Puppet theatre dates back to the 5th century BC, when clay marionettes were used in ancient Greek performances, telling stories of great adventures such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. A puppet is a model of a human, animal or invented creature controlled by a person called a puppeteer. The art of controlling puppets is called puppetry. Part of a tradition of folklore and storytelling, puppetry is especially important in East Asian and European culture.

Marionettes

A puppet held up with strings is known as a marionette. The puppeteer (or marionettist) can express a wide range of movement by moving strings attached to its head, arms and legs.

Marionettes were used Medieval Italy to act out Christian morality plays: stories that encouraged people to behave well. Over time, puppeteers introduced comedy into these plays, which caused them to be banned from being performed in church. By the 16th century a new type of theatre had developed called commedia dell’arte, in which actors played the same character time after time, and improvised (made up) their lines as they went along. Puppetry was perfectly suited to this type of theatre, and the performances soon became popular entertainment all over Europe for both adults and children.
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In the 1960s, marionettes were combined with electronics to create popular television science-fiction series such as Thunderbirds and Stingray. Their producers developed a technique they called “supermarionation” to make their marionette characters appear more lifelike. Electronics were built into the heads of the puppets so that their mouths could move. The puppets still had strings, but these were largely hidden from the television cameras by special light-reflecting paint.
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Hand puppets

Some of the simplest types of puppet are hand puppets. Finger puppets have no moving parts and are often used to tell stories to children. A sock puppet is larger and fits over the hand. The puppeteer’s fingers and thumb create a moving “mouth” at the top of the sock.

​​​​​​​A glove puppet is larger still, with pockets in its sides where the puppeteer’s fingers and thumb can work the puppet’s arms. The characters Sooty and Sweep in the popular 1950s British children’s TV series Sooty are examples of glove puppets.
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Live-hand puppets

Some large puppets, such as the Sesame Street puppets and Muppets, need two people to operate them. One moves the puppet’s head and one of its hands while the other person places their hand into a glove to control the puppet’s other hand. Known as “right-handing”, this job is often given to newly-trained puppeteers.

Puppets controlled in this way are known as “live-hand” puppets. They can make fine movements with their hands, such as picking up a cup, stroking their chin, or even writing with a pen.
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Rod puppets

Rod puppets are controlled by rods that attach to the puppet's head, arms and legs. They are usually only animated from the waist up, with legs either dangling or hidden out of sight. The Muppets, created by American puppeteers Jim and Jane Henson in 1955, are famous examples of these. Rods are also used to control extremely large puppets, sometimes with several puppeteers each controlling a different body part with its own rod.

Little Amal

Little Amal is a 3.5-metre (11 foot) rod puppet. It is the centrepiece of a performance art project, called The Walk, which is intended to celebrate human migration and cultural diversity. Over the course of five months in 2021, Little Amal travelled from the Syria-Turkey border across Europe to the UK. On the way, she walked and took part in events in towns and cities, playing the part of a nine-year-old Syrian refugee fleeing from war. Separated from her family, she walked across Europe to find her mother. The name Amal means "hope" in Arabic. She made a re-appearance in London during spring 2023. Artistic director of the project, Amir Nizar Zuabi, said: "I think she becomes very moving because you can see her thinking; you can see her breathing."

The puppet is controlled by at least three puppeteers: two to move the hands using rods attached to the hands, and one walking on weighted stilts inside the frame (made of cane and carbon fibre) to move the legs, head and mouth. The puppet's eyes are controlled by a small computer (which makes it a partly animatronic puppet, see below). There are actually three identical Little Amal puppets, created to enable events to go ahead at different locations at the same time.

Animatronic puppets are mechanical, robot-like puppets, controlled by humans, computers or a combination of both. Built to resemble a figure, animal or mythical beast, the puppets are used to portray characters in films and plays, or as theme park attractions. Actuators, electric motors designed to move component parts, work like muscles to create realistic movement. The figures are usually made from an internal frame encased in body shells and flexible skins, with eyes, hair etc. to make them appear lifelike.

​​​​​​​Film-makers use animatronics to create creatures that do not exist—for example, a monster or a dinosaur—or for use in action sequences that could not be shot using real people or animals. First introduced by Walt Disney in the 1964 film, Mary Poppins, which featured an animatronic bird, animatronic puppets were later used in movies such as Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park.

Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism is the art of making a puppet seem to talk. The ventriloquist speaks moving his or her own lips hardly at all, while at the same time causing the puppet’s mouth to move quite visibly. Ventriloquists’ puppets are known as “dummies”. Ventriloquism became a popular modern form of theatre in the 1880s when the British ventriloquist Fred Russell came to fame. For the next 60 years he toured the world with his popular character “Coster Joe”, who sat on his knee and appeared to talk with him.

Puppet-making

Puppets have traditionally been made from all sorts of different materials. Hand puppets and rod puppets usually need to be flexible, so they are often made from soft fabrics. Marionettes and shadow puppets, on the other hand, must be rigid so that their separate parts can be moved. For this reason they are made from wood, papier-mâché, leather or ceramic.
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Punch and Judy

Punch and Judy is a traditional puppet show popular in the United Kingdom. Using glove puppets, it tells the story of Punch, his wife Judy, their baby, a policeman and a vicious crocodile. It is a type of comedy known as slapstick, which makes audiences laugh as the characters fall over and fight one another with sticks. As the crocodile sneaks up on Punch, audiences shout out to warn him, “He’s behind you!” 
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