopefully be attending that and telling you all about it a bit later on.