members

PuppetLink member companies and artists

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PuppetLink member companies are:
• Punch & Judy Professor Clive Chandler
• Clive Chandler and his Puppets
• Punch & Judy Professor Glyn Edwards
• Blue Sky Theatre (Mary & Glyn Edwards)
• Major Mustard (Mike Frost)
• The Fetch Mask & Puppet Theatre
• Craig Denston Design

Most of the companies within PuppetLink have been working with and performing to children for between 20 and 25 years. During this time they have built up a wealth of experience and attendant knowledge of both the worlds of performance and of children. Backgrounds in the theory and practice of education, the practicalities of performance, the creativeness needed for the physical production of puppets, props, stages, etc., as well as the creativity needed for storylines, underpin the work delivered by the various PuppetLink companies.

The standard of work provided by the companies is clear from the nature of the work they undertake, the standard of their promoting venues and clients, and the reviews and feedback they receive. The companies provide high quality, professional performance and participatory work that is exciting, inspiring, entertaining and accessible to all.

“Among today’s leading exponents…”, (The Times) on Glyn Edwards.

“An absorbing and enchanting experience for children and adults…” (The Times Educational Supplement) on Clive Chandler.

“Exceptionally high quality of performance – wonderfully imaginative…” (Riverside Studios, London) on Major Mustard.

“Challenging, inventive, with something for everyone – extremely worthwhile…” (audience feedback) on The Fetch’s A Right to Passage.

"imaginatively spot-on for the age range" (BBC Online) on Blue Sky Theatre

The member companies and artists are all involved in international working, both in terms of touring and performing abroad as well as setting up festivals and promoting touring into this country by international artists.

Overall PuppetLink companies represent a range of styles and content in performance and interactive activities, enabling them to work with a wide range of audiences and partners.

Clive Chandler and his Puppets

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Clive Chandler works mostly with children of primary school age and is most frequently to be found in educational settings, where he presents both Shows and Workshops. Shows are based on traditional stories, (such as The Snow Queen, Pinocchio and Jack The Beanstalk). In his workshop sessions he helps children to make their own puppets and also to make tell their own stories. His preference is to work in depth over several days. Clive is particularly experienced in helping children make stories using shadow Puppetry. He also runs sessions for teachers (and other adults) on how to use puppetry.

Shows are generally presented using glove puppets, although he has a good understanding of a wide-range of puppetry techniques. His has special small versions of his shows for nursery and reception children.

When not working in schools, Clive performs regularly for museums and libraries. He is also an expert in street puppetry and produces this work through his company Walking Tall (giant figures), and The Pavement Puppetry Company (street-based puppet theatre).

Clive is one of the UK’s best known and respected performers of traditional Punch & Judy, performing at events and festivals at home and abroad.

Within his company Clive often collaborates with other artists and has a pool of performers, musicians and artworkers on whom he regularly draws.

Since 1986, Clive has presented an average of 400 shows to 5000 people each year. He continues to work at this rate, whilst increasingly developing national and international initiatives including festivals and co-productions through PuppetLink.

www.clivechandler.com

Blue Sky Theatre

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Blue Sky Theatre tours nationally to arts centres, theatres, museums, galleries and schools. The company has a particular interest in drawing on folk tales from the African sub-continent and the Caribbean alongside their English cultural equivalents. It places great value on the role of laughter as a power for confronting fears and troubles.

Blue Sky Theatre creates new, child-centred work of quality for the very young, using imaginative themes explored with gentle humour, timeless wisdom and colourful visual simplicity. The company's own style of musical storytelling with puppets has been devised from close observation of the world in which children play.

The directors of Blue Sky Theatre are Mary and Glyn Edwards. Mary is the niece of John Wright, founder of London's world famous Little Angel Marionette Theatre. She toured extensively with her uncle's company in the UK, Europe and in Africa. She is a puppet maker of repute whose work has been commissioned by venues as diverse as the Theatre Royal Stratford East, Teatr Clywd and the Oily Cart Children’s Theatre Company. She is also celebrated for her traditional carved wooden Punch & Judy figures, one of which was commissioned as a gift for the Russian puppet master Sergei Obrastsov. Glyn is a key performer of traditional Punch & Judy who has performed throughout Britain as well as in France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Russia, Dubai, the USA and Japan. His book, Successful Punch and Judy, is considered the standard modern handbook on performing the show. He has written and directed work for other puppet companies including The Little Angel Theatre and Movingstage Marionettes on the Puppet Theatre Barge. He has also directed student work for Central School of Speech and Drama and for the Scuola di Guarratelle in Naples.

www.blueskytheatre.com
www.punch-and-judy.com

Major Mustard's Travelling Show

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Major Mustard’s Travelling Show has been working creatively with children for over 30 years through puppetry and storytelling performances and workshops.

