Larrikin Puppets will be taking the stage at Big Little Fest! We are national award-winning Australian children’s entertainers, and will be bringing our colourful and exciting puppet show to Coorparoo Square at 12.00 noon Saturday 23 March, 2024. Interesting Fact! We received training in the USA under Jim Henson puppeteers from The Muppets and Sesame Street. Mark your calendar and prepare for a great day.
Much of our focus this year was on final preparations, rehearsals and the big launch performances of “Hijabi Girl: A Musical Puppet Show“. This show was three years in the making, with some challenges and road blocks along the way, and a total of thirty collaborators who helped us make it happen – plus the generosity of our Patreon doners.
We had three successful performances at the Kingston Butter Factory’s new Butterbox Theatre in Kingston, QLD. While the original book’s authors, illustrator and publisher (who all flew from interstate to attend) absolutely loved this adaptation, along with the audiences of school groups and families who attended, this production took a huge toll on our mental and physical health. So, with a heavy heart and much deep discussion, we made the difficult decision to put the show to bed rather than tour with it. As a grassroots, husband and wife micro business, the scale and weight of the show was much bigger than we could cope with.
While we’re sad the show won’t be continuing, we are comfortable with the tough decision we’ve made and are grateful for the experience. We learnt a lot about ourselves and look forward to bringing audiences more puppet fun into the future whether that be for stage or screen – probably something less complex to execute next time!
We thank David Granato from Polygranate Films for coming along to the launch show and filming it, and we look forward to the filmed version existing in perpetuity online for you all to enjoy at your leisure. Keep an eye on our Larrikin Puppets YouTube channel and our other social media for the release of that video.
But the big dreams don’t stop there at Larrikin Puppets! We have some great new music and TV ideas we’re working towards. Stay tuned.
We’ve been working with a fantastic song writer, Liam McAlary from Yeah Nah on some new puppet songs. To give you an idea of the top quality song writing we’re going for in our next release, you can hear Liam’s awesome kids album “Are We There Yet?” here.
As you know, we always love the opportunity to perform puppetry on TV. Our next large project focus will be on a new TV series pilot. In the meantime, we had a great time on TV this year with three episodes of Shake Takes for Channel 10 which aired nationally, and an episode of ROPE TV for disability organisation ROPE Inc.
This year we also got to work with Aussie rock icons Regurgitator for a third time, performing our puppet show as the opening support act for their Pogogo Show performance for kids in a very packed out Princess Theatre!
Touring to regional, rural and outback communities is something else we always enjoy doing. So after a couple of years of cancelations due to COVID complications like lockdowns, road closures and illness, we finally hit the road to the “back o’ Bourke” and nearby towns Brewarrina and Lightning Ridge (all in outback NSW) to perform for local communities of indigenous kids and families, visiting schools and childcare centres, celebrating 10 years of the “Did Ya Know” Program, run by the NSW Outback Division of General Practice Ltd. And in recent weeks as we approach Christmas, we’ve brought our show to Cairns, Maryborough, Newcastle (NSW) and Montville, as well as all the usual South East Queensland locations we visit, like Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay Region, Ipswich, Logan and Gold Coast.
Elissa has even started a series of videos on TikTok called “From the Grassroots with Larrikin Puppets“, which shows some of the work and challenges behind the scenes as we venture out to a new venue or event each day. On TikTok you can find Larrikin Puppets at @larrikinpuppets, and Elissa’s behind-the-scenes account at @wide_eyed_wonderer.
A massive thank you to each and every one of you for your ongoing support of Larrikin Puppets and grassroots performing arts.
Larrikin Puppets is excited to announce the launch of Lovelace, an enchanting puppet built of electronic waste. Believed to be the first professional puppet in the world to be made of ewaste, this is Larrikin Puppets’ first major puppet construction project.
We were wanting something spectacular to add to our Environmental Sustainability Puppet Show – something that would capture the hearts and minds of older children in the audience and their families.
Elissa is passionate about sustainability and is aware of some of the troubling facts around ewaste – including the fact that most ewaste lasts forever – so the idea of an ewaste puppet was born.
