Tag Archives: 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

A Marionette Masterclass at The Harlequin Puppet Theatre

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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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:

A visit to the Harlequin Puppet Theatre

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.