Tag Archives: stan parker 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

“The Snow Queen” at Upfront Puppet Theatre

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Last year as a Christmas treat we took ourselves off to Upfront Puppet Theatre again for their show “The Snow Queen”.

I had seen some of the puppets from this on display in a cabinet on a previous visit, (CLICK HERE for the previous post) but had not actually seen the show before.

My kids are both big fans of Disney’s “Frozen” films and I thought it would be interesting for them to see this puppet play which was closer to the original “Snow Queen” story. I had some very fond memories of film and TV adaptations of this story from my childhood so having seen John’s adaptation of Pinocchio (a very faithful adaptation of the original Pinocchio story), I was interested to see what he would do with this traditional tale.

I was extremely impressed with this show. The music was hugely atmospheric (particularly the jarring, uncanny music for the appearances of the Snow Queen) and helped to make the performance very exciting and immersive.

A screen at the front of the stage was used with front projections of snow and trees etc. at various points in the show. This was particularly effective for the sequence where Gerda was travelling in a carriage and we could see the carriage through the screen but an illusion of movement was created by the moving projections as well.

I was also impressed with the way the mechanism for showing the boat travelling on the river which worked very nicely with no technical hitches to distract from the story telling.

As always the show made excellent use of the turntable mechanism on the stage for scene changes and artful and dramatic use of the good old smoke machine as well. John’s puppets and sets were very well made too with excellent use of textures (reflective eyes for the Snow Queen etc.)

The show used a combination of rod and string puppets (with rod puppets appearing from the pit at the front of the stage and marionettes for the main staging further back) and achieved various transitions by having multiple puppet versions of the characters, e.g. Gerda on foot and Gerda mounted on the deer. Others however, were achieved through sheer skill (Kai mounting the Snow Queen’s sleigh and flying away).

Unusually for one of Upfront’s shows the puppeteers were on view (dressed in black so as not to distract from the puppets). I say unusually as the current stage has a bridge where the puppeteers can perform out of sight, (though of course for their cabaret puppets from Stanelli’s Super Circus they do perform in view as well.

John explained afterwards that the reason for this is that it is one of their older productions from when they had a smaller theatre space in one of the barn buildings and the puppets sets etc. had shorter strings for this reason.

I wondered when I was watching it if the reason the production was so excellent and well polished in terms of the performance was because the shorter strings gave better control, but on reflection it must have been at least partially that is because they have performed it a lot more times than some of the newer productions that were, perhaps, still being perfected.

My two kids (age 3 and 5) were totally absorbed from beginning to end and Miranda, (as seems to be her habit when reaching the end of a live show that she has enjoyed) said that she wanted to watch it again as soon as we reached the end. Anthony also gave it high praise, though I sadly can’t remember his exact words.

To sum up, I would say that this show was very effective dramatically and technically and made for mesmerising, spectacular viewing. I would recommend anyone who hasn’t seen it before to do so the very next time it is being shown and indeed I would recommend a visit to any show or exhibition here as the visitor experience is excellent with lovely toilets (including baby change facilities) and fantastic food in the vegetarian cafe. A real treat.