Gavin Glover
Puppeteer, Designer, Director, Mentor, Coach
“...brilliant puppet theatre maker Gavin Glover”
Sunday Herald. Scotland
Having always been inspired by absurdist storytellers such as Kafka, Lynch and Beckett and having originally toured the deliciously dark style of puppetry with the cult theatre company Faulty Optic, Gavin is happiest working in the more mysterious side of contemporary puppet performance. His short films have received critical acclaim from The Guardian, BBC’s Front Row and The Stage.
As well as creating his own work he has developed a number of specialist workshops -
1. Contemporary Puppetry - from basic manipulation skills to exploring more experimental concepts in The DARKER Side of Puppetry. Suitable for all professionals working in performance, physical theatre, acting, clowning and of course puppeteers.
2. Micro Cinema film making techniques, to be presented live or prerecorded. Suitable for any performer, scenographers, animators and film makers.
Recent commissions has seen him 'train' ghosts for the National Theatre of Scotland, 'tame' foul-mouthed pterodactyls for the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow and 'encourage' drunken bar fights at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
Gavin is currently based both in Glasgow, UK and in Krakow, Poland and is always happy to discuss collaborations, coaching and mentoring sessions either face to face or online.
PUPPETRY and TECHNOLOGIES Conference Gaudeamus Theatrum 2025 draktheatre.cz. photo credit Lukáš Veselý
MCT workshop Gaudeamus Theatrum 2025 draktheatre.cz photo credit: Tomáš Roček
FaultyOptic
theatre of animation
1987–2011
Dolly Death's Cabinet - part of the Trilogy show My Pig speaks Latin by FaultyOptic 1988
FaultyOptic broke down the concept of puppetry being just for kids by producing a mixture of dark surreal imagery, non-verbal narrative and mechanical theatre more suitable for an adult audience.
The strange tales that unfolded, the atmospheres of dislocated reality and oblique happenings were often described as Beckettian or Pythonesque.
Increasingly FaultyOptic explored the use of live-feed video projection, simple film animation and pre-recorded video.
The company toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Canada and the US often with the help of Arts Council England and The British Council.
The company folded in 2011.
See the faultyoptic archive:
@faultyoptic_archive