Accordionist marionette, by Waldo Lanchester

Description:Marionette of a female accordionist, with a painted face and short black hair, holding an accordion. She wears a striped blue dress, a ring on her finger and yellow flowers in her hair.

Waldo Lanchester (1897-1978) was at the forefront of the British revival in popularity of the string puppet and was a leading player in the formative years of the British Puppet & Model Theatre Guild, which remains Britain's leading Puppetry Organisation.

With colleague Harry Whanslaw, Waldo established the London Marionette Theatre in Hammersmith in 1927 - the first puppets anywhere in the world to appear on television.

Assisted by his wife, Muriel, he went on to run the Lanchester Marionette Theatre, based in Malvern, from 1936 to 1949 including a prestigious appearance at Buckingham Palace in 1938. For the 1949 Malvern Festival, George Bernard Shaw wrote the play "Shakes v Shav" specially for the Lanchester Marionettes and the Company's repertoire also included Opera, Ballet, Plays and a Grand Puppet Circus.

This marionette forms part of the Hayward Puppet Collection, now part of the Staffordshire County Museum collection.