One of the region’s most glorious festivals – the Newcastle Puppetry Festival – returns this April.

From street carnivals, to premiere shows, to an amazing array of workshops, this year’s Newcastle Puppetry Festival – which comes to us courtesy of Moving Parts Arts – is set to be one of the real highlights of the cultural year. It all kicks off with the free Beasts on the Street parade, with giant creatures roaming down Northumberland Street on Saturday 19 April. We then get a plethora of amazing shows to enjoy. We can’t cover the whole programme here, but we’d particularly like to pick out some shows at Northern Stage that have taken our fancy including Cantos Animata, a UK premiere from the Netherlands with puppets, masks, music and movement combining to take spectators on a journey through a world of mystery and dreams. Also look out for A Million Tiny Ants (“Full of loss and unrequited love, but with a surreal and occasionally snappy humour” – the Guardian), Moving Parts Puppet Cabaret (naughty, surreal and strictly adults only…), Panta Rhei II (pictured – another UK premiere – through an almost ritualistic game of mystery, spectators are carried away into a world of magic and dreams), Freddie Hayes: Magic Lady (a huge Edinburgh Festival hit featuring gleefully silly fun in this faux magic comedy show that takes in puppetry, camp surprises, absurdism, hip-hop, and more), and The Stuff of Life (a miscellany of beleaguered kitchen paraphernalia unpack the very fabric of existence…). Among the workshops being held at the Great North Museum: Hancock, I’d advise you to check out The Heart of Story: Crafting Narrative for Puppet Theatre (does what it says on the tin), Whirl-a-Bird (design and build your own unique rod-and-wheeled table-top puppet), The Darker Side of Puppetry (taking the existing rules of puppet performance and giving them a twist, perhaps even breaking the bond between puppet and performer) and Manipulating Marionettes (aiming to raise the bar significantly for marionette performance). Grab the full programme – which features performances and workshops for adults, teens and children alike – from the website, below.

Newcastle Puppetry Festival 2025, 19-27 April, various venues, movingpartsarts.com