In puppet workshops the puppets are created using recyclable “junk” materials. Then, working co-operatively with the children, puppetry techniques and skills are explained, examined and experimented with, leading on to the creation of stories in which the puppets perform. A similar format is used with shadow puppets.

Major Mustard’s storytelling workshops aim to develop the creativity of children in the production of their own stories. Simple story forms are analysed and discussed, then working in pairs or groups, children are encouraged through speaking and listening, experimenting, etc., to invent their own stories.

Major Mustard’s performance work is based on glove puppetry and performs well-known traditional folk legends such as Robin Hood or King Arthur, or tales such as Cinderella or The Ugly Duckling. Shows are also based on original scripts created by the company.

The storytelling shows centre around traditional tales worldwide - tales from Asia, Africa, the Americas, - as well as a show based on Celtic heritage.

Major Mustard tours nationally to theatres, arts centres, schools, libraries and community venues as well as regular performances abroad. In particular
touring for 6 weeks each year to Germany, performing to schools and adult groups in both English and German.

www.majormustard.com

The Fetch Mask & Puppet Theatre

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The Fetch Theatre Company was created in 1999 by visual theatre artists Andrew Purvin and Sarah Frangleton. They had both worked extensively in touring theatre, nationally and internationally, and came together to create a new company that incorporated many of their ideas about theatre, and in particular puppetry.

Andrew Purvin is probably best known in this country for his work at Pentabus Theatre, where he was Co-Artistic Director for seven years. However he has also spent much of his time working abroad and became a founder member of Teatro de seara da Montemuro, one of Portugal’s top touring theatres. He has also worked in India both as a lecturer and as a designer, most notably designing Rasalu at a derelict fort in the Punjab, a production viewed by over 6,000 people over 3 nights.

Purvin has designed and directed all of The Fetch’s previous touring productions – The Land of the Five Rivers, The Masque of the Red Death and A Right to Passage. He also undertakes projects as a designer or director for other theatre companies.

Sarah Frangleton toured as a performer with Horse and Bamboo for many years. Sarah worked on The Fetch’s first production as a performer, touring the UK and Portugal. She now lives and works in Spain but retains a connection with The Fetch as a maker of puppets.

The Fetch is primarily a mask and puppet theatre company rooted firmly in the West Midlands, touring to and working within different communities, both rural and urban, with a unique blend of highly entertaining visual theatre. They

produce touring theatre that taps into ancient forms of puppetry and yet is both contemporary and challenging for adults and children alike. In terms of work for young people, The Fetch makes both productions and workshops for secondary school and higher education audiences and participants and has this year initiated a programme of workshops in mask and puppetry, Second Skin, for this age group.

The Fetch explores stories that are local and stories that come from other sides of the world; whilst doing this we hope to create honest and meaningful relationships with artists from different countries, cultures and social backgrounds.
The Fetch is committed to promoting theatre as an activity for everyone, insisting that its work is both accessible and appealing to audiences that for any reason feel excluded from participating in the arts. The company seeks to amplify the voices of those who feel unheard and become a platform for which differences can be discussed and celebrated.

www.thefetch.co.uk

Craig Denston

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Craig Denston graduated from Bretton Hall College with a BA in Creative Arts and learned his craft of puppet-making with the Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre, (based at mac), where he worked from 1984 to 1992. This was the largest puppet theatre in the UK at that time, producing four productions per year, giving Craig an excellent opportunity to develop his skills and to meet the constant demands of production.

In 1992 Craig left Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre to set up his own business, Craig Denston Design, for which he designs and makes masks, full body suits, puppets and unusual props, being skilled in working in a wide range of materials. His work is commissioned for live theatre and can be seen all over the UK in the touring shows of theatre and puppet companies, and the Christmas shows of venues such as The Birmingham Rep. He also receives commissions for television and film productions.

Craig is an experienced puppeteer and works freelance for various puppet companies.

www.craigdenston.com

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