MICF: Puppet Up!, Uncensored

Puppet Up!: Uncensored is a must see show this festival. Straight from the most well known puppet workshop, this band of merry puppeteers and improvisers bring puppets to life in ways you’d never have dreamed of.

With audience-fed improvisation you never know what you’re going to get but the men and women of Henson Alternative take every suggestion in their stride and nothing is out of bounds for them or the puppets they control. It’s a laugh a minute with the MC of the evening, Patrick Bristow, keeping the audience engaged during the difficult “asking for input” sections of improvisation.

The Henson puppet style is impossible not to recognise but it’s also incredibly liberating to see the styles we’re familiar with from The Muppets and Sesame Street make jokes we’d never have even though puppets could make. There are, of course, no characters from these famous trademarks but the style brings them to mind all the same and it’s impossible not to remember whatever Henson product has touched you in the past.

Breaking up the onslaught of, usually inappropriate sometimes downright wrong, humour are flashbacks to the work of the late Jim Henson. The six incredibly talented puppeteers take it upon themselves to perform famous puppet works created by Jim Henson in the very early stages of his career. These interludes are really a very beautiful part of the show and serve to remind the audience of the massive amount of history that comes with these puppets and styles. They are some of the best in the business and they come from the most prestigious pedigree there is in the world of puppets.

Do yourself a favour and make some time to see Puppet Up!: Uncensored.