Peter & Sylvia Peasgood
Peter and Syvia were a multi-talented couple who were best known within the Guild for performing traditional English toy theatre plays as well as tabletop trick figure variety acts, full of humour and highly entertaining. Peter was an artistic person and an inspiring educationalist having taught Physics, Maths and Engineering throughout his long teaching career. Also, an accomplished classical guitarist, tutoring the Spanish guitar. His love of the creative arts included marionettes, rod puppets and Toy Theatre as well as being a keen cartoonist (and many a personalised flattering caricature was sent to Guild members past and present). Sylvia was an accomplished actress having performed for the Colton Players in Leicester for over 50 years, and occasionally on local radio.
Carving & Marionettes: Passionate about puppetry from an early age, Peter joined the Guild as a teenager and carved several large marionettes. A favourite was called Pimple for which Sylvia made the clown costume, and was made in his early 20’s. Sculpting & Rod puppets: A family rod puppet show was created in the 1970’s which was performed at various venues for several years including local summer festivals, Christmas parties, WI and charity events. Peter was keen on caricature likenesses including local celebrities which led to a live radio Leicester interview as well appearing on East Midlands Television with puppet head likenesses of the daily newscasters Janet Mayo and colleagues. Other note-worthy characters included Harold Norman (a lonely newspaper vendor for which only Peter and the Leicester Mercury attended his funeral) and Don Partridge (a one -man band with a chart hit ‘Rosie’). Peter and Sylvia made a formidable live double act in numerous cabaret puppet shows with compere ‘Charles’ and Sylvia as ‘Mrs Maggs’ his sparring partner (a likeable cleaning lady). Larger one-off productions were also performed often on newly constructed stages with musical soundtracks and live narration, such as ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a dramatic version of ‘Baba Yaga’ the classic Russian folk tale.
Toy Theatre: This spanned 3 genres – classical English Toy theatre; new plays with bespoke hand drawn scenes & figures; jointed and trick figures. Peter‘s first foray into English Toy Theatre was ‘Thimble Theatre’ - hand painting sheets of characters and scenes for classics like ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, as well as writing original rhyming couplets for ‘A Harlequinade’, ‘Escape from Covent Garden’ and a new narrative for ‘Oliver Twist’. These were regularly performed at venues such as Leicester Guildhall, Newarke Houses Museum, Derby Museum, WI meetings and were often preceded by Peter sharing his vast knowledge with historical talks on Toy Theatre. He regularly wrote original scripts for paper theatre, drawing new characters and scenes for ‘The Story of Elizabeth Fry’, ‘The History of Leicester ‘and ‘Fierce Feathers’ (a Quaker play that daughter Sarah, encouraged by Peter, adapted to her stage, bringing the figures to life once more). A life’s ambition was to adapt ‘The Garden of Allah’ to the paper stage and this was premiered at the 2nd Harderwijk Festival in Holland.
European Paper Theatre: Having been a member of the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild for many decades Peter first became involved in the European Paper Theatre community when he saw a letter addressed to the Guild from Neuruppin advertising a Paper Theatre Symposium in 1995 and decided to attend with Percy Press II. At the Symposium he met Dirk Reimers who made him aware of the Preetz Paper Theatre Festival which he and Sylvia attended in 1997 (10th). They subsequently performed together at festivals in Germany, Holland and France to great acclaim. They were invited to the 15th Preetz Festival in 2002 to perform ‘Escape from Covent Garden’ and in 2008 ‘The Garden of Allah’. Peter excelled in his creativity as he became a unique expert on the design and manipulation of complex moving jointed figures operated by rods from the back and fine invisible threads. Originally inspired as a young boy by Thomas Mathews paper figures.
Mathews was a Leicester printer and only late in life did Peter discover the origin of the local firm’s printing house, a stone’s throw from where he was born. These jointed figures were originally developed as a one-off tabletop show to thank the ‘catering ladies’ at the Preetz festival in a fringe show but rapidly became an annual mainstay performing with Sylvia for many years as the evening entertainment. Always a highlight this consequently led Peter to develop the ‘Einstein’ series of short acts along with the ‘Charlady Goes to Hollywood’ and ‘Die Wunder Kabaret‘ to name but a few. These were regularly performed at various Guild meetings and annual garden parties. Peter and Sylvia contributed significantly to the Guild over the years, loyally attending Guild events such as garden parties, soup days and rarely missing a Council Meeting, AGM or Covent Garden May Fayre. Regular performers at the Buxton Puppet Festivals and organiser of many Guild puppet days at the well-attended historic Leicester Guild Hall.
Guild Responsibilities: Both were Guild Council members for decades; Sylvia was Guild secretary for many years taking over from Gordon Shapley. Sylvia was also Newsletter Editor and Peter supported with illustrative caricature cartoons and numerous articles. Peter inspired many people throughout his life, including his daughter Sarah who now makes and performs her own Paper Theatre shows WEBSITE as well as renovating & performing Peter’s shows like the Victorian Jack and the Beanstalk (finale at the Guild Centenary celebratory lunch in March 2025). Peter was an outstanding humourist and live entertainer, a passionate supporter of Traditional English Toy Theatre who was in his absolute element when drawing, creating and performing. Sylvia having decades of amateur dramatic experience and a broad range of character voices loved performing, and with her professional secretarial and organizational skills was not just the side kick to Peters unerring talents, she was the formidable strength and guiding force behind the couple’s theatrical success.
The Presidents Plate was awarded to Peter in 1996 for contributions to Toy Theatre making and performing.
In 2017 they were presented as a couple with the Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award.