One puppet is a plaything, two puppets make a show!

Get together with friends who also havepuppets and you’ll have an instant puppet theatre company where you can become the star of your very own show!

Who will star in YOUR show?

PELHAM PUPPETS provide the means and inspiration for young people to develop team work, good creative practice and develop their imaginations.

They provide a unique and magical experience through the preparation and presentation of live puppet shows which combine an enchanting mix of children’s activities with nostalgic memories for parents and grand-parents and therefore appeal to children from the age of five to 75!

Many years ago, Bob Pelham the Founder of Pelham Puppets said, “The puppet world is more appealing and lovable than anything I know. A world of fantasy and mystery in which live a host of intriguing little people with their own characters and temperaments, a law unto themselves, neither animals nor humans and, yet always ready to please.”

So help your children step back in time and enjoy the simple pleasures of your own childhood memories and the timeless wonder of real puppet theatre and experience its magic again and again!

Below are some drawings that I hope will give you some ideas for staging your show(s) I hope they help.

The first diagram is to help you design and build a permanent puppet stage for home or school from a small table. It is reproduced from PELPUP NEWS No 1 dated january 1961 (It was called "Puppet Post" at the time)

For use with the new PELHAM PUPPETS, the table legs will need to be cut down to about 12 inches (30 cm) and the back-drop needs to be 24" high (60cm) and the stage itself about three feet (one metre) wide.

Once you have a stage, you will want to have some scenery too. Rather than use large card or hardboard with painted scenes, which can be cumbersome to handle, it is better to have a black velvet sheet for the backdrop and then use with painted card cutouts. Below are a few ideas, taken from PELPUP NEWS No 23 Summer 1972.

Finally, (for now anyway,) I have added Bob Pelham's diagram of "untangling instrutions." It is a lot easier that you think!

However, if you always remember to pick up your puppet by the control bar and when not in use, either twirl the strings and place it back in its box, or hang it up safely somewhere, you should be able to have a "tangle-free" time!

I hope these ideas provide you with some inspiration. I'll add some more at a later date, so keep coming back to check the website out.

In the meantime, happy puppeteering!

Pelham Puppet Television brings you help and information regarding all aspects of puppetry. From easy to follow advice on how to untangle your puppet to creative ideas for your next puppet show. This programme shows you how to untangle a puppet should this become necessay.

How to operate your puppet - and take care of it.

The illustrated instructions that are included with each puppet show you how to take the puppet out of the box by the control bar or cross bar. It is important that you ALWAYS pick up the puppet by the control bar.

Once you let the strings gently untwist, after you have lifted the puppet from the box, hold the control bar as shown in the photograph below, making sure that the front of the control is pointing upwards slightly as shown:

To make your puppet walk, first of all, ensure the feet are resting gently on the ground (or stage floor), not too low so that the knees bend and not too high and have it 'flying!' Keeping firm hold of the control 'roll' the cross bar between your for-finger and thumb, so the cross bar moves like an aeroplane in flight. Do not sway the control from side to side, but twist the control so one side of the cross bar rises and the leg lifts up... like this:

Keeping firm hold of the control bar, 'roll' it the other way like this:

Once you have managed to lift each leg in turn, move the puppet forward and soon you'll have it walking!

To make the arms move, you need to take hold of the hand string, (only one, not both) with your other hand. By pulling the string out and up you can raise each arm/hand in turn. As it is a "run-through" string, if you pull the string down on the left, it will raise the right hand. Shake the control gently and puppet will wave. See photo below:

After a performance, you will want your puppet to take a bow. This is done by lifting the back string back - making sure you keep the puppet's feet on the ground by lowering the control bar at the front, as though the aeroplane is making a "nose-dive" as shown in the photograph below:

Finally, it is a good idea to practice operating your puppet in front of a mirror, so you can see it from the point of view of your audience. In time, making puppet walk, dance, bow and sing and talk will come naturally and you'll soon become a master puppeteer and star in your own show!