Incy just attended a wonderful day devoted to puppets as part of the Belgrade Theatre’s Puppet Festival 2025, to celebrate 100 years of puppetry with the British Puppet Guild.
We started the day with a puppet-making workshop, where Pauline taught us how to make rod and stick puppets.
Incy named hers “Flower”.
Next, we watched the DaSilva Marionette Circus Troupe’s show. One of the puppeteers called Nik, whose dad made the puppets, told us that the puppets were over 70 years old. The show was circus-themed and all of the crowd enjoyed it, Incy was laughing out loud several times.
Afterwards, we went outside to watch Uncle Tacko’s Flea Circus, which had jokes for all ages. There were also things for the children to do outside,
Back inside, we met Hacker T Dog and Dax Danger. We didn’t know either before the event but Incy liked them both, especially Dax Danger and she asked him if he ate dog food and chased cats!
We saw lots of Sooty’s cousins and met Sweep in person as we visited the different stalls.
Next, we made mini puppets out of sustainable materials with Melvin.
They were cute and we could be super creative with the materials provided.
Finally, it was time for the Sooty show. Incy had watched some episodes of Sooty shortly before the festival for the first time. She was instantly hooked. Mama Appleseed explained Sweep had been her favourite as a child but Incy decided Sooty was her favourite “because he’s naughty”!
Tickets were sold out by the time we even heard of the festival. Being regular visitors to the Belgrade we contacted them and the Belgrade came to the rescue. Even though the show was completely sold out they opened up another box for us to watch it.
We were thrilled as, in just a short time-frame, Incy had become Sooty-obsessed and it meant a lot to her that she could see the show.
It was a wonderful experience as so many of us grew up with Sooty. It’s actually the longest-running children’s TV show ever (75 years and still going). After the show we queued for a long time to meet Sooty. We took pictures with him and Incy held his hand. Sooty wouldn’t let go of her hand and it made incy giggle!
We were almost at the end of the event so we popped over to visit the Rainbow characters. Rainbow is a TV show from a long time ago and all the mummies and daddies knew what it was but only some of the children did. Incy had seen only a little of the show but she recognised Zippy immediately. Ronnie, the puppeteer who controls Zippy, had a lovely chat with Incy. Ronnie’s enthusiasm for puppetry was evident as he wanted to try Incy’s puppet, Flower, and then he animated Zippy to speak with Flower. Incy asked Zippy if he was ever naughty and he said sometimes!
In the Burbridge room, Sarah took some time to show Incy paper model theatres from the Victorian era and more, and lovely miniature theatres that she had made. We ended the festival by admiring the puppets on display from the National Puppetry Archive, which included Sooty & friends and the Muppets.
It was a very fun festival and we thank everyone involved, especially the Belgrade for getting us in to see the Sooty show so last minute. It was a fantastic day, for children and their grown-ups alike.
Mama Appleseed & Incy Appleseed