We have seen art sculptures made out of ewaste and puppets made out of other types of waste, but we believe this may just be the world’s first professional puppet made out of electronic waste.
Lovelace is named after the most famous woman in technology Ada Lovelace who, born in 1815, was the world’s first computer programmer.
The puppet’s special features:
Mouth plate mechanism is a curling iron with metal mouth plates made from a computer CPU and a red circuit board tongue.
Platted hair is the insides of blue ethernet cables.
Breast plate is a monitor stand and the detail is a fan (it spins!) with a circuit board.
One leg is a rotating monitor stand.
Other leg is a video remote control and speaker bracket.
Eyes are from a computer speaker.
Neck is a computer CPU fan.
Arms are ethernet cables with computer mouse for mitten hands and an RJ45 plug for thumbs.
Green, blue and red motherboards with circuit boards for body and face.
Computer keyboard keys for cheeks.
Gold coloured metal lips from an old video player.
Blue nose is a heat sink from a motherboard.
Design
We – Brett and Elissa – worked together to research what style of puppet would best suit ewaste materials. We decided a Bunraku style of puppet would be ideal, given the likely heavy weight of the materials.
While Larrikin Puppets is accustomed to performing Muppet-style, light-weight foam and fur/fleece hand puppets where the puppeteer is hidden, Bunraku puppeteers appear on stage with their puppet – with their half-life-size dolls. However, given our passion for performing hand puppetry, we were keen to also give our puppet a moving mouth, something Bunraku puppets don’t traditionally have.
Brett drew an illustration of the puppet to highlight how we expected the puppet would move its limbs and its mouth, and where the rods might be placed.
Materials
The electronic waste was donated by ewaste recycling facility Buyequip located in Brisbane’s north.
We decided that – as wonderful as it would be for the puppet to be made entirely out of ewaste – it may need some bones and these bones may need to be made of foam. While we didn’t end up needing to use as much foam for the bones as we thought we would, we did stay true to the nature of the project and, rather than buy new foam, we sourced the foam from unwanted pool noodles and op shop kickboards.
While at the op shop on Bribie Island buying foam, we also found a curling iron in the electricals section thinking it might be a perfect mechanism for a moving mouth. The curling iron is an example of e-upcycling rather than e-waste.
We have lots of favourites when it comes to the features of this puppet, but the moving mouth is high on the list. Rather than makeshift something else, Brett insisted on using the curling iron as it was the easiest way to build a mouth plate with a moving lower jaw – something important in the world of hand puppetry. His stubbornness paid off as it’s the perfect fit.
Tools
Tools we used included a saw (to saw through plastic and metal), an angle grinder (to cut through metal), a drill (to drill holes for screws), a box cutter (to cut foam) and a glue gun. Four different glues were used depending on the material.
Ewaste facts
According to ewaste expert Brett Hyde, when it comes to materials that make up IT equipment, they break down rather than decompose.
This means that, over time, the material just splits apart into smaller and smaller pieces. None of the components are “living things”, so they never actually become one with the dirt.
So the key is making sure e-waste doesn’t end up in the natural environment, including landfill, in the first place.
How long electronic waste takes to break down:
Glass: 1-2 million years
Hard plastics: 1 million years
Aluminium: 200-500 years
Tin: 50 years
Copper: It doesn’t break down
Gold: It doesn’t break down
Palladium: It doesn’t break down
Silver: It doesn’t break down
Iron: It doesn’t break down
Zinc: It doesn’t break down
Iridium: It doesn’t break down
Book an Environmental Sustainability Puppet Show featuring Lovelace
Keen to see Lovelace up close and personal? Book an Environmental Sustainability Puppet Show featuring Lovelace! This 45 minute puppet show is suitable for children aged 5 and up and their families. Alternatively book a special 20 minute visit from Lovelace for an educational presentation about ewaste suitable for children aged 10 and up including high school and adult audiences.
Acknowledgements
Larrikin Puppets received an RADF Continue Creating 2021 Grant to help make this puppet project possible. The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Moreton Bay Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
Big thanks to:
Buyequip for donating the electronic waste.
