Steve Lewis
(itZaPuPPet)
Steve Lewis is a British puppet builder based in Buckinghamshire. Steve’s journey started in 1984 at the age of just 14 when the circus came to town. His love for magic and comedy made Steve a regular visitor of the show but unfortunately high winds caused major damage to the Big Top bringing the show to a halt. The circus owner welcomed local volunteers to help with repairs as the show had to go on. Steve grasped the opportunity and missed a few days from school to help with the repairs and became great friends with the clowns.
When repairs were done the circus agreed to let Steve make his debut in the circus ring with the clowns which was much loved by his hometown audience. You hear the story when someone run away with the circus, well Steve now had the performing bug and was genuinely that story. For the next 6 months he toured with the circus until it was time for the show to head to its winter quarters when Steve returned home and contacted his local Children’s Entertainment Company looking for work.
He went on to perform at many events, parties, fetes and fundays introducing stilt walking, Magic, puppets and so on. Just a few years later after working with some major corporate clients and including royalty, Steve was booked for a summer season at the famous Surrey Theme Park which continued for many years performing daily magic shows in the Dome Theatre, puppets in the rangers’ theatres and greeting park guests in character costumes.
Just recently after a change of circumstances and at the start of lockdown, Steve found himself repairing an old favourite puppet from years ago but ended up remaking the whole thing, he thoroughly enjoyed this process and joined a few groups, met a few professional puppet builders and a newfound hobby was born. With so many wonderful puppets all over the social media platforms it was very difficult to find original puppets that would stand out, Steve also discovered that there were not many people in the Uk making puppets that look like people.
After many attempts at his comic icons, he finally established a method to find the likenesses that resembled the people he was working on. Steve soon made the cast of the iconic Only Fools and Horses which was recently featured in the puppet master publication. Steve decided to use the puppets to recreate the iconic moments from the famous sitcom and found a three-wheel van then filmed the puppets all over London which can now be found on his YouTube channel. One lookalike puppet build led to another and his business ItZaPuPPet began.
It wasn’t long before celebrities were in touch with Steve asking for their own lookalike puppets even appearing on the ITV family diaries show where Steve built a family of six puppets for a surprise TV performance. He has also supplied a few puppets to world famous ventriloquists and theatre shows. Steve says it’s absolutely bonkers but a fun business to be in and it’s so exciting to see who is watching your work and even more exciting to see who you’re going to be asked to build next. Now specialising in lookalike puppets, you can find Steve on all the social platforms by clicking here.