Tunbridge Wells Puppetry Festival 2021

We are pleased to say we delivered everything we set out to. We provided a 42-performance programme across 10 venues in Tunbridge Wells 25 of these shows were free for anyone to attend.

The centre piece of the programme was Luke Jerram’s art installation Museum of the Moon in Calverley Grounds which provided the spectacle we wanted and introduced people from near and far to the festival. Being positioned outside as a free event in a public park attracted approximately 20,000 visitors over the 3 days it was up. We were thrilled with the attendance creating the shared joyful experience we set out to achieve. This was demonstrated with the number of social media posts commenting on the piece. Many visited the park twice over the festival weekend to experience the moon in the daylight and again at night when it was lit and would provoke a different reaction. The artwork appealed to the young and the old some of whom had been sheltering due to the pandemic and were so happy to enjoy the experience safely alongside others.

As planned, we ran a series of 6 workshops with local charity Mental Health Resources youth group. These were run to help the young people with anxiety and loneliness following the lockdown. We were pleased that these were a great success and an extra workshop was added due to popular demand, The young people attending felt so comfortable there, many have continued to attend the youth group and we hope to work with this charity again.

The Royal Victoria Place shopping Centre allowed us to use one of their empty units for the festival so a week before the festival weekend we opened our free puppetry exhibition in the windows of the unit. Kent based puppet maker and animator Astrid Goldsmith displayed her puppets from her 2 films Red Rover and Quarantine. These looked fantastic and generated a lot of interest. We also created a puppet trail with 13 of Astrid’s puppets displayed in the windows of a variety of shops around the RVP for people to go and find. People were also encouraged to watch her film Red Rover online when they were back home which they did.

All the free work around Tunbridge Wells was greatly attended. Trinity Youth Theatre joined in with a parade of puppetry animals they had made and took them through all the venues up and down the town centre, brining attention to the festival and their work too.

As always we are thankful to our volunteers who were integral to the project running smoothly and while working were able to join in the fun, make friends and chat to the visitors.

Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we have been unable to run the schools' workshops designed to develop young people’s awareness of the refugee crisis. These would link in with the show Eli and the Golem which premiered at the festival before going to meet Little Amal when she arrived in Folkestone on her Walk.

3 schools were able to attend Eli and the Golem and the workshops should now take place this spring.