Brett Hyde for always taking the time to educate Elissa and others about ewaste recycling.
Adrian Jenkins for lending us his workshop and tools.
We have another exciting music video collaboration announcement coming soon!
On Thursday, 29 October 2020 we had the great pleasure of meeting a group of very popular, award winning musicians and posing with our puppet characters for a photo shoot.
Our next meeting with these artists will be the filming of a crazy new music video for a song that will be a POP ANTHEM! Don’t be surprised if you start to see our characters Troggg, Flossy, Frazzamatazz and Freerange the Chicken all over the place very soon in photos and video clips associated with these VERY popular and talented acts.
Short trailer of a web series I recently had the pleasure of performing the puppet character on! Can’t wait to share the whole series with you! – Brett.
A sneaky glimpse of the brand new comedy series by Cheeky Moon, premiering in 2021.
Could this mysterious self-help organisation be a cult? Find out next year on IT’S A CULT!
Starring Christine Milo, Rhys McCane, Bronte Pearce and Sam Monaghan.
With Luisa Prosser, Daren King and Mark Grimes as the voice of Professor James Gilmour.
Written and directed by Claire Coe & Alastair Craig
Also appearing among the many splendid faces in this teaser: Amy Currie, Drew Lochrie, Rosa Sottile, Coen Gilbert, Dan Beeston, Tamara McLaughlin, Taylor Edwards and Jordan Schulte.
Directors of Photography in excerpts shown: Sean Smith / Dean Swindell / Owen Smith & David Aponas (Short Stack Productions)
Special guest puppetry by Brett Hansen of Larrikin Puppets.
Larrikin Puppets offers dynamic school incursions that align closely with the Design and Technologies curriculum. Our engaging performances and hands-on workshops are also ideal for Book Week celebrations, encouraging creativity, storytelling, and technical understanding of puppetry.
Schools across South East and Central Queensland regularly book Larrikin Puppets for our captivating puppet shows and performance workshops. Students not only enjoy the laughter and fun of the show, but also learn about puppet design, movement, and storytelling — all valuable components of the Design and Technologies curriculum.
Story Time with Larrikin Puppets
One of our popular Book Week programs is Story Time With Larrikin Puppets. Performed in schools and council libraries, this 30-minute show features interactive storytelling, songs, skits, games, and a sing-along with beloved puppet characters. Our storyteller Elissa reads books by Australian authors Hazel Edwards, Glenn Martin, and Caroline Stills, with options tailored for both early and upper primary years.
Our newly introduced sock puppet craft and performance workshops are a creative extension of the Design and Technologies curriculum. These workshops are tailored to age groups 5–8 and 9+, allowing students to explore both design and function as they craft and perform with their own puppets.
Our puppet shows are most popular with Prep to Grade 2 students, while our Design and Technologies-focused workshops are enjoyed by students across all year levels, including upper primary. We also offer these programs for Vacation Care services.
All facilitators have Blue Cards: Brett (1161011/3) and Elissa (690261/3). Larrikin Puppets holds Public Liability Insurance through Duck For Cover Entertainers Insurance. We are committed to delivering safe, educational, and enjoyable experiences for all students.
Brett and Elissa have undertaken three months of professional development in the USA, receiving advanced training from puppeteers who have worked on The Muppets and Sesame Street. This experience informs the high quality and authenticity of our work, and strengthens our commitment to the Design and Technologies learning outcomes.
Flossy and Frazzamatazz had a fun night out at Shoebox Theatre Company’s excellent production of “Avenue Q” in Toowoomba.
We ran a pre-audition puppetry workshop in September 2018, and then we returned to Toowoomba in November for a revised workshop with the chosen cast, and assisting with specific scenes they might need help with.
The September workshop made it onto Seven News!
