If you'd love a fun monster puppet, then you're going to want to meet: 

Parker the Monster!

Parker is a brand new professional quality live-hand puppet made in England by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop. He measures approximately 22inches (56cm) tall, and has an excellent arm span of approximately 48inches (120cm) allowing real scope for expressive arm gestures. He has a 'shock pink' tummy with individually sewn in purple spots. Parker's live-hands will enable you to pick up and handle props effectively and really add an extra level of believability to your show. You can perform with Parker on your own by pinning one hand to his side, or for maximum effect perform him with an assistant. 

He's a great fun character who will really engage audiences of any age... he's a happy little monster :)

Like all the puppets made in Hellyer's Puppet Workshop Parker has been made out of great quality materials. Parker's body is made out of durable and lightweight mini-cell foam and his head is made out of durable and flexible reticulated foam. His body is covered completely in 2" pile 'shock pink' faux fur fabric with purple faux fur detailing. His head and hands are also coloured in the same way as you can see in the photos. Details on Parkers eyes are made form hand-dyed antron fleece. He is lined in polar fleece for added comfort. 

Note: This professional quality puppet has been hand made by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop for adults, it is not a toy. Hellyer's Puppets are used in many countries in shows and films to enthral and entertain. If you'd like to find out more about our puppets and how they're made search online for: "Hellyers Puppet Workshop"

We hope you love this character as much as we do - Happy Bidding!

Hi there!

Earlier this year I was asked to put together a shadow puppet show which could be part of a larger presentation. This added an interesting twist as it meant that we couldn't leave our props and stage set up... instead we had to walk everything on in full view of the audience. We received great feedback from the performance, and quite a few people were asking how it was done.... fortunately I had recorded one of the rehearsals so I have able to put together a split screen comparison video. There were two days of rehearsals between the two performances, but it gives you the idea.

Here you can see the whole live performance:


Below you can see the split screen version with "director's commentary" :)


Thanks for stopping by - I hope you found it useful.

Take care - Dave

Here's a little shadow puppet performance I put on recently... hope you like it. Take care - Dave

Google+ is kicking Facebook's Ass?!?

So I saw an article online today explaining why Google+ was "Kicking Facebook's Ass"

I couldn't help but comment on the article, which I felt overstated the case for Google+ somewhat. If you're into this sort of stuff, here was my reply:

Brilliant propaganda! I admire your optimism.

Google+ is the best example of a 'false positive' that you could hope to find! As you rightly point out in your article people are flocking to Google+ because they don't have a choice. Google is making you sign up for Google+ in order to get the most out of its other services (YouTube, Documents, Analytics etc). That doesn't create a community though!

Simply throwing 20 people in a room doesn't make a party... and simply adding (what will become if it isn't already) millions of people onto a social networking site - doesn't make it a social networking site.

The key element is the 'social'. Doubtless Google has more potential reach than Facebook or any other site, but it has a shocking track record when creating community is concerned. The original batch of YouTubers who called themselves "the YouTube community" have mostly left YouTube now as it was clear to see that Google were far more interested in making ad revenue off corporate accounts rather than foster their own community... this has opened the door for LiveVideo, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Vloggerheads and many more to provide the community element that these people wanted. Google's other ill-fated ventures into 'community' would be Google Wave and Google Buzz - both retired (despite both have frenzied launches with people clambering to get their hands on invites).

A wise man once said "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" I guess I'd like to say that Google has proven through its own chequered past that you can lead a vast quantity of people to a website, but you can't make them interact.

Take care - Dave