Join the NEW LARRIKIN PUPPETS FUZZY CLUB from just $1/month. NOT. EVEN. KIDDING. Here you’ll enjoy access to our Patreon-only Facebook members group where everything we’re doing gets talked about in detail. You’ll also get some bonus content for kids available only to Patreons.
Become a Patreon now:
Would you love to see quality, original puppetry performance art that supports child development? Become a Larrikin Puppets patron now at www.patreon.com/larrikinpuppets
Larrikin Puppets has experienced growth and success beyond its wildest dreams and, for that, we will be forever grateful. We love the impact we’ve made so far on children of all ages all over South-East Queensland through our live puppet shows and puppetry performance workshops.
A sustainable puppetry arts business is almost unheard of in this day and age. We get that. We also get that we’re lucky to have a thriving arts business. In fact, the harder we work at the art of puppetry, the luckier we get. 😉
But the current cast of cute, colourful characters are starting to get a bit antsy. They long for something more. They desperately want to talk, dance, sing and interact with more children – children in Australia and all over the world. They also yearn for some artistic freedom!
Making quality original puppetry performance art – puppet building, scripting, songwriting and dance choreography – that supports child development is super expensive. But with plenty of public support, we know we can do it!
Why? Because learning through reading, talking, dancing and singing is where it’s at. In fact, 90% of a child’s brain development happens in the first 5 years and, in the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second.
The experts at Harvard University say:
“…providing young children with a healthy environment in which to learn and grow is not only good for their development—economists have also shown that high-quality early childhood programs bring impressive returns on investment to the public.”
This means supporting Larrikin Puppets is not only wonderful for parents or carers with children, but for anyone who wants to see children across Australia and around the world experience high learning, behaviour and health outcomes.
Your support will give Larrikin Puppets the artistic freedom to:
– create original live shows for children with themes around multiculturalism, social inclusion, the environment and kindness/anti-bullying.
– write, film and produce an original TV series for children focusing on joy, play, love, kindness, compassion and empathy.
– write a CD of original children’s music.
– build new original puppets, sets and props.
Supporting Larrikin Puppets on Patreon will bring you and your kids joy, laughter and learning PLUS you’ll receive behind the scenes inside scoops into this crazy, colourful world of fuzzy puppets.
Together let’s talk, play, sing, dance and interact with fast paced puppet fun!
For more info about what we do, visit the Larrikin Puppets website or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Larrikin Puppets will be performing two school holiday puppet shows for the whole family at The Buderim Tavern – 81 Burnett Street, Buderim (Sunshine Coast, QLD). The first one is on Tuesday 22 January 2019 starting at 4:30pm. The second one is during the Easter school holidays on Tuesday 16 April 2019, also starting at 4:30pm.
These are a FREE family shows at Buderim Tavern!
Book a table for dinner after the show!
Ph: 5453 3777
Larrikin Puppets are bringing their colourful and exciting puppet show to the Buderim Tavern for a special school holiday performance!
Be delighted by Troggg the friendly blue monster and all of his furry, funny friends at 4:30pm before dinner! Puppeteers Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins have performed and trained in the USA with Jim Henson puppeteers from “Sesame Street” and “The Muppets”. Larrikin Puppets has appeared at events such as the Woodford Folk Festival and the Puppetry Arts Festival of Brooklyn (NYC), and on TV shows The Bureau of Magical Things and Totally Wild!
For further details, visit the Buderim Tavern official event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2220011568240765/ This is not the first event Larrikin Puppets has performed at pubs, clubs, RSLs, restaurants, hotels, resorts or halls. Larrikin Puppets has previously performed at Kawana Waters Hotel (Buddina), Tewantin-Noosa RSL, The Belvedere Hotel (Woody Point), Blue Pacific Hotel (Woorim), The Glen Hotel (Eight Mile Plains), The Gardens Club (Brisbane City), Seagulls Leagues Club (Tweed Heads), Tabatinga Tweed Heads (also at Seagulls Leagues Club), The Greek Club (South Brisbane), Casablanca Restaurant/Bar/Club (Petrie Tce, Brisbane), Paradise Resort (Surfers Paradise), Moura Kianga Hall / Kianga Memorial Hall, Paddington Community Hall, Langley Park Hall (Camira), Kruger Hall (Kallangur), Excelsior Band Hall (Maryborough), Kilcoy Memorial Hall and Cultural Centre, Burpengary Community Hall, Murarrie Progress Association Community Hall, Injune Memorial Hall, Mowbraytown Hall (East Brisbane), Wellington Point Community Hall and Rosalie Baptist Church Hall.
