PUPPETEERS who staged a Portland Bill show in Weymouth have been reunited for the first time in a quarter of a century.
David Leech and Penny Gerken used to pull the strings when the Captain Portland Bill Puppet Theatre staged shows 25 years ago.
Now they have met up again for the first time since 1985 to work together again and make puppets.
They are creating wooden marionettes for children as David has relaunched the Pelham Puppets toy company.
David needed more people to help with the more specialised work so he contacted Penny to see if she could help with painting faces and modelling heads for the puppets.
David said: “The face painting is a vital part of producing good quality puppets in the Pelham tradition.
“And it can take weeks to properly train someone to handpaint the faces for each and every puppet character.
“Due to pressure of work, I needed someone who I was confident could do the task without any training.
“Even after 25 years the only person I could think of was Penny.”
David employs five people at Pelham Puppets in Ilfracombe, North Devon.
The business was started by Bob Pelham in Wiltshire in 1947 and became famous for its puppets and marionettes.
David set up his first workshop at the Pavilion in Weymouth in April 1983 to establish the Captain Portland Bill Puppet Theatre.
He employed a small group of artists and students to create the marionettes and weekly summer shows.
The regular weekly performances in the early to mid-1980s were popular with visitors and locals alike.
David and his team also worked in many schools, holding puppet-making and drama workshops.
During the winter months he also provided entertainment for exhibitions promoting Weymouth and Portland in the Midlands, London and South Wales.
The puppet theatre programme was sponsored by Weymouth and Portland’s entertainment department, then headed by Harvey Bailey.
Mr Bailey gave David the opportunity after seeing his Captain Portland Bill puppet – a fully working marionette, or string puppet, that stood eight feet tall.
The puppet, in a white suit with a red horizontal strip across his chest, represented the Portland Bill lighthouse.
He also had a flashing light on top of his head and the mouth and eyes movement was radio controlled.
The team disbanded after funding ran out in 1985 and they went their separate ways.
David and Penny are the first of the team to meet up since then.
David said: “I had full confidence in Penny’s abilities and she has come up trumps.
“Her work is superb and she is very reliable; after all, her artistic skills contributed enormously to the success of the puppet theatre programme.”
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