Sheila Clark
P U P P E T E E R & V O I C E A R T I S T
When I was asked to puppeteer on St Bear's Dolls Hospital, I had no idea I would end up playing over 20 different characters on the show!
Filmed in Copenhagen, Denmark - St Bear's was a co-production between Nordisk Film and YTV Canada (broadcast on the the children's Canadian TV channel, Treehouse).
We had Canadian puppeteers playing English characters, English puppeteers playing North Americans and Danish puppeteers performing background characters.
Here are a few of my personal favourites...
Rory the Dragon was an amazing puppet to operate - incredibly light and comfortable. In search of a pair of wings, I'm happy to say he flew on to greater things!
Poor Mole was short sighted and had trouble hearing what people were saying and yet, as soon as put on a pair of glasses, everything sounded too LOUD!
The Indian elephant and the biggest puppet in the entire series! Manipulating a puppet this size had to be done with extreme care!
An American scarecrow from the Deep South, who was gentle and friendly with everyone - even the crows !
Miss Camomile (Frank Meschkuleit) inspects another one of my characters, Sharky, with a terrible toothache.
I played 'Lefty' to Neil Stereberg's 'Righty' - a pair of monkey slipper brothers who had become seperated.
A spaceman who was afraid of heights is encouraged to take a giant leap to conquer his fears.
The Frog Prince was another fun character and a chance to try out my best Prince Charles impersonation!
Producer/Director/Writer Neil Oseman gathered together an amazing team with some of the best designers, set builders and special effects artists in the industry. Not to mention the future Sherlock Holmes!
From a low moving platform we spent four days shooting two scenes and a choreographed sword fight.
I was lucky enough to be one of the main operators of the Wooden Swordsman in a 35mm pilot for the feature film, The Dark Side of the Earth.
Set just after the turn of the 20th century, in a world where the earth has stopped spinning, the Swordsman, Isabelle (Kate Burdette) and Maximillian (Benedict Cumberbatch) discover that history has gone awry and that the world was never meant to stop.
The key to restoring the timeline lies with Chronos - Old Father Time, a powerful being who dwells on the dark side of the earth.
Beautifully crafted - and extremely heavy, the Swordsman was a sight to behold.
Presenter Richard Cadell may appear to be in deep thought, but, as Soo is just about to discover, he has managed to super-glue his fingers to his face!
We had all the necessary elements that have made Sooty so infamous... the water fights, the explosions and the custard pies!
For series 50 & 51 - Sooty's golden anniversary, I took on the role of the peace-keeping panda, Soo.
For series 7 I joined the cast of ITV's Wizadora - a show about a trainee wizard and her magical mishaps!
Although the puppets are small and simple, it was interesting to see how much expression could be achieved without lip-sync and a limited range of movement.
Soo had a fabulous wardrobe with an outfit for every occasion... and a large collection of 'My Little Ponies'!
Boris the crow - the naughty brother of Horace and tormentor of resident scrarecrow, Tatty Bogle.
Pheobe - a Scottish telephone who was the voice of reason and tried to keep Wizadora's kitchen under control and...
The human cast of Wizadora... Steven Ryde, Lizzie McPhee, Brian Murphy and Tessa Hatts.
In a world of talking socks and cloak hangers, I played two characters...
I played Ramona - a Liverpudlian rabbit (and the only girl on board!) who had a strong will and a tendency to spend too much time on her mobile phone!
For series 3 & 4, I jumped on board The Ark - a show about four animals, travelling the globe in search of the world's great religious stories.
Playing Laverne - a pink beehived Beach Byrd, I was part of a trio of backing singers who sang and spoke in close harmony.
On Zingzilla Island there was always an opportunity for a song!
Filmed at Pinewood Studios, this BBC show was set on a monkey-shaped tropical island where everyone joined in to create music magic.
The characters explored musical influences from all over the globe from rock to soul, jazz to samba, big band to orchestra.