How long has puppets been around

Wilkinson was still performing in the s when his repertoire included Thersytes , a 16th-century morality play, Cassius and Brutus , and the quarrel scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar which he described as 'Shakespeare specially disarranged'. The wider fortunes of puppetry, however, did not begin to revive until with the publication of a book called Everybody's Theatre by H.

At first a society of keen amateurs, it soon generated expert professional puppeteers including Walter Wilkinson and his brother Gair Wilkinson, William Simmonds, Waldo and Muriel Lanchester, and John Bickerdike. They played a large part in the regeneration of puppetry after the war, founding the London Marionette Theatre in Stamford Brook and developing new ways of controlling and balancing marionettes. The London Marionette Theatre was also the first to broadcast puppets on television.

While puppeteers provided entertainment for Working Men's Clubs and night clubs in the late s, with performers operating for the first time in full view of the audience , it was TV that brought brought puppets to a much wider public. British children's television from the s to the 70s made stars of several puppets, from the marionettes 'Muffin the Mule', 'Andy Pandy', 'Bill and Ben', 'Lady Penelope', 'Parker', 'Troy Tempest' and 'Captain Scarlet' to the glove puppets 'Sooty and Sweep' and 'Basil Brush' as well as the American sock puppet 'Lamb Chop' who was still operated by hand.

Jim Henson created many different types of puppets for the series Sesame Street and The Muppets which British audiences adored. Spitting Image puppets, created for television in the s by Peter Fluck and Roger Law, renewed the 18th-century tradition of satirical puppetry at a time when many innovative British touring puppet companies were established, and theatre companies such as Forkbeard Fantasy began using large scale puppetry in their work.

A few dedicated puppet theatres survive in Britain today, often in the face of financial indifference from local authorities, but puppetry in 21st-century Britain is also finding new audiences with companies and productions incorporating puppetry into their work. Mr Punch, meanwhile, is still celebrated annually in Covent Garden, and can be found flouting political correctness around the country, just as he has done for over years. Explore the range of exclusive gifts, jewellery, prints and more.

Skip to main content. Wed—Sun: Alternatively search more than 1. Discover a selection of our favourite puppets, and their makers, in the slideshow below:.

Shop Explore the range of exclusive gifts, jewellery, prints and more. Ringmaster presides masterfully over them. Skip to main content. Search this exhibition. Puppets on Stage. Shadow puppetry is an ancient art form that originated in Asian cultures. A flexible, two-dimentional cutout figure is controlled by rods, performing behind a backlit translucent screen.

By skillful manipulation, the unseen pupeteer magically brings to life the shadows cast on the screen by the puppet and light source. Usually made of cloth, a hand puppet is a flexible, glove-like structure. The puppeteer inserts a hand and manipulates the figure by moving fingers and wrist. This method can be traced to prehistoric times, when storytellers used their hands to make shadows to illustrate their tales. It evolved evolved into the use of highly sophisticated objects of wood, plastic, paint, and fabric.

Gift of Hazelle and J. Woodson Rollins. A rod puppet has external wooden sticks or wire rods attached, allowing the puppeteer to manipulate its movements.

Some puppets, notably those created by Jim Henson, combine both hand and rod manipulation. Gift of Bil Baird. Animated simply by wiggling, a finger puppet is a sheath of cloth, paper, or rubber that fits over a single finger. Puppetry could therefore have been born in each culture and community at a certain stage of its development and in a specific religious, ritualistic or shamanistic environment.

However, the indigenous origin of puppetry theory does not answer the other question of the birth of puppet theatre. Most researchers agree that the birth of puppet theatre has the same origin as that of live theatre, which is also derived from religious and ritual ceremonies see Rites and Rituals.

However it is difficult to pinpoint an original moment in time regarding this matter as it is difficult to give a precise and global definition of theatre based on a clear distinction between ritual and theatre arts. Still today, puppet theatre in India and South East Asia provides several religious functions whereas African puppeteers are often part of much larger ritual ceremonies.

The transformation of a rite into a profane spectacle was a very long process and depended on the culture of each people. The European notion of dramatic art comes from a clear historical differentiation between the sacred and the profane, between the religious participation in a ritualistic event and the profane perception of a theatrical event.

However, even European theatre has often included in its repertoire religious representations such as themes from the Passion, the Nativity see Nativity Scenes and the Mysteries during the Middle Ages.

Today, the situation is more complex due to a return to the source element in certain shows performed by companies who use certain ritualistic components. Western theatre mixes participation and perception, and certain works are closer to certain ancient forms that can also be observed in certain types of shadow and puppet theatre in Asia.

Fiche technique Origins of the Puppet.