John Wright, founder of the Little Angel Theatre in Islington, created this marionette for the Puppet Centre in 1977. Born in 1906 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, he first pursued farming before turning to art in Cape Town. After travelling to England in 1935, he worked with Ballet Rambert, where a performance by Podrecca’s celebrated Piccoli marionettes inspired his lifelong commitment to puppetry. His early productions were staged at Libertas near Stellenbosch and later toured Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg. Wright and his company then travelled overland through Rhodesia and the Congo, eventually reaching England in 1946, where he established a workshop and studio theatre in Hampstead. Extensive tours followed across Europe and Southern Africa in the 1950s, during which time he collaborated with his first wife, Zoë Randall.
While touring South Africa in 1957, Wright met art student Lyndie Parker, who later joined him in England. The pair married and, in 1959, founded the Little Angel Theatre in a former temperance hall in Islington, purchased with an inheritance from Wright’s aunt. He dedicated the final three decades of his life to developing the theatre into an internationally respected centre for marionette performance, representing Britain at twenty‑five festivals. Wright remained its driving creative force until his death in March 1991.
