First Public Show For Lindsay Watercolours With Strings Attached

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday December 24, 2008

Steve Meacham

A PUPPET maker whose work enchanted children all over Australia knew magical writing when he saw it - and Peter Scriven's all-time favourite was The Magic Pudding, the classic children's book by Norman Lindsay that he adapted for his Tintookie puppets.

The story of the cantankerous "Cut-and-Come-Again Pudding" chased by pudding thieves was an Australian equivalent of Alice In Wonderland, he thought: a surreal and original tale with universal appeal.

In 1960, Scriven persuaded the ageing artist to collaborate with him on a version for a new medium and a new audience.

So for the last time Lindsay revisited Bill Barnacle, Sam Sawnoff, Watkin Wombat and co to produce 40 large-scale watercolours - design drawings from which the puppeteer could make his exquisite marionettes.

In February those Lindsay watercolours, plus manuscripts containing work the writer did for the stage adaptation of his book, were bought for $165,000 by the State Library of NSW from a private collector.

Now, 90 years after Lindsay wrote the book, they have gone on display for the first time, with the puppets they inspired.

Louise Anemaat, the library's children's literature specialist, says the puppet version gave Lindsay a happy ending to a story that frustrated him in 1918.

"Lindsay had been disappointed that Angus & Robertson had released The Magic Pudding as an expensive limited-edition art book. He wanted it to be a book which parents wouldn't be afraid of letting their children play with, rip up and enjoy," Anemaat says.

"Perhaps revisiting it 40 years later was his chance of bringing the fun back to the story. The puppet show was loud, boisterous and full of action. It caught the spirit of his original story."

The two-hour show took Scriven three months to construct, but it was an instant success. Its Sydney debut was at the Elizabeth Theatre in Newtown in July 1960. Its final performance was in 1988.

The original puppets were destroyed in a fire in Botany in 1969, along with 300 others belonging to Scriven's Marionette Theatre of Australia.

But Scriven hurriedly rebuilt them, again using Lindsay's drawings, for a tour of South-East Asia including Expo '70 in Japan.

The free exhibition runs until March 29 and includes rare footage of Scriven and his puppeteers doing the show.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home