Larrikin Puppets has also performed in other parts of the Sunshine Coast such as Kuluin, Sippy Downs, Maroochydore and more.
We hope you can join us at the Buderim Tavern.
Troggg and his fluffy friends are off to Little Wishes Early Learning Centre Carina today to perform a fun puppet show!
We love performing at childcare centres! Book us for yours today: https://www.larrikinpuppets.com.au/childcare-and-kindies/
We had a great time yesterday watching “Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs” puppet show at Queensland Theatre of Puppetry (QTOP) starring Phil Bell (Timbarra Productions) and his young cast of puppeteers on school holidays! Joining us was Mark from The Mark Rengel Puppet Theatre Company. This was our second visit to the theatre. The Queensland Theatre of Puppetry events are held in the Gerda Pinter Pavilion at MacIntosh Island Park in Surfers Paradise. This venue is a dedicated puppet theatre, and is fully equipped with great lighting, sound, curtains, seating, and everything that makes a puppet show look the best it can be. Cost of entry was $6 cash at the door, and all of that money is donated to charity.
The theatre is not seen very well from the street so it can be a bit tricky to find. It is located in Macintosh Island Park, which is at the corner of Admiralty Drive, and the Gold Coast Hwy, Surfers Paradise.
Macintosh Island Park is a great family spot to enjoy before or after the puppet shows. It has playgrounds, shady picnic spots, barbecues, toilets and is a short stroll from Main Beach.
Here’s a photo from our first visit to QTOP in 2018: If you would like to attend any of The Queensland Theatre of Puppetry performances, please visit their official website: https://qtop.org.au/
The next big production they’ll be performing in 2019 is “Alice In Wonderland” during the Easter School holidays. You can also keep up to date with everything QTOP is doing via their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Queensland-Theatre-of-Puppetry-QTOP-182158445148404/
Kristine is turning 80! So we’re performing a very special puppet show for her and the whole clan at a private function at The Gardens Club near QUT Gardens Point in Brisbane CBD.
Having an 80th birthday or any other kind of birthday or special occasion? We perform in clubs, pubs, restaurants, halls and more.
Your 80th birthday function could be for adults only, or it could be for the whole family. When we perform puppet shows at events like this we like to incorporate a few jokes and references specifically about the person celebrating their birthday or anniversary or any kind of event.
Troggg and his fluffy friends are heading to Davy’s 4th Birthday Party today in Cleveland!
Birthday Party puppet shows have been part of the Larrikin Puppets menu of options since the beginning.
Book a puppet show for your birthday party today! Here’s how: https://www.larrikinpuppets.com.au/forkids-party-entertainment-brisbane/ One of the earliest puppet shows Brett Hansen performed was for his brother Dale’s birthday party. He made a puppet stage out of an old fridge box, curtains out of streamers, and a collection of puppet characters – Duck, Hippopotamus, Pig and Little Bird performed for the crowd.
Many years later, the first puppet show performed under the Larrikin Puppets business was for the birthday party of Jacob in Bardon. One of the parents at that show subsequently booked Larrikin Puppets for her children’s birthday party in Paddington. Almost every other birthday party puppet show since has been booked via the booking enquiry form here on the Larrikin Puppets website.
Here’s what a few folks around South Bank Parklands thought about puppets when Troggg interviewed them way back in 2013:
You would be surprised how many kids named Charlie (boys and girls) have had birthday parties since this video of a Larrikin Puppets birthday show came out. Quite a few!
Larrikin Puppets had another busy and fulfilling year. Having celebrated five years in business at the end of 2017, we felt it was time to invest in slick new professional photos and a promo video to showcase our exciting, colourful and fun puppetry to serious clients looking for something different and memorable.
Elissa got much more involved in the puppet shows with her characters Flossy and Marina making a big impact on audiences, as well as her role as a human presenter in some segments and a story teller.
2018 saw Larrikin Puppets making a total of 135 presentations (puppet shows and/or workshops). That’s 135 sets of puppet show audiences or puppetry workshop participants smiling and laughing at the zany antics of Troggg, Frizzby, Marina, Flossy and all of their friends. With an average of 40-50 people per session, that’s a lot of smiles and laughter! Here are the specifics of where all of this puppet fun took place in 2018: – We performed 1 free charity puppet show at the Lady Cliento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane for The Starlight Foundation, who help improve the lives of seriously ill children.
– 5 performances took place at corporate functions around Brisbane and Northern NSW. One of these was a pre-movie adults only puppet show at the Brisbane premiere screening of The Jim Henson Company’s “The Happytime Murders”. Another was a Christmas In July dinner at a packed restaurant. We also performed for the staff and families of international corporation Ernst & Young – one of the world’s “big 4” accountancy firms.
