The breath of life.
Kirstie Newton met John Roberts, master puppeteer, in Dartington.

"Puppetry is all about animating
something which isn't alive. You
could take a pencil and animate it, and
with an enormous leap of the imagination,
you pretend it's alive, and it becomes
extraordinary."
John Roberts takes a Chinese
handmaiden puppet which is hanging
from the ceiling. It has 18 strings,
articulated hands, and a delicate air of
beauty. "Offer her your pen," says John. I
hold out the pen, and the handmaiden
leans forward and takes it gracefully. As I
applaud, she gives a modest curtsey.
In that second she ceases to be a
puppet in my mind, and becomes a real,
living character, just as John described. I
am enthralled.
John came to Dartington, South
Devon in 1990, and launched his own
theatre company, PuppetCraft. His shows
tour village halls, theatres and schools in
the UK and internationally, and his work
has featured in the movie Pinnocchio.
Devon has provided the perfect
backdrop for his work." I came to Devon
for the artistic community and creative
ethos," he said. "At parties in London, it
would always be a case of: "I'm an
accountant;" I'm a banker;" "I'm a
lawyer;" "I'm a puppeteer..." "WHAT??!"
In Devon there is a whole range of
creative people - sculptors, painters,
models. At parties here, the accountant is
the odd one out."
Born in South Africa, John's interest in
puppets was triggered by a special family
gift. "When I was eight, my brother gave
me for Christmas some beautiful glove
puppets he had made. I started off by
playing with them for my own
entertainment, then realised there was
mileage in putting on shows for family and
friends."
Later, he trained to be an architect, hut
was still fascinated by puppetry and began
to delve more into the technical side. "I'm
essentially self-taught. There is very little
puppetry in South Africa, so I learned
mostly from books. I made some dreadful
puppets which didn't work, because the
books were terrible, but I finally found a
few gems."
One such book was written by fellow
South African John Wright, then director
of the Little Angel Theatre in Islington,
which John made a point of visiting.
"My course lasted seven years, and the
fourth year was a year out. 1 embarked on a
pilgrimage of all the major puppetry
festivals in Europe, occasionally writing
about buildings which I'd seen out the
corner of my eye.
"John Wright and his wife were originally
from Cape Town, so we found we had a
common background. When I returned to
South Africa, 1 set up drama and puppetry
modules at the university, and used the
visiting lecturers fund to fly John out for a
lecture and demonstration tour."
The friendship was sealed, and John
Wright invited John Roberts to join his
theatre as a co-director. London became
his base for 10 years, and from there he
toured around festivals from Norway to
Greece, and from the USA to Japan.
He also spent six months in China,
learning the complex art of Chinese
puppetry. "I was knocked out. It is an
incredibly long, sophisticated tradition.
Here, we have very small companies.
There, they have up to 100 people,
including a full orchestra.
"If you were to look at my work, you
might not see the influence, but it is
definitely there, especially in the life of the
shows. John Wright saw the puppets as
three-dimensional sculptures on stage, and
they moved slowly and carefully.
"Chinese puppetry is the exact opposite
- they keep it moving. It's like a miniature
version of Chinese opera. There is a long-
running debate about which came first, but
what is true is that the opera sends its
actors to the puppet theatre to learn some
of the basic steps. It is also highly
connected to religion - puppeteers will
very often perform in temples, with no
other audience but the gods."
In 1990 he launched Puppetcraft,
working initially from the kitchen table
and the garden shed at his new family
home in Devon. His first show, The
Bewitched Baobab Tree, drew upon an
African legend, playing in London and
Cape Town, and schools and village halls
across the UK.
Since then, he has produced a
multitude of puppet shows, including the
Pied Piper (based on the Robert Browning
poem), Sir Fool's Quest (written by Mersey
poet Adrian Mitchell and based on the
King Arthur legends), Tristan and Isolde,
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde, and the
hugely popular Mousehole Cat.
His most recent show is the Amazing
Adventures of Sinbad, based on extracts
from 1001 Arabian Nights. "It's a real
rollercoaster, very Indiana Jones. Sinbad
goes straight from one problem to the next."
John plays with scale, and Sinbad comes in
many sizes, from the large main character
to a tiny figure being carried off by a bird.
The show is performed under a canopy
which can be erected inside any village
hall or badminton court. Colourful mats
and eastern music by Russell Harris offer
an exotic air to the plainest of venues.
"People are amazed at the
transformation of their hall, and at the
sheer scale of the performance. It takes up
the entire room, and goes up to the ceiling.
I like going to the tiny village halls,
because it's taking theatre back into the
community, rather than people having to
