Jo is a puppet designer, maker and puppeteer. She works across stage and screen for UK and international productions.
Jo trained at the Curious School of Puppetry, The Why Not Institute, and The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama—BA (Hons) Theatre Design—where she was awarded The Phillip and Christine Carne Prize for Theatre Design, and The Paul Kimpton Prize for Innovation.
Jo’s work explores puppetry as a complete process, from concept to performance, with collaboration, exploration and playfulness at the heart of her practice. Over the past decade she has forged strong working ties with leading practitioners in the field, and has amassed an impressive body of work.
Credits include:
As puppeteer and puppet maker: Don’t Hug me I’m Scared (Channel 4/Blink Industries), puppeteer and puppet maker for Knuckles (Paramount), Transpennine Express ‘Where Next?’ advertising campaign (Brunksill and Grimes, Blink Productions, Engine Creative)
As puppeteer: The Makery (Terrific TV/Sky Kids)
As puppet designer: Peter Pan (Birmingham REP), Christmas Carol A Fairytale (Wilton's Music Hall)
As puppet co-designer: Imagining Animals (The Tower of London), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Birmingham REP)
As puppet maker: The Snowman (Birmingham REP), The BFG (RSC), The Enormous Crocodile (Regents Park Open Air), My Neighbour Totoro (Barbican, The Gillian Lynne Theatre), Spirited Away (The London Coliseum), Hey Duggee Live (Southbank Centre) Daddy music video, Coldplay (Aardman Animations), The Wolves in the Walls (Tobie Olié, Little Angel Theatre), Wie Versteckt Man Einen Elefanten? and Circus 1903 (Significant Object), The Four Seasons (Gyre and Gimble), Alice’s Adventures Underground (Les Enfants Terribles), Le Rossignol and the Puppet Monologues (Blind Summit), and Crow (Handspring UK).
As puppet supervisor: The Wizard of Oz (Birmingham REP), The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Birmingham REP), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Birmingham REP)
As puppetry director: As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe), Jacaranda (Pentabus & Theatre by the Lake).
Jo is also an experienced model maker and has assisted various theatre designers such as Francis O'Connor, Rhys Jarman and, most frequently, Jamie Vartan.
Click here to view Jo’s model making work.