We love Avenue Q and have trained a few different casts. If you’d like some puppetry training, contact us here:
Having trained a few casts of Avenue Q over the years we were delighted to teach some new people the skills required to bring this wonderful production to life with good puppetry. I love Avenue Q. I first saw the show when an Australian and New Zealand touring production came to QPAC in 2010. I’ve seen the off-Broadway production in New York City twice (the second time we were lucky enough to be taken on a backstage tour to meet all the puppets and have a look at the sets up close). In 2012 I auditioned for a role in the Brisbane Arts Theatre production of Avenue Q, and ended up being cast as co-puppeteer for Trekkie Monster and Nicky, as well as being the puppetry trainer for the whole puppeteer cast. My official title was ‘puppetry consultant’.
In 2014 I was asked to train a new Avenue Q cast at Brisbane Arts Theatre. New director, new cast, new production team. In 2017 I trained the Sunnybank Theatre Group production of Avenue Q.
Now in 2019, this is Toowoomba’s first local production of Avenue Q with performances taking place in February.
Elissa and I had a great time attending the show at USQ Artsworx last Friday 8 February 2019.
– Brett.
Larrikin Puppets had another busy and fulfilling year. Having celebrated five years in business at the end of 2017, we felt it was time to invest in slick new professional photos and a promo video to showcase our exciting, colourful and fun puppetry to serious clients looking for something different and memorable.
Elissa got much more involved in the puppet shows with her characters Flossy and Marina making a big impact on audiences, as well as her role as a human presenter in some segments and a story teller.
2018 saw Larrikin Puppets making a total of 135 presentations (puppet shows and/or workshops). That’s 135 sets of puppet show audiences or puppetry workshop participants smiling and laughing at the zany antics of Troggg, Frizzby, Marina, Flossy and all of their friends. With an average of 40-50 people per session, that’s a lot of smiles and laughter! Here are the specifics of where all of this puppet fun took place in 2018: – We performed 1 free charity puppet show at the Lady Cliento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane for The Starlight Foundation, who help improve the lives of seriously ill children.
– 5 performances took place at corporate functions around Brisbane and Northern NSW. One of these was a pre-movie adults only puppet show at the Brisbane premiere screening of The Jim Henson Company’s “The Happytime Murders”. Another was a Christmas In July dinner at a packed restaurant. We also performed for the staff and families of international corporation Ernst & Young – one of the world’s “big 4” accountancy firms.
– We ran our two day intensive “Island Puppetry Workshop” again on Bribie Island, and we had an even bigger class than last year – again consisting of participants from interstate (Sydney, Canberra), Central Queensland and Brisbane. We also ran some puppetry workshops for Shoebox Theatre Company’s upcoming production of “Avenue Q” in Toowoomba. This made the local Channel 7 news!
– We performed 5 theatre stage shows this year, including “Show Of Hands” – our improv comedy stage show featuring TV monitor puppetry as part of the 2018 Anywhere Theatre Festival.
– 11 puppet shows took place in retail outlets; 1 Bunnings hardware store in Maryborough and 10 shopping centre shows taking place in Gracemere (Rockhampton) and Toowoomba during school holidays.
– 14 presentations took place at libraries around Central Queensland and the Sunshine Coast. This included a couple of school holiday puppetry workshops and the launch of “Story Time with Larrikin Puppets”. Our story time puppet shows feature a story book from one of four Australian Children’s authors and were presented in libraries this year as part of Queensland’s First 5 Forever initiative. – 17 birthday party puppet shows took place all over South East Queensland. As always these shows were performed in back yards, living rooms, garages and council parks. Most were performed by myself, but Elissa joined me to perform at a few of the parties for older kids.
– We performed 23 puppet shows at public community fetes and festivals all over South East Queensland and Central Queensland. Some festivals had us in our own section of the event with performances throughout the day. Other festivals had us as a main stage act striking on and off stage between other performers. One event in particular was the Horizon Festival where we got to perform alongside several other puppeteers, including Spare Parts Puppet Theatre from Western Australia. – 24 school performances/workshops took place around Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay Region, Boyne Valley and Banana Shire, plus a special visit to the “Australian International School Hong Kong” in Kowloon, Hong Kong while we were over there visiting family. Our puppet character Frazzamatazz made the trip to entertain our two young nieces, so a couple of puppet presentations were arranged at the school they attend. – There were additional visits to schools for 9 Vacation Care/OSHC presentations. For some it was a puppet show, for others it was a puppetry workshop, and on some visits it was both, or several presentations throughout the day.
