About Playboard Puppets
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BIOGRAPHY | |
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
Playboard Puppets was founded in 1971, when two young puppeteers, John Thirtle and Ian Allen, decided to join forces. It has grown from small scale productions in libraries and parks to spectacular large scale theatre shows, making Playboard Puppets the leading touring puppet theatre in the country.
Playboard Puppets tour theatres and civic venues up and down the country for eight months of the year presenting up to 400 performances. Playboard was the first puppet company to be awarded an annual grant by the Arts Council of Great Britain.
From 1982 to 1994 the company toured with Button Moon. A brand new show based on the popular ITV children series was produced every year. They all featured the Spoon family who fly to Button Moon where they have adventures with other puppet characters - all made from plastic bottles, wooden spoons and even plastic bananas!
In 1989 Button Moon was decommissioned. However, other departments of Thames TV continued to produce the Button Moon videos and storybooks. Hundreds of peformances later, the ‘live’ theatre shows of Button Moon continued to draw the public in large numbers.
From January 1993 to 1996 the
UK Gold satellite channel bought
all 91 episodes which were
transmitted daily for three months.
Playboard Puppets make frequent appearences on TV programmes
and commercials. These have
included Playschool Rainbow, T-Bag,
Are you Awake Yet, as well as Not the Nine O'Clock News, Who Dares Wins,
Morecambe and Wise Show,
That's Life and the award winning
Drop the Dead Donkey.
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Playboard puppeteers have worked on a number of feature films including the 'Muppets', 'Dark Crystal' and 'Muppet Christmas Carol' and several series of 'Spitting Image' TV commercials have included Harvest Crunch Squirrels, Lemsip Lemons, London Dockland Crows and the famous Nat West Piggies. Also ads for Pyramint Chocolate Bars, Farley rusks, Pearl Assurance, Sun Life Assurance, McDonalds's Hamburgers and Milk Shakes, Boots the Chemist, Lucozade, John West Tinned Salmon, Newcastle Brown Ale and Mother's Pride Bread.