Puppet Castle

In1997 we were approached by The Butlin Leisure Group to create a Puppet Attraction for the Company's new Skyline Pavilions at their Bognor Regis, Minehead and Skegness Resorts.

The project was a highly complex one and design work was started immediately. The brief was to create a Puppet Theatre at each Resort with Puppet Presentations throughout the day. This would mean designing the theatre - which would be known as 'The Puppet Castle'- create six new twenty minute productions and design and make all the puppets and sets for the shows. In the summer of 1998, Roger and Harry returned to their Studio and workshops to work on the project full time with opening dates planned for April 1999.

The Castles opened in 1999 and the success has been sensational. Each year new shows and puppets have been added and the total of puppets created has reached over a thousand.

Many original characters, both in Puppet and 'live' character costume form, were created and the lead 'Jingle Jester', who is the stage manager of the Castle, appeared for the first time in 2000. In 2005, Roger and Harry decided to make the Butlin character 'Billy Bear', into a string puppet and three new shows were created for his adventures.

'Billy's Story Book Theatre' was launched in the same year. This was a glove/ rod puppet show designed for younger children with stories featuring the character of Billy Bear and has now become a great attraction to play alongside the Puppet Castle Shows.



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