The Puppet Barge has sailed back into Richmond for its annual stop on the Thames and, this year, the mobile theatre is hosting three very different shows, although as usual the marionettes will be the stars, writes Will Gore.

Movingstage Marionette Company, which usually moors its custom-built barge in Little Venice, has taken up residence near the Terrace Gardens on Richmond riverside.

And between now and October 3, puppeteers will be performing a double bill of Captain Grimey and Three Pigs and the Wolf, for three- to seven-year-olds, A Children’s Garden of Verse, for ages four and over, and Spirit, a devised show for adults and young people.

Juliet Rogers and Gren Middleton founded Movingstage in 1979 and have been performing on the barge since 1982.

Rogers, a puppeteer who trained at the Little Angel Puppet Theatre in islington, is delighted to be back in Richmond.

“It is lovely to be out on the Thames,” she says.

“We have a good mailing list to call on and Richmond is good to us – we love coming here.

“The walkway from the bridge to Petersham Meadows is very popular and people saunter by all the time, so we are well placed for visitors to drop in.”

Rogers is happy the varied programme will give an opportunity for all ages to experience the barge and she is particuarly looking forward to bringing poetry to life in A Children’s Garden of Verse.

Rogers says: “The show is based on Robert Louis-Stevenson’s book of verse for children as well as some poems by other writers.

“The poems tell stories and we visualise and animate them with marionettes, shadow puppets, lighting and music that has been written for the show.

“Poetry is a really good vehicle for puppetry – you have to make them visually interesting and beautiful.”

More straightfoward will be the ‘two for the price of one’ perfomance of Captain Grimey and Three Pigs and the Wolf – stories that Rogers says are perfect for little ones.

“Captain Grimey is the story of a grumpy old fisherman and it will teach kids about the environment, although it is not too didactic,” she adds.

“Our version of the three little pigs story is pacy with lots of chases and a scary wolf.

“The audience loves to join in and shout when the wolf is coming – there is lots of verbal participation.”

Alongside the two children’s shows, adults are also catered for with Spirit, a visually spectacular performance about contemporary life.

So what is it about puppets, and especially marionettes, that Rogers thinks captivates both the young and old?

“With marionettes, you don’t say everything, like a really good book, and the audience will come with you if you do the show well enough and all the elements work together – the puppetry, the music, the lighting.

“It allows the audience to make their own pictures.

“That is what is so powerful about them, you can really take the audience on a journey of the imagination.”

Puppet Barge, near Terrace gardens, Richmond riverside. Visit puppetbarge.com or call 020 7249 6876 for further information.