The family that pulls strings

A long time ago, in a land far away, there was a little girl who made puppets. "I made them myself," recalls Lyndie Wright. "I filled my mother's oven with papier-mache." One day, a touring puppet company came through Pretoria, in South Africa, where the little girl lived. She went to a show and was spellbound. "There is a picture in the archives somewhere, showing me in the audience," she says.
Years later, the puppet company came back. By now, Lyndie was a student at art school, but she joined up to be general dogsbody and went touring through South Africa and neighbouring countries. The man who ran the theatre, John Wright, was older than her, but they fell in love. When Lyndie moved to London to study at the Central School of Art, John came too.
In a back alley in Islington, they found a ruined temperance hall. There was no roof and trees were growing in the main space. They decided to buy it and set up a permanent puppet theatre. They offered £750, John's inheritance from an aunt, and for this sum they were given the hall and a tiny adjacent cottage.
That was 50 years ago. Today, the Little Angel Theatre is known as the home of British puppetry, with an extraordinary reputation for developing talent. Patrons include Judi Dench, Simon Rattle and the author Michael Rosen. To mark the anniversary, the theatre is putting on a version of The Tempest in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The show has just opened in Stratford before coming home to the tiny north- READ MORE