Forget Punch and Judy – puppetry’s come a long way in recent years as evidenced by the programme for Suspense, the second ever London Puppetry Festival. With 30 companies bringing shows to 11 venues (from The V&A and The Roundhouse to puppetry stalwart The Little Angel Theatre) and with work from Iran, Georgia, Austria and the USA complementing the best of British, there’s a dizzyingly diverse array of attractions on offer.
It all kicks off today and runs until next Sunday, and includes not just puppet shows (from the more traditional to the cutting-edge) but also talks, workshops, dance, films and even a puppet cabaret to round off the week.
Events that jump out include Little Edie, the tale of a would-be socialite who dances her days away in the crumbling mansion she shares with her mother, shadow puppet drama in The Invisible Cities of Margharita Monticiano and Plucked – a true fairytale enticing not only for its weird, unnerving imagery but also the strapline: “Pull from your loins a nest of twigs, beware the wolf-man and the raven too!”
There’s also Passing On, an exploration of how we die based on a person’s last hours in hospital, a puppetry weekend at The V&A, The House of Bernard Alba by Tehran-based company Yas-e-Tamam – a politically-charged tragedy about trust and loyalty – and Autumn Portraits a piece involving a series of mature characters interacting with their puppeteers, excerpts of which are shown in this video.
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Rob Alderson is a freelance writer, editor and strategist. He was previously editor-in-chief of It’s Nice That and WePresent, and editor of Design Week. He publishes the newsletter Undo, which tries to make sense of how AI is changing design work, the design process and the design industry.