travel. It's an event for the community to
share."
Wherever possible, John works with
local freelance artists, writers, performers
and musicians. "I am keen to use local
people, and I will train anyone with a
vague interest in puppetry." The troupe
can number anything from two to 12
people, depending on the show.
The puppets themselves are made
principally from English lime wood, a good
carving wood which lends itself well to
detail. John uses a handsaw and three
Chinese chisels: flat, triangular and a
scoop, which are remade periodically by
Starcross blacksmith John Bellamy.
Strength is an equally important feature:
"The puppets have a rough time - they are
dropped from heights, chucked in boxes."
Throughout their creation, the puppets
go through a transformation. "As I'm
designing, carving and painting, I will
spend a lot of time playing with them. It's
a two-way stream. They develop their own
personalities and quirky ways, which you
don't always anticipate. But you have to
be open and sensitive to that. You might
set out thinking 'I'm going to make this,'
but it can end up quite different and
usually the richer for it.
Each puppet is made specifically for one
show. "They never swap from one show to
another. They all exist in their own
world." Occasionally they are exhibited -
Tristan and Isolde were recently borrowed ^
by the National Trust - or used them for
workshops, which John presents for both
children and adults.
"The workshops might be as simple as
making a puppet with scissors and
cardboard in half an hour, or a long-term
residency working with every child in a
school. My adult workshops are about
professional puppet-making, with special
tools and wood."
The humble puppeteers usually take a
"downstairs" role, but occasionally they
take centre stage. "I was in full view in the
Mousehole Cat, and I became the
character I was operating - the old man,
Tom. He has a grey beard too, so it was
quite appropriate."
As yet, John has not felt quite brave
enough to produce a show aimed directly
at adults. "They would do half a dozen
performances while my normal shows can
do as many as 200 performances over two
years," he said.
"In this country, when you mention
puppetry people think of Punch and Judy,
or the puppet sidekick on a kid's TV show.
It is definitely seen as children's
entertainment. In China, it is very much a
family event, and everyone goes.
"There are a couple of adult only
puppet theatre companies, but my
approach is more softly, softly. I advertise
it as being for children, and hopefully their
parents will come too and will enjoy it in
their own right."
One of John's most high profile jobs
was the making of a wooden figure for
1995 film The Adventures of Pinnocchio,
in conjunction with the Jim Henson
Creature Workshop in London. "It had to
be waist height and with a visible grain, so
I chose Douglas fir. The difficult bit was
finding a piece with a knot which would
become Pinnocchio's nose.
"The designers had sketched the body,
but had no idea about joints or movement,
so they videoed my puppet. Then the Jim
Henson Creature Workshop re-modelled
it in rubber latex. I think my puppet
appears for about 10 seconds in the scene
when it is being made."
"I like the fact that puppetry can be so
complicated and expensive, and that they
can spend half a million pounds on one
head. I had a go on the head of Babe the
pig - it was operated with controls like
bicycle brakes. It might take a whole day
to get something right, like a smile, but
then afterwards they can just press a
computer button and there it is.
"On the other hand, in China I learned
a technique that was over 2000 years old.
In Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, they
were amazed that they had spent
thousands of pounds to achieve what a
simple form could do."
But in the reality stakes, live puppetry
wins every time. "In animation, you can't
see how it's done. In a traditional puppet
show, you can see exactly how it's done.
But it doesn't matter. Look at
Thunderbirds, with its ungainly puppets
and visible strings. Kids love it, precisely
because they can see how it's done.
"Yet when only two people come out at
the end of a show, everyone is amazed.
You can have one puppeteer with a cast of
thousands. The puppets also seem to grow
in the imagination. They aren't always the
most refined or highly decorated things,
but from a distance they look fantastic.
People see them close up afterwards and
say, 'I thought they'd be bigger'. It's the
same when we watch television. Our
minds are incredibly selective.
"The main thing about puppetry is that
it is international, and cuts across most
cultures and ages. Most of the language we
use is visual, and it sucks people in. It's a
magical fantasy, and it gets to the parts
other theatre can't reach."

John offers performances and courses in puppet making in Devon.

For further information, John Roberts can be contacted on 01803 867778, or
visit www.puppetcraft.co.uk

This article was illustrated by 7 photo's by JOHN ROBERTS and IAN JACKSON.

Reproduced here by kind permission of Devon Today. Copyright Devon Today 2002

Telephone: 01392 442211

devontoday@westcountrypublications.co.uk

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