From Edinburgh to Hollywood, Purves Puppets pull strings to ensure survival
From the Festival Fringe to Hollywood blockbusters like Star Wars, the influence of one Edinburgh theatre company has long been celebrated by those in the know but now, like so many other arts organisations, the International Purves Puppets are fighting for survival.
Founded in Edinburgh’ s Gayfield Square in 1970, Purv es Puppets were once described by funnyman Ken Dodd, who had his own troupe of puppets in The Diddymen, as“Scotland’s hidden secret ”. A family affair, some 50 years on, the core of company remains the the same, husband and wife co-directors Ian and Jill Purves and daughter and coowner Victoria and son Colin.
Together they operate Scotland’s first and only fully working puppet theatre as well as having toured their work around the globe; the international tag is well deserved, the company has performed as far afield as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Jordan, Syria and Singapore, and son Colin, who made his debut in the family business aged just nine months, now works on Hollywood blockbusters such as Jurassic Park and Star Wars–in 2017, he helped bring Yoda back to the screen for The Last Jedi.
Now in their 80s, Jill and Ian met in 1968 at Edinburgh University, where Ian ran the university puppet society. At the time Jill already had experience in dressmaking and had made her first marionette puppet at night-school, Ian was performing at the Fringe, a production of The Tinderbox. When they met, Ian asked her to join the puppet group and from that moment, as romance blossomed, their paths were set. The pair married a year later and it would be in the family home in Gayfield Square that Purves Puppets was formed in 1970.
“We were semi-professional at Gay field Square ,” J ill explains. “Ian was teaching and I was a cashier, which helped build up the puppet business to go full time. My dad Fred helped to puppeteer too, something he loved to do when he was free from working as a super visor in Rosyth Dockyard. Also my mum and sisters helped with the making of the shows. Ian’s mum and dad helped too. Our first professional production was The Magical Princess, a Russian folktale, adapted by Ian.”
Later, the family would move to a cottage just outside West Calder, before one final move in 1985, to Biggar, where they started their permanent Puppet Theatre and remain to this day.
However, it was here in the Capital they first made their mark. In those early years, the company mainly performed in St George’s Church at the West End and at the Church Hill Theatre in Morningside. It was here they were spotted by an agent and quickly found themselves em barking on international tours, appearing in such exotic locations as Jordan, Damascus, and Hong Kong, where Jill had lived for three years in the 1950s – this was where she was taught dress making ,“Very useful in puppet making,” Jill nods.
She continues, "We have also been all over Scotland and the islands, looked after and fed by local families, where I picked up many recipes for my baking. We toured in a Ford Transit van or caravan when we had our young son with us."
The family’ s productions are performed in Black Light, where puppets and scenery glow like magic.