As we look back on 2025, we’re feeling exhausted, but also grateful, and a little bit amazed by just how much we’ve done this year.
One of the biggest focuses of our year has been screen work. Early in the year, we spent a significant amount of time at Pluggas Studio on the Sunshine Coast filming the pilot for our children’s TV series “Yompers“.
Yompers follows the social lives of children who attend a whimsical, multi-species vacation care run by four wise, but hilarious Yompers who bring insight, peace, love and laughter. It takes a Yomper to raise a community. Featuring 20+ puppet characters per episode, human actors include children in vacation care and the teenage and young adult assistants who help run things – the Yomper “Helping Hands”.
And as part of Yompers, we were excited and honoured to once again collaborate with members of iconic Australian band Regurgitator, with Ben Ely voicing the Snowball, Quan Yeomans voicing Slate the Cat, and the band also recording the theme song for the series. Brett’s brother Todd Hansen along with his King Parrot bandmate Andrew Squiz Squires also recorded the music for the puppet band segment of the show, with vocals by Madeleine York.
Throughout the year we held meetings about Yompers with producers, investors and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, and we now have a trailer being shown to networks and industry decision makers. We are hopeful that Yompers will continue to move forward toward a full season, whether in Australia or overseas.
We also performed the puppetry for the new educational kids TV series “Nature Knows”, which was filmed at Pluggas Studio. The federally funded series is all about blue carbon and how caring for our wetlands can help curb climate change and protect our biodiversity. The puppets were beautifully built by Katherine Hannaford.
Additional video projects this year included work on new videos for Miss Nicky Says, the Leave Stress at Home road safety campaign starring Scrambles as a stress monster, and continued growth of our YouTube channel’s nursery rhyme videos. While live performance often takes priority, filmed content remains a key part of our creative future and we are excited to return to creating more video content in the year ahead.
We were proud to receive several grants in 2025 supporting both our creative and business development. Elissa was awarded two RADF grants from the City of Moreton Bay and Arts Queensland, including a Creative Cities Grant to co-produce and co-direct our next large-scale theatre production, “Zietta and the Little Larrikins: A Celebration of Culture, Connection & Creativity”, and a Continue Creating Grant supporting early scriptwriting and set development for the same work. These grants supported puppet-building, set design, music production, filming, and the launch of this original children’s puppet theatre project for ages 5–9 and their families. Brett was also awarded a Business Basics Grant from the Department of Small and Family Business to develop “Little Larrikins Learning”, a video streaming educational platform delivering puppet-led HASS content for children aged 4–9. Together, this support enabled us to grow both our artistic practice and our educational reach. A big thank you to City of Moreton Bay, Arts Queensland and Queensland Government for their support.
This year saw the launch of our brand new podcast, “Little Larrikins Podcast“. Episode 1 is now available, with Episode 2 currently in the editing stage. It’s a zany, fast-paced, feel-good listen for kids, families, homeschoolers, and classrooms! Each episode bursts with music, jokes, learning, and puppet fun while shining a light on the world of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS).
We’re also excited to share that Elissa has written a children’s book based on our ocean-themed puppet show “Marina’s Marine Adventure“. With beautiful illustrations by Jannata Dea, the new book will launch in the new year.
In November, Elissa and Brett were flown to Sydney to speak at the 40th Anniversary Conference of NEIS and Self-Employment Assistance at the ParkRoyal Darling Harbour. We were honoured to deliver the keynote speech at the gala dinner, with Brett, Elissa, Troggg and Marina all part of the presentation. It was a joyful night filled with laughter, warm reactions and plenty of photos with the puppets.
Our presentation explored the beginnings of Larrikin Puppets through the NEIS program 13 years ago, highlights from our live shows, moments from our screen work and a preview of Yompers.
Touring highlights throughout the year included:
- A massive Queensland Outback tour of performances in Miles, Roma, Mitchell, Charleville, Wyandra, Winton and Barcaldine.
- A week of shopping centre shows in Orange, NSW.
- A week based in Toowoomba, delivering OSHC performances and workshops across Toowoomba and Dalby.
- Returning to the Snowflakes in Stanthorpe Festival, where the nicest audiences attended our puppet show, often multiple times across the three days of performances. We also got to meet and spend time with childhood hero Eric Summons, who famously starred in 1980s children’s TV shows Boris’ Breakfast Club (as Boris), Seven’s Super Saturday Show (with Agro) and Wombat (also with Agro).
We performed at a wide range of pubs, clubs and RSLs, including Tewantin Noosa RSL, The Junction Hotel Annerley, The Koala Tavern Capalaba, Alexandra Hills Hotel, and North Lakes Sports Club.
We also enjoyed performing “All Together Now: A Celebration of Cultural Diversity” as part of the Anywhere Theatre Festival, with huge thanks to City of Moreton Bay for curating these sessions, and “Marina’s Marine Adventure” at many libraries across South East Queensland.
Our bread and butter continues to be live performances in schools and childcare centres, and this year we reached several milestones by performing for clients who have booked us for ten consecutive years.
This year we also made time for professional development, from a marionette session with Neil Fainges to Elissa taking part in a shadow puppetry workshop with Catherine O’Neill from Little Big World Puppet Company, along with catch-ups with legendary puppeteer Dennis Murphy in Toowoomba.
Our annual Christmas season began in late November with performances at schools, OSHC programs, childcare Christmas parties and evening carols events. We rounded out the year in our home community of Bribie Island, presenting both daytime and evening performances at the Bribie Community Hall in Woorim, shared with the wonderful Rosanna Valentina (Magic Moments in Oz) and Monty the Magical Dragon (played by Greg Jones), making it a joyful and meaningful way to close the year.
In 2026 we look forward to officially launching Zietta and the Little Larrikins at the Redcliffe Entertainment Centre in May, and appearing at the 2026 Melbourne International Comedy Festival in April, as part of the children’s program, performing a new and extended version of our crowd-pleasing, award-winning Kids Comedy Puppet Show across 16 performances at Kindred Studios in South Yarra. Tickets are already selling well, and we can’t wait to bring our puppets to Melbourne audiences for the first time as part of this prestigious festival. We’ll also be releasing more episodes of Little Larrikins Podcast, rolling out our new video streaming service Little Larrikins Learning, and continuing progress on Yompers.
Thank you for supporting Larrikin Puppets throughout 2025. We could not do this without you.
We wish you a very Happy New Year!
Larrikin Puppets’ Artistic Director Elissa Jenkins said creating a puppet show for a children’s audience based on a book full of cultural sensitivities required concerted research and development: new puppet builds, custom stage sets, converted scripts and original songs.
Children’s librarian and co-author Ozge Alkan, a Muslim Australian who herself wears a hijab, said one of the reasons she wanted Hijabi Girl out there was because it tells the story of a girl who dresses differently to everyone else, and is totally fine with who she is.