– Our most popular bookings this year were for children aged 0-5 at childcare centres and kindergartens. 27 childcare and kindy puppet shows took place this year all over Queensland. They absolutely love the puppet shows. We also performed our “Story Time With Larrikin Puppets” show at a few centres as well. I am always very grateful for any opportunity to perform puppetry on television or film, as these opportunities are very rare in Australia. This year our puppets were seen nationally on popular children’s infotainment TV show “Totally Wild”, currently celebrating 25 years on air:
A children’s fantasy-drama TV series I did some puppetry work on in late 2017 – “The Bureau of Magical Things” (by Jonathan M. Shift Productions) premiered on Australian television this year, and soon after started screening on Nickelodeon in the USA and the UK, with translated/dubbed versions premiering in many other countries. I performed a magical pogo stick:
Larrikin Puppets was a finalist business at the 2018 Moreton Bay Region Business Excellence & Innovation Awards. While we didn’t win the award in our category (Marketing Excellence) we enjoyed entertaining everybody at the gala awards presentation night with Troggg and Marina. For professional development (and fun!) we attended several events as part of “The Jim Henson Retrospectacle” in Wellington, New Zealand. Characters from The Muppets, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock came together to celebrate their innovative creator (and my inspiration) Jim Henson (1936-1990) with comedian/musician Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords member and composer of songs from the 2011 and 2014 Muppet films) and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Having met quite a few Henson puppeteers from The Muppets and Sesame Street in the USA a few years ago, we had the great pleasure of meeting some more inspirational American Henson performers at this event – Karen Prell (Red Fraggle), Matt Vogel (Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, The Count), Peter Linz (Ernie, Walter, Herry Monster), Carmen Osbahr (Rosita) and New Zealand puppeteer Jeremy Dillon (The Moe Show).
Frazzamatazz and Brett Hansen with Muppeteer Karen Prell (Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock).
Brett Hansen and Muppeteer Matt Vogel (Kermit the Frog, Lew Zealand and Floyd Pepper on The Muppets, Big Bird and The Count on Sesame Street).
Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins with Muppeteer Peter Linz (Ernie and Herry Monster from Sesame Street, Walter from The Muppets).
Elissa Jenkins and Brett Hansen with Muppeteer Carmen Osbahr (Rosita from Sesame Street).
Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins with New Zealand puppeteer Jeremy Dillon (The Moe Show).
Larrikin Puppets continues to flourish. We went on a few regional tours this year, and even upgraded to a larger vehicle! We could no longer fit everything into a small car, so now we use a van. We achieved our goal to perform more shopping centre and library shows, and continued working towards some of our much larger goals. Arts grant applications were submitted (and sadly rejected), songs and scripts were written, Skype meetings and email exchanges took place with musicians, authors and other artists we’d like to collaborate with, and new characters were introduced – including Scrambles (a nervous little red monster) and The New Baby (a cute little newborn who interrupts the show to be soothed to sleep through song and given a name by the audience).
It’s hard to know what 2019 may bring. We will continue to work towards achieving some of our really big dreams, and also see if we can reach a total of 200 performances. We won’t be taking any overseas trips in 2019 (unless we’re booked to bring our show to Singapore or the UAE like many of our peers in the children’s entertainment scene) so it means more time available to perform more shows. Our final event for 2018 is the Ipswich New Year’s Eve celebration. This was supposed to happen last year but the event was cancelled due to a large storm. Troggg is again booked to perform MC duties on stage all evening as he introduces bands, magic acts, costumed character shows and fireworks, as well as the performance of our puppet show.
Merry Christmas and thank you for all of your support. It’s been another great year!
Brett Hansen
Coming up this weekend we have a Christmas puppet show at Tewantin Community Kindergarten on Friday, Charlotte’s 3rd birthday in Cornubia on Saturday, and a corporate Christmas party on Sunday in Brisbane CBD for Queensland Police Legacy!
By Brett Hansen
