Pulling the Strings

As Dartington Community Choir prepares for its Imogen Holst concert this coming Monday (7th) a few VIPs – very important puppets – are also getting readied for their appearance alongside
the singers. A selection from the collection of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst will be on show for the performance in the Great Hall of scenes from a puppet opera written by Imogen Holst.

Imo, as she’s fondly known, set up the original school of music while a guest of the Elmhirsts during and after the Second World War.

Her opera, Young Beichen, is thought to have been performed only once, in 1946. The man in charge of displaying the puppets is leading puppeteer John Roberts, whose wonderful workshop near Dartington I visited the other day. John explained Imo’s opera was based on a well known folk tale but he has no clue why she decided to use puppets – and there is no actual evidence the puppets were used during the performance.

“It’s a well known story certainly Europe wide. We have got no idea why she went ‘ I’m going to do a puppet opera’ , other than puppetry was a very in vogue thing in the 30s 40s and 50s. It was very much a revival of British puppetry which had almost disappeared in between the wars.  Britain had probably the top troupes that would tour their shows and take entire theatres, big circus tents, around the country. That then almost got lost as they went off to the first war, and only through one or two people who got interested in it again and discovered an entire set of puppets in a
barn, did it revive.

“There were up to 30 companies performing in London at the same time, like music hall things, melodramas, all with puppets.”

Early Chinese shadow puppets and wooden rod puppets will be emerging from the Elmhirst’s large collection for the choir’s single show and then packed away again.

The Chinese shadow puppets, made of vellum and painted, are among the finest collections in the country, according to the Victoria and Albert museum, which restored some a few decades ago, John said. The art and craft of puppets – whether string rod operated or by hand – has entranced John since he was a child in South Africa and saw his first puppet show. An architecture degree followed but the lure of the twine and the chisel was too great to resist.

Everybody knows TV puppets – from Bill and Ben and Muffin the Mule (now enjoying retirement in Dorset ) through Sooty and Sweep to Emu, Kermit, Spitting Image grotesques and Wallace and Gromit – but the makers are a rare breed.

John, who carves wooden marionettes like in these photos, as well as performing with them, is one of only five string puppet makers left in the UK who do it as their primary job.

“I am on the list of endangered species!” he says. But the ancient art is enjoying a revival.

“Certainly in the last three years there has been a huge demand for people wanting to learn. Puppetry has been really lucky thanks to War Horse and Lion King, things like that. Before, you meet people at a party and they say what do you do and you say a puppeteer and they go Oh Punch and Judy and you go yeah but – I do all sorts.”

The biggest puppet he made was a five metre baby’s head – the smallest are tiny figures barely three inches tall.

As a teacher of the craft he’s been instrumental in keeping puppetry alive and is now writing a book all about it. His company PuppetCraft has worked with writers Michael Rosen and Adrian Mitchell among others who’ve written shows for his troupe to perform.

John also makes puppets for other people – including this head with woolly hair being made from an old weaving loom in memory of the weaver’s teacher – and runs courses at his workshop for those with a yen to carve an expressive head on a leggy body.

Deceptively simple, utterly charming and appealing to all ages, John’s puppets don’t talk, but they tell wonderful stories.