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“No one wakes up in the morning and thinks ‘gee I’ll be a ventriloquist when I grow up’... Fuck no!” This is probably true, but it's surprising to hear from David Strassman, arguably the world’s most famous ventriloquist. But then Strassman isn’t any normal puppeteer. Like his dummy Chuck Wood, who longs to be a real boy, Strassman longs to be seen as a real theatre practitioner: “To the world I’m a ventriloquist. But I’ve taken this art form and moved it out of music hall and into proscenium arch theatres.”

From his humble beginnings as a street busker, Strassman now regularly sells out stadium theatres on international tours with his unique line in theatrical ventriloquism. His latest DVD went triple platinum in Australia and he was the first ventriloquist in 25 years to have a solo show in the West End. Celebrated as the guy who made ventriloquism ‘hip’, Strassman has been an Edinburgh festival regular for over ten years, delighting people with his brand of filthy, high-speed comedy and gang of colourful puppets. Contemptuous of colleagues who are simply there to impress with their technical skill, Strassman spends hours honing and creating unique characters for his dummies, with back stories and personalities that are as complex as any human's; “[The puppets] have the same hopes, dreams, fears and neuroses that you would have in a play… my background was in theatre so in all my work you find the same elements you would find in a stage play.”

His 2010 festival show, Duality, has been placed firmly in the theatre section of the Fringe brochure. A psychological study that looks at the relationship between ventriloquist and dummy, it appears to be moving away from his straightforward trademark comedy and into a decidedly more serious vein. “Duality is pretty intense… I always knew I wanted to do a grand drama. No one’s ever done it in the history of ventriloquism.”

Set in a psychiatrist’s waiting room, the show examines a mentally ill ventriloquist and his puppet debating one another's existence. “The conversations go from philosophy to religion, from war to duality from the inner voice to psychoanalysis.” As we see the ventriloquist considering suicide, the puppet realises that to survive he must convince the man not to go through with it.  It all sounds rather fantastical, but Strassman is keen to underline that this is a drama based in reality. “The puppet wants to live, but there are no supernatural hints; it’s just a sick guy who has developed a puppet-personality”.  

As I quietly wonder if he has developed such a personality, he smirks. “My puppets don’t exist unless I’m rehearsing or in a show. Off-stage they are professional equipment.” And they are fancy equipment at that; in the late '80s Strassman’s puppets began to move for themselves – sort of. A self-professed model airplane geek, it was still Strassman pulling the strings, but doing so by putting the radio controlled robotics of the planes into his puppets he succeeded in giving them the appearance of complete autonomy. Regardless, Strassman doesn’t to impress us merely with cheap conjuring tricks: “I hope people won’t go ‘oh it’s so clever’, but see the story and plot. The theatrical movement is only there to augment their realities – it’s the icing on the cake.”

This utopian vision for ventriloquist theatre is perhaps not so far away as it may appear. Everywhere one looks, puppetry is being brought into the theatrical limelight. But it hasn’t always been an easy transition. As Lyn Gardner rather wryly wrote in 2005, there is nothing in British theatre more likely to fill critics and audiences with despair than a show involving puppetry. But in the light of hits such as War Horse and Avenue Q, could it be that this artform is finally being looked upon more kindly?

Experimental theatre practitioner Mick Gordon has utilised puppetry in his psychologically probing ‘On Theatre’ series, asking, “Are we just the puppets of our emotions? This question led us to the puppeteers Blind Summit and the central metaphor of puppetry which dominates the performance.” Bringing puppetry even closer to the mainstream are Cornish over-achievers Kneehigh Theatre Company, who play with the artform in order to realise their special brand of theatrical folklore in shows such as Rapunzel and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Puppets, it seems, are now not only tolerated but actively admired as instruments with which to tell stories within ‘straight’ theatre.

Anton Adasinsky from the avant-garde Russian clowning troupe Derevo believes that puppetry has inspired all of their work. “From the very beginning Derevo were trying to reach the same freedom in motion as a puppet has. It was not an imitation of a marionette; instead, it was indeed the perfect skill in handling of the bodies, balance, co-ordination and mainly, the complete submission of the purpose of the performance.” For anyone who’s seen Derevo’s magical blend of movement and physical flair, the comparison seems strangely fitting. There is a childlike vulnerability to their work which is mirrored in the openness of puppetry. “People who work with puppets are hardly ever cynical. It’s great soul therapy. It’s life in a fairytale.”

This sentiment is echoed by Eliza Wills from Jacque Lecoq-trained company Jammy Voo. “A clown is very open. There’s this innocence of a clown, and it helps people to talk about things very openly, and puppetry can as well.” With a number of the company's members having trained in puppetry (especially Yngvild Aspeli, who trained at the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette) Jammy Voo use puppets in a myriad of ways, mixing clowning, a cappella singing and live music. Each story brings a different use for the puppets. “If we’re looking to express something that maybe the actor can’t, the work that we do with the puppets talks more about our feelings and impulses. The puppet is expressing abstract feelings – things that are going on inside.”

While this has many echoes of Derevo’s expressive ethos Jammy Voo also work in line with Strassman’s model, sometimes having puppets with their own characters that they play directly opposite. Indeed, as inanimate objects, the imaginative possibilities and capabilities of puppets are endless. “[It] transports you back to being a child. People are fascinated by this person who’s you but smaller and somehow it opens up an imagination in them which is very appealing,” Wills explains. Adasinsky agrees: they are both us and not us. “Not to forget that puppets don’t have their own thoughts, that’s why they are always more interesting and mysterious.”

With performers such as Strassman pushing the relationship of creator and creation, and the influence puppetry now wielded in all types of theatre, it is easy to see why this form is moving away from the toy boxes of its past and into the heady footlights of the future. It appears that, on this occasion, the great Oscar Wilde couldn’t have been more wrong when he said, “there are many advantages in puppets. They never argue. They have no crude views about art. They have no private lives.” I think I know a number of puppeteers who would beg to differ.

Strassman: Duality
Pleasance Courtyard
4-30 August, 7pm, £12-£13

A Corner of the Ocean
Underbelly
6-29 August (not 16), times vary, £9.50-£8.50

Harlekin
Pleasance Courtyard
4-30 August (not 9, 16, 23), 1:00pm, £12