Operation Postage Stamp
Witchcraft, warfare and the experience of ordinary people during World War II

A collaboration between writer Rachel McGill and puppeteer Gavin Skerrit
Performed by Tim Barlow, Finn Caldwell, Caroline Partridge and Eliza Wills
click on an artists name above for biography.

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online video gallery coming soon...

The Process…

The process of combining text and puppetry is time consuming (and the more interesting and experimental it gets the more time consuming)
(Rachael McGill, writer)

A puppet can express the big and the small, the crude and the subtle. It’s through discovering the language of the object/puppet and refining it with the performer that a text can spring to life. I suppose the biggest difference is you don’t write for the puppet and the puppet doesn’t write for you. It is through working the object, text and performer that a text (verbal and visual) is discovered. In a way, I feel the project should have been set up differently and that it should have been the puppeteer who arrived with the puppets/objects and that it was through workshopping, that a text could be built.
(Gavin Skerritt, puppeteer)

I knew Rachael and I would be challenged at this point of our collaboration. How do we approach the written word and object? Do we explain all text and then make the objects reflect this? Do we give the object freedom to affect the text?
(Gavin Skerritt, puppeteer)

The director role could be a good way of tying together organisational support and artistic help.
(Rachael McGill, writer)

Once the written word is explained or a decision is made to how a sentence ought to be told (before moving the object) then the object is castrated and at the mercy of the text.
(Gavin Skerritt, puppeteer)

Only get involved in a project like this if you have the self confidence to work very openly and flexibly: you need to leave your ego behind, let go of ideas of perfectionism or wanting to control a process, be prepared to take risks and for things to go wrong
(Rachael McGill, writer)

Can the mannequins not alter text which is needed to serve them? Maybe the object has certain requirements which could alter the structure or character or the whole piece. Why must the text always lead the way?
(Gavin Skerrit, puppeteer)