– We ran our two day intensive “Island Puppetry Workshop” again on Bribie Island, and we had an even bigger class than last year – again consisting of participants from interstate (Sydney, Canberra), Central Queensland and Brisbane. We also ran some puppetry workshops for Shoebox Theatre Company’s upcoming production of “Avenue Q” in Toowoomba. This made the local Channel 7 news!
– We performed 5 theatre stage shows this year, including “Show Of Hands” – our improv comedy stage show featuring TV monitor puppetry as part of the 2018 Anywhere Theatre Festival.
– 11 puppet shows took place in retail outlets; 1 Bunnings hardware store in Maryborough and 10 shopping centre shows taking place in Gracemere (Rockhampton) and Toowoomba during school holidays.
– 14 presentations took place at libraries around Central Queensland and the Sunshine Coast. This included a couple of school holiday puppetry workshops and the launch of “Story Time with Larrikin Puppets”. Our story time puppet shows feature a story book from one of four Australian Children’s authors and were presented in libraries this year as part of Queensland’s First 5 Forever initiative. – 17 birthday party puppet shows took place all over South East Queensland. As always these shows were performed in back yards, living rooms, garages and council parks. Most were performed by myself, but Elissa joined me to perform at a few of the parties for older kids.
– We performed 23 puppet shows at public community fetes and festivals all over South East Queensland and Central Queensland. Some festivals had us in our own section of the event with performances throughout the day. Other festivals had us as a main stage act striking on and off stage between other performers. One event in particular was the Horizon Festival where we got to perform alongside several other puppeteers, including Spare Parts Puppet Theatre from Western Australia. – 24 school performances/workshops took place around Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay Region, Boyne Valley and Banana Shire, plus a special visit to the “Australian International School Hong Kong” in Kowloon, Hong Kong while we were over there visiting family. Our puppet character Frazzamatazz made the trip to entertain our two young nieces, so a couple of puppet presentations were arranged at the school they attend. – There were additional visits to schools for 9 Vacation Care/OSHC presentations. For some it was a puppet show, for others it was a puppetry workshop, and on some visits it was both, or several presentations throughout the day.
– Our most popular bookings this year were for children aged 0-5 at childcare centres and kindergartens. 27 childcare and kindy puppet shows took place this year all over Queensland. They absolutely love the puppet shows. We also performed our “Story Time With Larrikin Puppets” show at a few centres as well. I am always very grateful for any opportunity to perform puppetry on television or film, as these opportunities are very rare in Australia. This year our puppets were seen nationally on popular children’s infotainment TV show “Totally Wild”, currently celebrating 25 years on air:
A children’s fantasy-drama TV series I did some puppetry work on in late 2017 – “The Bureau of Magical Things” (by Jonathan M. Shift Productions) premiered on Australian television this year, and soon after started screening on Nickelodeon in the USA and the UK, with translated/dubbed versions premiering in many other countries. I performed a magical pogo stick:
Larrikin Puppets was a finalist business at the 2018 Moreton Bay Region Business Excellence & Innovation Awards. While we didn’t win the award in our category (Marketing Excellence) we enjoyed entertaining everybody at the gala awards presentation night with Troggg and Marina. For professional development (and fun!) we attended several events as part of “The Jim Henson Retrospectacle” in Wellington, New Zealand. Characters from The Muppets, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock came together to celebrate their innovative creator (and my inspiration) Jim Henson (1936-1990) with comedian/musician Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords member and composer of songs from the 2011 and 2014 Muppet films) and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Having met quite a few Henson puppeteers from The Muppets and Sesame Street in the USA a few years ago, we had the great pleasure of meeting some more inspirational American Henson performers at this event – Karen Prell (Red Fraggle), Matt Vogel (Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, The Count), Peter Linz (Ernie, Walter, Herry Monster), Carmen Osbahr (Rosita) and New Zealand puppeteer Jeremy Dillon (The Moe Show).
Frazzamatazz and Brett Hansen with Muppeteer Karen Prell (Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock).
Brett Hansen and Muppeteer Matt Vogel (Kermit the Frog, Lew Zealand and Floyd Pepper on The Muppets, Big Bird and The Count on Sesame Street).Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins with Muppeteer Peter Linz (Ernie and Herry Monster from Sesame Street, Walter from The Muppets).Elissa Jenkins and Brett Hansen with Muppeteer Carmen Osbahr (Rosita from Sesame Street).Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins with New Zealand puppeteer Jeremy Dillon (The Moe Show).
