“He is a right diva, and expensive,” says director Ben Pettitt-Wade. “To have one character in a show that requires the wages of three just to say his lines is frankly crippling. I’m surprised any venue has booked us on the fees we have to charge just to break even.”
Meet Fred is a logistical nightmare. The demanding lead actor is a two-foot-tall construct of cloth and foam. He complains constantly, requires a trio of operators merely to walk across a stage, and his entire existence hinges on the precarious retention of a ‘Puppetry Living Allowance’.
This is the unique premise driving the tenth-anniversary tour of the hit co-production from Welsh theatre company Hijinx and puppetry specialists Blind Summit. The current UK run is an exhaustive, 34-venue marathon spanning five months. Stretching from the Bristol Old Vic to the Nottingham Puppet Festival, and weaving through regional powerhouses like York Theatre Royal down into the local arts centres of Wales, it is a punishing schedule for a human cast, let alone a world-worn prop.
Austerity, Bureaucracy, and the Puppetry Living Allowance
The show operates as a blunt instrument wrapped in bleak comedy. Fred wants an ordinary life: a job, a girlfriend, a pint. But as state support evaporates, he physically and socially disintegrates. Ten years on from its premiere, the political bite of the production remains horribly relevant. The ‘Puppetry Living Allowance’ is not a surrealist gag. It is a direct parallel to the UK’s aggressively complex disability benefits system.
Hijinx devises its work exclusively with learning disabled and autistic performers. The actors operating Fred and sharing his stage navigate these exact bureaucratic hurdles in reality, giving the satire inherent authenticity.
“He is a right diva, and expensive,” says director Ben Pettitt-Wade. “To have one character in a show that requires the wages of three just to say his lines is frankly crippling. I’m surprised any venue has booked us on the fees we have to charge just to break even.”
“The joke was always dark, and was directly influenced by experiences our artists were going through while we made the show,” Pettitt-Wade explains. Returning to the material a decade later brought a grim sense of déjà vu. “We decided to bring the show back for this tour exactly because the situation right now was starting to feel very similar to back in 2016. In reality, though there have been changes in 10 years, little has improved, and once again, when the economy is down, the feels like the first to feel the brunt of that in terms of cuts is all to often those on disability benefits.”
Conversely, while Fred loses his autonomy, the human beings manipulating him have gained it. Original cast member Lindsay Spellman has spent ten years dragging the demanding cloth protagonist around the globe.
“Being part of Meet Fred has changed me a lot as a performer and as a person,” Spellman notes. “When I started, I didn’t have the same confidence I do now. Touring for so long has taught me so many skills — performing in different places, meeting new people, getting paid and managing that money, learning to travel and work as a team. I’ve grown so much, and I don’t think I’d have found that anywhere else.”
The Mechanics of a Hive Mind
Bunraku-style puppetry demands extreme synergy. Three performers must synchronise breathing, movement, and intent to create a singular organism. The obvious question is how a three-brained entity negotiates who gets to indulge Fred’s worst impulses on any given night.
“I guess it depends on what types of impulses we’re talking about,” Pettitt-Wade says. “The back and arm guy can certainly take some responsibility for some more questionable action around the hip area, and sometimes they seem to enjoy that a little too much.”
When the mechanics click, the operators disappear. “But really, it is a bit of an existential question – are the impulse coming from Fred or from his puppeteers? Really, when it’s all working, it should feel like those impulses are truly of Fred, rather than any one individual puppeteer.”
Fred’s prickly personality was never drawn up on a whiteboard. He emerged entirely from collaborative chaos.
“Fred took shape entirely from improvisations with the puppets and the cast, often with different people stepping in to be on the head and therefore give him his voice,” Pettitt-Wade recalls. A blank slate naturally defaults to relentless interrogation. “We worked on the premise that everything was new to Fred, so his natural inclination was always to ask questions in a way that perhaps we are not usually able to – which maybe can be read as being a little prickly.”
Accidental Punchlines on the Global Stage
That aggressive curiosity obviously translates seamlessly. Hijinx has hauled Fred through more than twenty countries, proving that fighting a Kafkaesque system requires zero translation.
“Sometimes the system is different, but certainly the Kafkaesque nature of that system and a fight against a it is universal,” Pettitt-Wade says. Global touring does, however, throw up regional eccentricities. The show features the Director—a spectacularly unpleasant character manipulating Fred’s reality—who wears a green baseball cap. “Apparently in China, if a man is wearing a green hat it means someone is sleeping with his wife, so this added an extra layer of hilarity for that audience which we would have never known about.”
Grime, Sweat, and Existential Dread
A decade of transit, bureaucratic stand-offs, and sheer physical exertion destroys materials. Fred is well past his warranty. Keeping him stage-ready is an endless battle against decay.
“Ah, don’t even get me started. He’s probably more patch than original puppet now,” Pettitt-Wade groans. Operating him is distinctly unglamorous. “If you ever get a chance to take a look at his back end, it is disgusting. It seems puppeteers sweat pure black grime. We don’t use gloves for the puppeteers in the show; maybe that is where we went wrong.”
Attempts to retire the original puppet failed. The company commissioned an exact replica, hoping to swap it out for the anniversary run. It lacked the lived-in fluidity of the real thing. “We tried using it in rehearsals for this tour, but it just didn’t have the same flow as Fred. And maybe it just didn’t feel right – somehow there is a little bit of Fred’s soul in that grimy bit of cloth.”
“Ah don’t even get me started. He’s probably more patch than original puppet now,” Pettitt-Wade groans. Operating him is distinctly unglamorous. “If you ever get a chance to take a look at his back end, it is disgusting. It seems puppeteers sweat pure black grime. We don’t use gloves for the puppeteers in the show, maybe that is where we went wrong.”
Pettitt-Wade extends zero sympathy towards his lead actor once the house lights come up.
“Guilt? Never. He is the bane of my life. If I have to listen to him whinging on about being kept in a box one more time…”
He is equally dismissive of Fred’s fantasy of a normal, compliant life free of conflict. “I think he might be one of those people who needs something to fight against, it’s so tied up with his identity. I can’t see him living out his days in the suburbs somewhere, like that guy at the end of Goodfellas.”
The central irony of Fred’s existence drives the production. He despises the theatrical machine but is entirely dependent upon it. Without the tour, he ceases to exist. He exhibits no gratitude.
“Not once has he said thanks,” Pettitt-Wade says. “He doesn’t seem to understand that the only reason he exists is because of the show, without it he wouldn’t even be here. But is he thankful? Never. He is just so ungrateful.”
In the end, though, Ben knows Fred is a prop, or at least it seems that way…
“But also, he is just a puppet. Ultimately, he doesn’t get to live in the real world, no matter how much he wants to. He literally only exists to serve the purpose of telling a story for the audience – so it would take some miracle, maybe one where we all become puppets in this world.”
So when you pop along to Meet Fred in the coming months, you can rest easy, just as long as you don’t feel the pull of strings on your elbows, or a suspicious hand creeping up behind you…
Featured Image: _Llŷr Williams (R), Jennie Rawling (C) and Nick Halliwell (R) with puppet Fred in Meet Fred (c) Kirsten McTernan
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