A dreamy opera for young people, featuring arresting puppetry and magical lighting.

A marionette performance for kids featuring the long-eared trickster.

Sheets of cardboard, simple projections and homemade sound effects combine in this show for kids.

Family friendly dance show inspired by the surreal paintings of Magritte, featuring joyful object and shadow work.

Pickled Image's signature style puppets deliver a family friendly, homely sort of a show.

Innovative and intricate shadow work bring a much loved children's tale to life.

An ambitious, if rather raw, piece of theatre for kids presented at this year's Brighton Fringe.

A visually accomplished piece of children's theatre that uses puppetry to bring some rather attractive discarded objects to life.

Engaging and educational family theatre that uses a variety of puppetry techniques to celebrate Shakespeare.

As romantic as it is traditional, this delightful marionette production has a gentle, bittersweet charm.

A bicycle powered production for over eights featuring small scale puppets and live animation.

Ahead of a Shakespeare themed show using characters from the V&A's puppetry collection, we meet writer and performer Allison Ouvry who has been given unique access to the archive.

High production values, storytelling, singing and some puppet-playing combine in this hyperactive adaptation of an award winning children's book.

Offering us the life story of one of puppetry's greats, this biography explores the inner workings and outer achievements of a man with a huge heart and an enduring legacy.

A colourful piece of family theatre that unfolds like an animated storybook and stars the huge ghost of an elephant.

As ‘The Elephantom’ opens at the National Theatre’s Shed, we talk to co-directors Toby Olié and Finn Caldwell about creating a new play with a huge ghost puppet as its star.

A festive adventure story, featuring inventive shifts in scale and a lively original score.

Multi sensory and masterfully designed, this is an original and captivating show executed with wit and style.

At the end of September, a picturesque town in Yorkshire will host an intense three-day burst of puppetry with a strong international presence.

Using a modest mix of live action, glove and tabletop puppetry, two master storytellers transport us to the dusty, windswept home of a shepherd with a tree planting habit.

This performance uses object theatre to deliver a visually creative interpretation of an award winning children's book about depression

International puppetry acts will flood into Bristol at the end of August, as the city’s biennial puppetry festival begins. Producers Rachel McNally and Chris Pirie talk about the process of putting on a festival.

An immersive piece of theatre for kids, this production uses puppets and objects to tackle financial and environmental issues.

Inventive shifts in scale and a menagerie of colourful characters combine in this endearing production.

Wooden rod puppets bring Michael Rosen's well loved book to life, with catchy songs provided by Barb Jungr.

Simple shadow puppetry and ingenious masks combine beautifully in this enchanting opera adapted from the novels of Philip Pullman.

A menagerie of puppets feature during this bizarre adventure down the pipe of a fantastical machine, including a life size whacky professor and a little girl carved from smooth wood.

A powerful piece inspired by child victims’ accounts of the atomic bombings in Japan at the end of the Second World War, using shadows, masks on hands, half-body puppets with human legs and paper cranes of all sizes.

A reimagining of a classic TV series aimed at families, this production mixes live action, rod and glove puppetry and animation to create the weird and wonderful Land of Nog.

Playful energy, various puppets and plenty of colourful props combine in this adaptation of Neil Gaiman's popular picture book ‘Crazy Hair’.

An imaginative production that tells Hans Christian Andersen's tale using all kinds of different types of puppetry, animation and projection.

“Tradition is not tradition because it is old, but because it is alive.” As Mr Punch celebrates his 350th birthday, a host of academics and practitioners from around the world gathered to discuss the meaning and relevance of the great sinner in 2013.

Erth is a Sydney based theatre company that recently brought ‘Dinosaur Petting Zoo’ to London. Scott Wright, the Artistic Director, tells us about the company, the show and the Australian puppetry scene.

‘Dinosaur Petting Zoo’ is an excuse to bring some extinct creatures back to life and offers young audiences the chance to interact with some magnificent dinosaur puppets.

A 45 minute frolic where jazz and comedy meet pure fun, ‘There’s a Monster in my Piano’ uses animation, hand and glove puppetry to charm its young audience.

An independent festival celebrating the beautifully diverse world of animation, where everything from stop motion and CGI, to shadow puppetry and live animation, can be enjoyed at venues across the city.

Delicate rod puppetry is used to tell the story of a dog who dreams of being a ballet dancer, in this funny production for 2-6 year olds.

Mixing mask and rod puppetry, this Little Angel Theatre production of 'Pinocchio' charts the journey of one of the world’s best known puppets from wood to flesh over a series of simple but increasingly sinister episodes.

Het Filiaal play with a mixture of live performance, toy theatre and shadows. The two performers move with brio between different scales and viewpoints.

A shimmering puppet seated on an orb of moonlight hovers across a dusky stage, shared with a lone musician and his cello. It’s a magical beginning to a simple tale, which unfolds between the hours of supper and bedtime.

Sometimes the best theatrical treasures of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe are the small and perfectly formed ones, often hidden away in unusual performing spaces. Such was 'Ma Biche et mon Lapin'.

Voices is a series of interviews with puppeteers performing at this year’s Fringe. Here Shona Reppe tells us about taking The Curious Scrapbook of Josephine Bean to the festival. "Hallelujah for parents who take their kids to the Fringe - pick me, pick me!!"

This delicate production is thoughtful, beautifully designed and structured. It invites the audience to pay attention to familiar things and find magic there.

Amid all the build-up of the past few months and the sporting activity to come, there have been some incredible animated offerings – from puppets out and about in the community to epic street performance on a grand scale.

These are two madcap cycle contraptions that showcase Pif-Paf’s wonderful ability to create beautiful but functional objects around which a theatrical world can revolve.