Pollock’s is saved!

The home of English Toy Theatre, Pollock’s Toy Theatre and Toy Museum was under threat but thanks to crowdfunding it is safe once again. The appeal was to raise £15,000 to cover urgent costs but on 5th March 2021 the appeal had raised £41,568 thanks to 812 supporters in 28 days

120 years ago Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “If you love art, folly or the bright eyes of children then speed to Pollock’s” , by supporting this campaign those 812 people helped ensure that children will still have bright eyes in another 120 years!

Faust returns

We are adding another free Toy Theatre play to download. It is “Faust” which we published originally as a printed play back in 1978, although less than a hundred copies were ever sold. It is part of the repertoire of Ulrich Chmel who has performed it in venues in various cities in Austria. We hope you enjoy it, here you have both coloured and plain versions ( allowing you to colour it yourself) and also the playbook. We published the directions for performing Toy Theatre plays last year so please refer to that if you are not familiar.

faust-b-wDownload

faust-colouredDownload

faust-bookDownload

faust-playbook-coverDownload

Another new play

Here is our latest production, a Toy Theatre version of “Puss-in-Boots”. We think that this may actually be the very first entirely new English Toy Theatre play of the 21st Century, unless you know differently!

Having said that it is not entirely original, we have based the design on illustrations for a book of fairy tales published by Orlando Hodgson. He was a Toy Theatre publisher although he never published “Puss-in-Boots” as a play.

We hope that you enjoy this. You can also download our information about how to perform Toy Theatre plays on our recent “Robin Hood” post.

Puss in Boots colDownload

Puss in Boots plainDownload

Puss in Boots playbook coverDownload

Puss in Boots bookDownload

A new Toy Theatre

In 2020 the only way that you can experience a live theatrical performance with a large cast and lots of changes of scene is if you are lucky enough to have a Toy Theatre in your home. With this in mind we have produced a brand new Toy Theatre, based on traditional designs, which you can down load here. It uses A4 size scenery and can be built using materials many people will already have in their home, so it suits the present time very well.

The “Grand Theatre” also has a new booklet to help you build it. The 33 pages also include lots of special effect techniques that can be used for any Toy Theatre. If you are very clever you can set up your printer to print it as an A5 page size booklet.

STAGE FRONT

HOW TO BUILD THE GRAND THEATRE

What are Toy Theatres?

A Toy Theatre is a miniature stage, built in card or wood and brightly coloured. Children perform plays on it using characters and scenes cut out from printed sheets and text written in a simple “playbook”. The audience would normally be family and friends and the auditorium the front room. Adults too are known to use them, especially the large elaborate versions published in Germany and Denmark.

As well as being a flexible means of expression, the sheets represent a vibrant folk art derived from the full size theatre. It is a unique record of real plays and stage presentations, particularly of the nineteenth century. Many enthusiasts collect and study old sheets for this reason.