Puppets with an edge

When Patrick Bristow was growing up, his nickname was Beaker. You may remember that name from The Muppet Show. Beaker was the forever startled, carrot-top assistant to the crazy scientist. Imagine how astonished Bristow was to find himself today as host and director of The Jim Henson Company’s Puppet Up!, an uncensored, adults-only spin-off of the original Muppets.

Puppet Up! Uncensored is the creation of Brian Henson, Jim Henson’s son and heir to his Muppet legacy. The iconic Muppet characters (Kermit, Miss Piggy etc) are now under copyright to Disney -“ suffice to say, subverting their folksy image is a big no, no. Brian Henson’s response has been to create a new, slightly bent show and, with that in mind, he’s hired openly gay actor Patrick Bristow as host. Ellen DeGeneres fans will know Bristow from his recurring role as Peter on the Ellen TV show. Sadly, that series ended in tears after Ellen very publicly came out.

Speaking from his home in LA, Bristow still has fond memories of the small part he played in the groundbreaking Ellen series.

I got to be a big part of the coming-out episode and that’s really one of the highlights of my career, he says. Ellen and I had a great time working with each other.

Bristow was as surprised as many of us at the savaging DeGeneres received from her candid revelations on the series. There were the obvious rants from fundamentalist religious groups who were not about to sit back and let an out lesbian parade her wares on national US television, but more surprising were the cries of dissent from the lesbian and gay community. Bristow explains.

There were a lot of people within the gay community who were very excited about it but it also had its critics there too. My feeling is that the gay community is not a monolithic unit of like-minded individuals -“ we have something in common, certainly, but we have a variety of different tastes and different ideas as to what’s appropriate and the Ellen coming-out episodes reflected that, he says.

With DeGeneres riding high after landing her 2007 Oscar gig, not to mention her new talk show, that’s all water under the bridge.

Today, Bristow’s focus is on the improvisational antics of Puppet Up. He says the show owes its success to the wave of adult animation sweeping TV screens today.

My generation (mid-40s) grew up with a plethora of puppets and animation in our living rooms, he says. By adulthood there was really nothing for us in that vein and it was just a hole waiting to be filled. I think that our show is definitely filling that void.

Salsa-dancing sausages, weird animals with distinctly human characteristics, crotchety old men and women -“ clearly there is some nostalgic familiarity at play in the appeal of Puppet Up! but it also seems indicative of the sophistication of contemporary adult audiences who, increasingly, want the complete package. Brian Henson’s puppet show with saucy content and puppeteers in full audience view seems to deliver that.

Bristow says the Puppet Up!show owes its success to an improvisational approach. Each night the audience suggests storylines and characters and the show develops from there.

In fact, I won’t take suggestions that I’ve had before, he says, emphasising the point. When improvisers have tricks in their hip pockets, the best stuff doesn’t happen. As many shows as we’ve done -“ I think it’s approaching 50 performances now -“ we all still get really nervous because we know anything can happen.

Back to the original Muppets, Bristow also owns up to being a big fan of Miss Piggy. In his own words, That’s probably a gay thing.

She kinda falls into the drag queen category, he confesses. Just really fun, over the top, probably not the prettiest creature in the world but thinks she is -“ that’s a very attractive quality.

Puppet Up! Uncensored can be seen at the Big Laugh Comedy Festival in Sydney on 21-22 March at the Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, Bookings: www.ticketmaster.com.au.