Puppet Instruction, Albury Theatrette

When Denzil and family moved from Melbourne to Albury in 1964, they converted the area beneath the timber house on Monument Hill to a theatre. Lights, motorised curtains and film projection equipment from Denzil’s Melbourne theatrette were reinstalled. Featuring a child-scale stage, control room and dressing room, there was not much headroom for adults! Adjacent to this was a recording studio with Denzil’s 1949 recording console and growing collection of tape recorders.

(Home theatres were part of the family culture — when the family moved to Perth in 1966, the garage was converted into a theatre.)

This photo was one of a series done to accompany a newspaper article about the home theatre, which was a novelty in Albury in 1964.

The children in the photo are (l to r) Andrew Gluck (?), Paul Howson and Clare Howson. Paul is holding the puppets “Max and Charlie” who appeared regularly on the “Cohns Cobbers Teleclub” on AMV4.