Voice of the Show

Playing Pinocchio! - Week Seven... by Suzanne Kendall This week Maud met Ronnie Le Drew! It was time to bring our muppets out of the bag again and I was pleased to see Maud after my brief affair with bin bags and marionettes over the past couple of weeks! I think she was pleased to see me too, mind you she always has the same smiling eyes and facial expression! However, this week she'd have some more life breathed into her and I'd get to see how much more dynamic she could be... Ronnie Le Drew (see Week Two ) went around the room and briefly tried out everyone's muppets. He demonstrated how the look of the muppet could inform their voice and the way they moved - their character. He showed us various ways of 'walking'. He also taught us how to operate the muppet's mouth when it's 'speaking' - how to lip sync the muppet with our voices - we practiced this by counting. When we got to number 'sev-en' the muppet opens and closes it...

Playing Pinocchio! - Week Two... by Suzanne Kendall Having established that puppets need to be treated with respect it was time to to show similar respect to a rather famous figurehead in the puppet world Ronnie Le Drew. Ronnie came to the class this week to give a talk about his illustrious career as a puppeteer. He was in fact the man behind some very popular puppets that epitomised my childhood: Zippy in Rainbow, Sweep in The Sooty Show (see photo below) the list goes on... As well as working with puppets on television, Ronnie has also worked in theatre (he began at The Little Angel Theatre itself) and films (including The Labyrinth and Muppets Treasure Island). Here's his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Le_Drew His career clearly demonstrates the importance puppets play across all media and how they can connect with a range of audiences too. Suzie x Ronnie Le Drew and Sweep!