No festival in 2026 but puppets aplenty to enjoy over Easter
Moving Parts programme unveiled
Newcastle Puppetry Festival isn’t happening this year due to a lack of funds, which is a crying shame, but that doesn’t mean the producers, Moving Parts Arts, aren’t still pulling strings.
They have just announced an Easter holiday programme (from April 3 to 18) of puppet-related films and activities that promise to be a lot of fun.
The inaugural Puppet Film Fest at the Tyneside Cinema begins on April 4 with the first of four 30th anniversary screenings of Muppet Treasure Island, directed by Brian Henson (son of Muppets creator Jim).
Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest share the credits in this comical adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic with an almost equally talented human cast including Tim Curry, Billy Connolly and Jennifer Saunders.
The programme also includes 2014 release The Boxtrolls, The Dark Crystal (a 1982 release directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz) and, away from the mainstream, Czech release Little Otik, released in 2000 and billed as a “hauntingly dark folk tale horror” about a childless couple who make a baby out of wood with (shudder) “nightmarish consequences”.
On April 11 there will be a special screening of Strings, a 2004 film featuring marionette puppets and the voices of Derek Jacobi and James McAvoy, and including a Q&A with Stephen Mottram who was one of the principal puppet operators on the film.
Puppeteer Mottram was also booked to lead a seven-day marionette puppet-making course but it’s sold out, such is the contemporary appeal of puppetry in all its forms.
There are still places available on other two-day courses in the pavilion at Paddy Freeman’s Park, Heaton, run by artist Gretchen Maynard-Hahn and spanning marionette-making for beginners, puppet lantern-making and stop motion animation.
Then there’s The Last Believer, an outdoor theatre show to be staged with the aid of a two-metre high moving panorama called a ‘crankie’.
Billed as an interactive performance involving live music and puppetry, it will tell the fantastical tale of Mae and her quest to save Tyneside.
There are to be three shows daily (at 11am, 1pm and 3.30pm) on the lawn outside Great North Museum: Hancock from April 8 to 11. They’re free to attend and no booking is required.
Meanwhile, inside the museum you can see A Treasury of Tyneside Tales, an exhibition of 100 crankie theatres inspired by local folklore and made by local people young and old.
And there’s more…
Also at Great North Museum: Hancock you can see an installation called Wind Garden which has been made by 250 local residents and artists.
It is described as a tunnel-like structure featuring colourful moving windmills on the outside and participants’ stories inside.
The installation was conceived as a celebration of wind power, story-telling and community creativity.
This, and a kinetic sculpture commissioned from artist Chloe Rodham, can be seen during museum opening hours from April 4 to 12.
Across the road at Newcastle Civic Centre, meanwhile, there’s to be an exhibition called Teeny Tiny Toon showcasing stories told and puppets made by some 500 people who attended Moving Parts workshops in Newcastle’s West End.
The Easter programme of events has been made possible due to funding from Newcastle Cultural Investment Fund, North East Combined Authority, ScottishPower Foundation, the National Lottery Community Fund ‘Awards for All’, Garfield Weston Foundation, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Hays Travel Foundation, the Barbour Foundation and Hadrian Trust.
All of which would suggest there are plenty who believe in the power of puppets and puppetry.
For more information and to book for ticketed events please visit the Moving Parts Arts website or visit socials on @MovingPartsArts