What to do in a    Puppet Emergency 

Picture the scene...

 

You're walking home one night (perhaps after a night at the theatre) and you see a puppet lying at side of the road... Would you know what to do?

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Well fear not! Puppet-master Mark Down is here to help. In this lecture demonstration he guides you through the ten vital steps you need to know to bring a puppet to life and keep it alive until professional puppeteers can get to the scene and take over.

 

The Basic Puppetry Life Support (BPLS) course covers how to make the puppet breathe, how to create focus, how to get the puppet on its feet, how to make it look at things, what to think about, what to make the puppet think about, where emotions come from and how to control them. You learn how to get passersby to do puppetry with you, how to work with a team of performers, and what you can do if you are on your own. ​

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Alongside the explanation Mark demonstrates the techniques on a very simple dummy puppet, and shows how these simple actions work together to bring the puppet to life and keep it alive, in front of your eyes. ​

 

Every puppet festival should begin with this talk. In fact not just every puppet festival, every festival. 

 

Funny, informative and life-saving - it's health and safety gone mad!

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 "Fantastic!" 

Annette Dabs, Fidena Festival

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 "I was excited!" 

Stephan Schlafke, Director Kolk 17 Puppet Theatre and Museum

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 "Absolutely ridiculous... and at the same time  completely unnecessary" 

Ed Docx, Author

 

 "Total bollocks from beginning  to end, but also kind of genius..." 

Lorand Ballint, downstairs neighbour

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 I just feel like I would know what to do now if I was faced  with a puppet emergency. I don't know what to  do, but I feel like I would know and that's more important. I think. 

Someone who attended the course
 

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