We have created a new internet version of the play “Robin Hood”, which we first published in 1976. This has A4 size scenery to fit our Grand Theatre and includes a full colour edition as well as a plain edition, if you like colouring yourself. There is also a new note to explain how to perform Toy Theatre plays. All free to download here.
We hope that you enjoy this.
One must admire the very welcome initiative of the British Museum to digitise and put many of its treasures on line for anyone in the world to enjoy for free. This includes quite a lot of Toy Theatre prints, including over 60 images from the great publisher William West, which would normally not be seen elsewhere.
If you visit their website and then search the catalogue, you can look at the full entries for everything to get masses of details or just tick the “images only” box.
Put in “Ralph Thomas” to get over 650 items. Many of these “items” consist of multiple sheets such as scenes for a play or in one case a collection of about 50 West combats. Ralph Thomas, a lawyer, sold his collection to the museum in 1886. It is the oldest that exists. William West was still publishing when he was a boy and his mother bought him one copy of every sheet remaining, what a mother! After West’s business folded he managed to buy a box containing the original drawings for some of the very earliest plays. Other treasures that you can actually download include the beautiful coloured scenes for “Battle of Waterloo”, “Olympic Revels”, “Aladdin” and the “Invasion of Russia” and characters for obscure plays.
In addition put in “Toy Theatre” and other items will appear in full glory including a set of Hodgson scenes for “King Richard the Third” that make an interesting comparison with the still available Green version.
We have carried out some research and discovered that Mathews, a fairly late Toy Theatre publisher, was not the person everyone thought he was! We have also discovered how his interest in the Toy Theatre developed and why he had rather strange views on who was important. Also we now know two exact addresses from where he conducted his business in Acton and another where he lived later. The note which can be downloaded here reveals all these secrets for the first time! We have revised it to include new information from Val Copley.
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.
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