Puppetry is now popular with adults

Suddenly puppetry seems so grown up. With the likes of War Horse, which has been seen by more than 200,000 people since it opened four years ago, and the hilariously adult Avenue Q leading the way, puppetry in the theatre is proving more popular than ever. There's Teatro Corsario's "puppets of terror" in The Curse of Poe at the recent London International Mime Festival; Laminated, a new play at the Tristan Bates theatre in Covent Garden in which a struggling writer relives his memories through fantastical puppet scenarios; and live animation company The Paper Cinema showing its version of The Odyssey at the Battersea Arts Centre this Friday and Saturday. Puppet shows are popping up around town.

Over at the Little Angel Theatre in Islington, artistic director Peter Glanville has started programming puppetry specifically for adults much more regularly. "I think there is a huge thirst for adult puppetry in audiences at the moment," he says. Forthcoming shows at the Little Angel Theatre include the Puppet Grinder Cabaret and, later this year, the bi-annual Suspense London Puppetry Festival. "Until the Thirties there was quite avant-garde work with puppetry in theatre," Glanville continues. "Then, for a very long time, television had a hold on what the public understanding of puppetry was. Now, though, puppets are coming full circle, theatre-makers are exploring the art form a lot more, and people are realising that puppetry isn't just for children."

One artist and musician who works with shadow puppets and has something of a cult following is Matthew Robins, whose new work, Noah's Ark, will be shown at the Little Angel Theatre next month. It's the latest adventure of his signature shadow puppet character Flyboy (half boy, half fly), who meets knitting-shop owner and alien Carol on the Moon, accompanied by quirky music from Robins's band. "The idea is that Flyboy is episodic, a bit like a soap opera, so that every time the audience comes they get told more of the story.
The puppeteer is live on stage, an overhead projector beams the action onto the screen and, like a silent movie, there's a band too," explains Robins.

And it seems puppetry is even infiltrating the unlikeliest of shows. At La Soirée, in its final week at its big top venue on the South Bank, Cabaret Decadance often opens the show with Slinky, a singing, animated, two-person operated coil which can extend to eight foot tall. Other puppets in the show's changing line-up, choreographed by Serge DesLauriers and Enock Turcotte, can include Edna, a tired old showgirl, and Alma, a full body puppet who does a playful striptease. For producer Brett Haylock, the puppets are an integral part of the show. "We like the element of surprise. People come to see a contemporary variety show with preconceived ideas and they get these sexy, sassy, larger-than-life puppet divas."