Gulliver Midwater, co-founder of the Puppet Boat, passed away on Monday 21st September.
Adventurer, filmmaker, dreamer. That's how he'll be described, and for once the obituary shorthand is accurate. Most people who dream about putting a puppet theatre on the water leave it at the dreaming. He went and did it.
I wrote about the boat back in entry three. It's still one of the strangest and best ideas this industry has ever produced: a floating stage, moored up and bobbing gently while marionettes do their thing inside. It shouldn't work. It does.
He's the third this year. First Monty. Then Bea. Now Gulliver.
It's a small world, puppetry. Small enough that you notice when the people who built it start leaving, and small enough that there aren't many waiting in the wings to take their place.
The ones who made it their whole lives are going. The rest of us are still working out whether it's a hobby.
Fair winds, Gulliver.