Shout-Out: Weekly Puppetry News!

The famous Marionette Theatre in Prague, one of the many cities hosting puppetry opportunities this year
[Photo Credit: Steve Collis, used under a Creative Commons CC-BY license]

A great round-up of puppetry-related news, events, and learning opportunities from around the world, you'll definitely want to check out Andrew Young's Weekly Puppetry News...

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens: UPDATE

The last time I posted about this project was about a year ago.  The man behind it, Steve Arnott, contacted me today and wanted me to know that an updated video demonstrating more of the digital animation, soundtrack, and narration was now available to view.  The video above is that sample.  It shows great promise, and has many fascinating and magical scenes. The narration is done by Roy Trumble, from his reading of J.M. Barrie's earlier, shorter work about Pan...

The film is making good progress. Steve did some film work in Norway last month, where they are enthusiastic about the project - part of the film may be produced there.

Arnott knows his subject well, and has written about its history and influence.

To find out more about the film's history, and what the goals of the film project are, go here.

As I find out more information, it will be posted here.  Stay tuned!

New Peter Pan Film

A new film is being made which combines the arts of toy theatre, animation, and film.  One of the producers, Steve Arnott, has this to say of a newly released demo trailer:

This is a work in progress, the voice and music are just guide tracks and more scenes will be added. We hope to use a famous Scottish voice for the narrator (so if anyone has David Tennant's email, please forward!) Also, we are open to any offers of funding; the film so far has over 200 supporters and 50 animators working on it. Anyone who contributes will share in the profits. Also, 20% will be going to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, who have given the project their blessing. We are are looking at a release date of either Christmas 2013 or Easter 2014, depending on how things proceed.

If you would like to know more, or help fund the project, please leave a comment, and I will be happy to put you in touch...

Film Festival Feature Toy Theatre Documentary

Exciting news to share!

A friend of this blog - and to toy theatre in general - Steve Arnott, has entered his documentary "A Small History of Toy Theatre" in this year's Strabourg Film Festival.

You can see the film online, for a limited time, here.

A Delightful Season's Greetings

This unique and delightful animated Christmas card came my way today from Steve Arnott and his family. Please note that to see the animation, you'll need to click on the image above and open in a separate window...

History Toy Theatre DVD Released

A new DVD has been published by Pollocks Toy Theatres, Ltd in their toy theatre series...
A Small History of Toy Theatre
Producer Steve Arnott says that the DVD includes...

...the recollections of Norman Pollock, grandson of Benjamin
Pollock, Laurie Webb, great-grandson of W G Webb and grandson of H J Webb.

Introduced by Hugo Brown, great-great-great-grandson of J K Green and Eddy Fawdry, grandson of Marguerite Fawdry the founder of Pollock's Museum, also an interview with Robert Poulter of New Model Theatre fame.

As well as rare footage of Benjamin Pollock and his family and of H J Webb making tinsel pictures. The DVD runs for 63 minutes and contains a wealth of images and firsthand accounts that bring the history of Toy Theatre alive.

He says the cost of the DVD is £10 or $20 US and shipping is £2 or $4 US. It can be ordered from Pollock's Toy Theatres Ltd one of four ways - by mail at Number 1 Scala Street, London, W1T 2HL, UK; by phone at 44 20 7636 3452 from outside the UK or 020 7636 3452 from within the UK; in person, at the Scala Street shop, for the price of £10; and with PayPal (using fenmoor_uk@yahoo.com as payee). Other DVDs in the series include, Ali Baba, Cinderella and Pollock's Museum Virtual Tour, all priced at £6.

New Play Adaption: House of the Baskervilles

There is now a new Sherlock Holmes play available, a new adaption for the toy theatre of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles"!

The author of the play, Steve Arnott, writes:

It can be purchased from both Pollock's of Scala Street and Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop in Covent Garden or from myself at fenmoor_uk@yahoo.com; The price is £12 in person or £15 with postage, which is about $30 US...

Update from Pollock's Toy Museum

From Paul J. Weighell at Pollock's Toy Museum comes this update...

Just a quick message to the main Pollocks addicts!

The new website is now up and running. It will no doubt change and grow! The plan is to add a shop and sell Hugo's and Steve's output if they wish, as well as Pollock's stuff and hopefully all things TT. I have already added a links page to Hugo and Trish and other good sites. If you have a TT links page then perhaps you might update it to point to the new site not the old one?

Steve has finished the Cinderella DVD and it's good and I hope Hugo won't mind me mentioning that he is working on a release of Waterloo to add to his other fine titles.

Believe it or not, 2 new cellars have been found under the building!! They go out right under the road in front of the shop and they are quite large and very very wet. But, they will make a good spot for me to set up a few fish tanks and bubbling apparatus to chemically treat the printing plates and remove the corrosion. Hugo may have offered to photograph / scan the results... Rumours that I will be making a TT Frankenstein down there are sheer nonsense (not enough electricity for one thing...)

The new TT clubroom at the top of the museum is coming on and all the sheets and so on are already up there. Non-TT stuff has been banished! Dolls and Bears have been seen escaping to good homes as more space for TT is found in other rooms as well. The aim is to have all the TT stuff on display in the general museum and then the the club room has space for fixing up theatres, sorting sheets and so on. It may even be used again for holding performances as that was what is was used for in the 60s.

Toy Theatre meets the Future

There has been recent discussions on the toy theatre group about an exciting development. Despite earlier discouragement, a way has been found to capture the small stage digitally in a manner worthy of it. From Paul Weighall of Pollock's Toy Museum comes this wonderful news:

The DVD of Ali Baba is indeed hopefully the first of a deluge.

It was made by Steve Arnott for Pollock's Toy Theatres and it is software powered technology (as opposed to manual stop frame) using characters cut from the Pollock's published play. The computer makes the movement and animates the play as per story line within the frame of a toy theatre proscenium.

The animation has smooth movements, object shadows, character voices played by different actor/actress, character highlighting, a small amount of music between scene changes and other good stuff. It's like watching a TT performance with one's nose stuck right upto the stage front. Marvelous!


It looks just like a normal performance but without the slides. Ali Baba runs for 13 minutes and I am told took 3 days to complete. Now the basics are understood we of course hope to complete many more. Cinderella is already ordered and Blackbeard the Pirate should follow. After doing the popular shortened 1970 version plays we hope
to tackle the more difficult ones.

The DVD has two visual tracks, one for computer which will work anywhere and one for TV. We are therefore doing 2 DVD versions, one for USA TV (NTSC format) and Europe TV (PAL format).

With Hugo churning out beautifully coloured and mono versions of complete plays and play texts from hi-res digital scans, Pollock's selling a new range of hi-res scanned copies of old prosceniums and Steve also doing hi-res digital animations for plays, we are hopefully looking at a modest revival of English TT albeit in a modern format.

If all that sounds a bit salesy then I am sorry but having spent 3 years pushing in this direction I am rather pleased with the results. The cost of mass printing has stopped us making TT stuff for years now but we hope that with the reduced cost of scanning etc. we will be able to make available all the stuff that has been unavailable for ages due simply to demand being low and costs being high. As it costs about the same to do a play that is well known as a play that is not well known we think we can now offer the widest range of material some of which has not been seen for maybe 100 years or even more.

We may even do a couple of brand new plays…

I think it's simply marvelous that there has been found a way to innovate and make a way to popularize toy theatre into the future. Bravo to all involved!!