Larrikin Puppets continues to flourish. We went on a few regional tours this year, and even upgraded to a larger vehicle! We could no longer fit everything into a small car, so now we use a van. We achieved our goal to perform more shopping centre and library shows, and continued working towards some of our much larger goals. Arts grant applications were submitted (and sadly rejected), songs and scripts were written, Skype meetings and email exchanges took place with musicians, authors and other artists we’d like to collaborate with, and new characters were introduced – including Scrambles (a nervous little red monster) and The New Baby (a cute little newborn who interrupts the show to be soothed to sleep through song and given a name by the audience).
It’s hard to know what 2019 may bring. We will continue to work towards achieving some of our really big dreams, and also see if we can reach a total of 200 performances. We won’t be taking any overseas trips in 2019 (unless we’re booked to bring our show to Singapore or the UAE like many of our peers in the children’s entertainment scene) so it means more time available to perform more shows. Our final event for 2018 is the Ipswich New Year’s Eve celebration. This was supposed to happen last year but the event was cancelled due to a large storm. Troggg is again booked to perform MC duties on stage all evening as he introduces bands, magic acts, costumed character shows and fireworks, as well as the performance of our puppet show.
Merry Christmas and thank you for all of your support. It’s been another great year!
Brett Hansen
Our very own Troggg is the event MC at this year’s Ipswich City Council New Year’s Eve celebration! Join us from 5pm for a great line up of entertainment on stage! Larrikin Puppets (puppet show), PAW Patrol (character show), Shimmer and Shine (character show), Joel Fenton (magic show), Lure (Top 40 band) and a big FIREWORKS FINALE!
Dec 31st @ Alan Cumming Park, Oval B (Len Johnson Oval) – 43 The Terrace, North Ipswich Reserve.
Brett Hansen and his gaggle of zany Larrikin Puppets characters will perform a Christmas puppet show for the kids and families at Goodstart Early Learning Carina!
We enjoy visiting Goodstart Early Learning Centres around South East Queensland. Highlights for us have included Goodstart Early Learning Moreton Downs, Currumbin, Morningside, Fortitude Valley and Beenleigh. As we are based on Bribie Island, we look forward to one day performing at our local Goodstart Early Learning Centres – Banksia Beach and Bongaree.
Most of the puppet shows we perform are at childcare centres, and we love them. We perform our general childcare variety puppet show, but we also perform a storytime puppet show, and various themed shows on subjects like the environment, healthy eating, kindness and empathy.
Here are details on how your Goodstart Early Learning Centre (or any childcare centre) can book a fun, exciting, educational and interactive puppet show from Larrikin Puppets: https://www.larrikinpuppets.com.au/childcare-and-kindies/
We’re performing our puppet show at a corporate Christmas party for Ernst & Young Australia (EY) – a multinational professional services firm, and one of the world’s “Big Four” accounting firms.
You can book Larrikin Puppets for your corporate Christmas party or for any corporate entertainment all year round!
Larrikin Puppets provide fantastic corporate Christmas and non-Christmas entertainment around South East Queensland, and interstate, with an exciting corporate puppet show.
In most cases our corporate Christmas performances are fun for the whole family, as staff bring the kids along for a family friendly event.
For regular non-Christmas corporate events we also specialise in tailoring the show to incorporate specific references to your staff, funny stories and in-jokes provided in a brief by the person booking the show. Apart from our “family friendly” shows, we can also perform a more risqué and cheeky “adults only” corporate puppet show for staff parties and dinners. The puppet show is 30 minutes of songs, games, jokes, skits and comical interaction with the audience – performed in the puppetry style of Sesame Street and The Muppets.
This is followed by a 5 minute demonstration on how the puppets work – which is always hilarious for the audience because we choose volunteers to come up and co-perform a couple of our characters! We then have a 5-10 minute meet-and-greet and photos with the puppets.
Some of our other corporate clients have included Mainfreight Australia, Centacare Brisbane, Opera Australia and Queensland Police Legacy Scheme. We also performed a corporate Christmas in July party at The Nook Cafe (Hastings Point) for TriCare – Hastings Point Retirement Community.
In April 2017, Larrikin Puppets had the great honour and privilege to perform a corporate puppet show at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) – for the cast and company of Opera Australia’s “My Fair Lady”, directed by Dame Julie Andrews. Great talent such as Charles Edwards (Downton Abbey), Anna O’Byrne, Reg Livermore, Robyn Nevin, Mark Vincent, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Deidre Rubenstein, Josh Gates and Don Winsor were among the members of our very special audience. You can read more about this event here.
Inclusions
30 minute puppet show performed by two puppeteers (Brett and Elissa).
If you would like to attend any of The Queensland Theatre of Puppetry performances, please visit their official website: 
By Brett Hansen
