On the Verge: The Wonderful World of Walter Wilkinson

The Wondeful World of Walter Wilkinson, Wanderer, Writer and Puppeteer. A biography by Alison Henesey. Readers will discover a great deal to enthral them about the benefits of leading a simpler life – a life closer to nature that involved wandering around the UK and America with The Old Encumbrance. This Encumberance was both a portable theatre fit-up in the cloth-and-frame tradition and a convenient shelter against bad weather. It brings to mind that many of the indigenous North American Indians believed that everything necessary for life should be capable of being carried on the back of a horse. Of course, it’s easier to do that when you’re young and fancy-free. Equally there is much to be learned now by aspiring artists and puppeteers from Walter’s self-reliance and creative independence since he made everything himself – puppets and stock characters, stories, costumes, props and scenery. In Part One of the book we encounter his brother Arthur, the painter, and their preliminary experiments with puppets, visual art and music; the Gair-Wilkinson Marionnettes; and the sojourn in Italy as the next door neighbour of D.H. and Frieda Lawrence together with the visits of Edward Gordon Craig to their villa in Florence and their return visits to his School of Theatre. (1910-1914). The Wilkinson family did not come from an artistic family but they were full of artistic talent. The wanderer in Walter emerged fully when he left the family and struck out on his own to walk back to England via Spezia, the Lakes, Switzerland and France – a journey that took some five months before the First World War. He said “Tramping is undoubtedly my vocation.” He did all this without an Arts Council grant. The spirit of freedom and adventure undoubtedly lay deep inside Walter. He grew up with strong leanings towards socialism and became a committed pacificist. It’s worth bearing in mind that he held these views long before the founding of UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionnette) in 1929. In response to the devastation and loss of life caused by war this organisation has united puppeteers around the world ever since around its founding principle of promoting international peace, friendship and understanding between nations. Alas, nearly one hundred years later, the external circumstances continue to perpetuate the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and to maintain, poverty, inequality, migration and a permanent war arms economy! Walter was only too familiar with this contradiction and his wife, Winifred, later wrote a wonderful book with the title “God in Hell”. Walter studied the itinerant puppet and mask traditions while in Italy including commedia dell’arte; and in addition to making himself he started to create his own characters for “The Peep Show”(1927). His hand puppets were stock characters that included Barleycorn, Old Martha, Uncle Joe, The Reverend Mr Black, The Devil, Pretty Sally, Cheeky Pipi and The Monkey. More than this, he set them in circumstances of his own choosing to being delight and enjoyment to people of all ages and all social classes. Needless to say, this took a lot of imagination and a lot of hard work, courage and endeavour.In Part Two the author adeptly analyses his character, his philosophy, the social context and his puppets in more detail. Drawing upon previously unpublished material from family archives, Alison brings together for the first time primary source materials, selected newspaper clippings and periodicals, secondary sources and website references. This level of detail and careful scholarship fills an important gap in our understanding of why one twentienth century puppet pioneer tried to live on the verge and on the margin and described himself as a “holidayist”. Walter’s critique of contemporary society then remains valid now: In “The Peep-Show” he wrote:This world might be quite a nice place if only simple people would be content to be simple and be proud of it; if only they would turn their backs on those pompous politicians and ridiculous Captains of Industry, who, when you come to examine them, turn out to be very stupid, ignorant people, who are simply suffering from an unhappy mania of greediness, who are possessed with perverse and horrible devils which make them stick up smoky factories in glorious Alpine villages, or spoil simple country by digging up and exploiting its decently buried mineral resources; or whose moral philosophy is so patently upside down when they attempt to persuade us that quarrelling, and fighting, and wars, or that these ridiculous accumulations of wealth are the most important, instead of the most desirable things in life.