The Sex Lives of Puppets, Nottingham Theatre Royal review.

★★★★☆

Shown as part of the Nottingham Puppet Festival, Blind Summit’s The Sex Lives of Puppets is undoubtedly provocative, but also shows incredible compassion. Sex is the driving force of the show, be that in the jokes or the faceless multi-puppet orgy, but it quickly becomes clear that intimacy, rather than titillation, is the production's real obsession. The message ceases to be about who these people sleep with and becomes about what those relationships reveal once the bedroom door closes.

Built from documentary-inspired interviews drawn from the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, Mark Down and the late Ben Keaton's script introduces a succession of characters, each offering a glimpse into their private lives. Affairs, long marriages, late-life sexuality, kink, grief, ageing and companionship all take their turn in the spotlight. Rather than weaving these voices into a conventional narrative, the production creates a mosaic of modern Britain, allowing every story equal space to surprise, amuse or devastate.

The masterstroke is Blind Summit's decision to tell every confession through puppets. It sounds like a novelty until you realise how clever the device is. Audiences instinctively lower their guard. Topics that would feel awkwardly intimate when delivered by an actor become strangely accessible when delivered by oversized heads balanced on tiny bodies. The puppets create just enough distance for honesty to flourish. It feels remarkably similar to why South Park can tackle subjects that live-action sitcoms often can't: remove the literal human being, and suddenly people take less offence and are more open to new ideas.

That illusion works because the puppetry is extraordinary. Tiny shifts in posture, eye lines, and almost imperceptible hand movements create fully realised personalities within seconds. The four puppeteers — Mark Down, Isobel Griffiths, Dale Wyldem and Elliot Liburd — effectively disappear, allowing the puppets to take centre stage. 

One sequence particularly stuck in my mind: Daz’s avant-garde monologue. The puppetry transforms sexual fantasy into surreal physical theatre as the puppet appears to float effortlessly through the air before diving underwater and returning to a foetal state. It's abstract, ridiculous and strangely beautiful in equal measure, pushing puppetry far beyond character animation into something approaching interpretive dance.

The production repeatedly sidesteps the cheap laugh its title appears to promise. The first interview, Meryl and Jeremy's gleeful celebration of an apparently perfect sex life, opens as broad comedy before quietly revealing the affair underpinning their excitement. Later, one “Fat Cat” banker recalls losing his wife before admitting, with heartbreaking simplicity, that he simply wanted to touch somebody, and have somebody to touch him. In a single moment, sex ceases to be the subject entirely. Loneliness takes its place. Comedy is the invitation, but vulnerability is the reality. That emotional pivot lands because the script refuses to sensationalise even its most explicit material.

Act Two finds the production's strongest rhythm. The opening half introduces the concept effectively but occasionally leans towards broader caricatures, such as the "Unattractive Actress" and the wonderfully bizarre "Lesbian Cum Blob Couple”, whose stories feel deliberately heightened. After the interval, however, the stories become more recognisable, the people more familiar, and the emotional stakes considerably sharper. These are characters most audiences will recognise from friends, family or perhaps themselves. The jokes remain every bit as filthy, yet they're consistently rooted in emotional truth rather than shock value.

The episodic structure of the show does come at a cost. Just as certain interviewees become genuinely fascinating, the production moves on to preserve its whistle-stop overview of modern sexuality. Several stories feel capable of sustaining much longer scenes, particularly those involving the widower and the elderly gay couple, yet they disappear almost as soon as they become emotionally compelling. In contrast, some sketches outstay their time and begin to border on ridiculous (I’m looking at you, Lesbian Cum Blob). 

The performance concluded with a touching tribute to co-creator Ben Keaton, who died earlier this year, acknowledging the artist whose curiosity, compassion and wit helped to shape every moment on stage.

With only one remaining UK performance this year on 30 June, it is well worth making the journey. It is hilarious, inventive and unexpectedly profound, using puppetry to explore humanity with remarkable honesty. You may come for The Sex Lives of Puppets, but you'll leave thinking about the lives far more than the sex. Because this show certainly pulls the right strings.