Creative Writing with Marcus Clarke. With Puppets and Digital Screens. Talks, Lectures and One day Workshops for HE and Community Groups contact Marcus's Nottinghamshire Short Sories page
Why and what I write.
I started creative Writing as a Puppeteer. Through necessity. I held my Puppet up in the air and it needing to say something to the Camera. Usually on a small TV Show and for a small TV Channel. Mostly with another Puppet or a Human presenter at my side. Sometimes live on Air, but mostly recorded, as live. Usually I needed to say something about a topic, it's hot. I've never tasted Chocolate before, or similar. Sometimes I needed to talk about an object or a TV programme that we were about to introduce. Sometimes we needed to talk about it for 30 seconds, for one minute, three minutes, five or more . Often to create eighty or more of these Links or Comedy Sketches a day. So I would give my Puppet a very strong character and let everything it said be its own take on things. The thoughts, words and ideas came easily using this character led approach. With several Puppet characters I would direct the character separation. Keeping them all poles apart and contrive a story with a beginning middle and an end. Of sorts. I was often lucky enough to work with and learn from some of the Countries best Presenting and other creative Talent. Tommy Boyd and Brian Cant. Robson Green and Al Murray. Anthony Minghella and Alex Williams. Small Shows, Cable and Children's Channels were a great place to learn. Because you had to generate so much material and so often. A bit like Hamburg was to the Beatles I often thought. Today we have the Internet and YouTube and a great way to put words into characters mouths and on to Digital Screens all over the World is to use Puppets. To write for them, perform them, record them and upload them. This one day Workshop with Marcus Clarke shows you how. Marcus Clarke 2008
Reference
Marcus Clarke is a gifted pupeteer and entertainer. He took my students through a whole new set of ideas about where stories come from, and how to create a sense of reality. His take is a refreshing break with conventional modes of teaching people to write. Farah Mendlesohn Middlesex University
Short Biography
Marcus Clarke is an actor, puppeteer and writer who has also been BAFTA nominated for his script editing work. Clarke's company, Hands Up Puppets, has been involved with more than fifty children's TV series, including the currently airing SMarteenies and Tickle, Patch and Friends, Bookaboo with Clarke often working as both a writer and performer. In 2006, Clarke performed in the Jim Henson Company's improv puppet stage show, Puppet Up! He also wrote and performed 'Marcus Clarke is the Puppet Maker' an Adult Comedy Stand Up Show for the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe. It experimented with incorporating Puppets into conventional Stand Up Comedy to create a combined novelty, cod ventriloquist Stand up Act