Shadow puppetry | Puppet Lady

Did you know that 2026 is National Year of Reading in the UK?

Next weekend I have been invited to perform “Jabberwocky!” for Alice’s Day (July 4th) by The Story Museum in Oxford. You can see more details on my WHERE YOU CAN SEE ME page.

For those who don’t know, (I only heard about it this year) Alice’s Day is celebrated every year as the day when Charles Dodgeson (AKA Lewis Carroll) first told the story of Alice’s Adventures to Alice Liddell and her sisters while rowing down the river on a “… Golden Afternoon”. This is the poem he wrote which you find in the beginning of many copies of the book where he describes the occasion of first inventing the story to entertain the girls:

All In the Golden Afternoon

ALL in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict ‘to begin it’ –
In gentler tone Secunda hopes
‘There will be nonsense in it!’ –
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast –
And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
“The rest next time -” “It is next time!”
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out –
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers
Pluck’d in a far-off land.

So, I’m looking forward to visiting Oxford, the place of origin of Alice in Wonderland and “Jabberwocky” (originally a poem that is part of the sequel book that Carroll wrote: Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There). I am not sure how many times in my life I have visited Oxford, but not very many, so it is very exciting. I have admired the area from afar many times as part of the settings for the “Morse” TV series, (a long time favourite show of my Mum’s).

We have also now refurbished and rehearsed our long time favourite 1 hour long indoor show of Alice in Wonderland so this show is now ready to go to anywhere that would like to book it. We have performed this show in schools, libraries and studio size spaces in theatres previously. You can CLICK HERE to visit the show page to find out more about the show and see if it would be suitable for your space or event.

Our two performances of “Alice in Wonderland” at Tullie House Museum in Carlisle will now be taking place just before Christmas (22nd December). I will post a link to tickets as soon as they are live, so keep your eyes peeled for that. If you have never been to the museum before it is definitely worth a visit (there are lots of interactive elements which kept my kids entertained for hours and they particularly loved the Ancient Romans section).

We first put the Alice in Wonderland show together in 2008, though I had ideas and made some of the separate elements for the show even earlier than that while I was still at University at Bretton Hall. I was never entirely happy with the execution of the roof of the White Rabbit’s house and I’m pleased to say that it is now improved both practically and aesthetically and creates a very pleasing overall effect (which you will see if you come and see the show).

As I mentioned in my previous post, the New Year is a good time to take stock, pause and reflect on your practice. While sorting my workspace recently, I came across some shadow puppets that I used for the British Puppet Guild Show & Tell event last year. These were from our very first Rough Magic Theatre show, The Tempest, based on William Shakespeare’s play.

Looking back at these early puppets is fascinating, because they clearly show the development of my practice. I’m still very proud of them — they worked extremely well for that show and for the way we were working at the time — but I can also see how much I’ve learned since then.

The process of making and using these puppets taught me a great deal: what reads clearly in silhouette, what works less well, and how different materials or jointing can have a big impact once a puppet is in performance.

As I often say in my shadow puppet making workshops, one of the great advantages of puppets over human actors is that the puppet is the character. It doesn’t need to adapt an existing appearance to fit a role — it can look like anything you imagine and do things that are impossible in real life.

Shadow puppetry adds a particular sense of magic to storytelling, and considering that The Tempest is a play filled with magical characters and events, it felt like a natural fit. That same quality is something I continue to explore in newer work, including our current show Fairytales of Wit, Wisdom & Witchcraft, which is booking from late Spring this year.

You can also see in the video below how different the puppets feel in performance compared with the inanimate, behind-the-scenes view. From the audience’s perspective, it isn’t the puppets themselves that are seen, but light and shadow on the screen.

Shadow images can be made to shrink, grow, appear, disappear and distort through the relationship between light, screen and object — not to mention the possibilities created by multiple light sources and coloured gels. It’s this interplay of technique, imagination and illusion that continues to draw me back to shadow puppetry again and again.

Below is a short video showing photographs of the puppets themselves, followed by the shadows in action. I used both a wall and a pop-up tent to make these quick demonstrations. They show how even simple puppets made from card can withstand many years of repeated use — these particular puppets are around 25 years old.