THE CITY murmurs. The daylight just broke through the sky. A woman wearing unmatching long socks cries in silence. It’s cold and he, as well as his puppet, only wear a shirt. There is barely sun, but  a black hat shades his eyes.

Meet H, 28, of Hungary on the busy streets of Manchester, along with his puppet. He’s got a big speaker in his back, a little iPod connected and few strings attached to his hand.

“I’ve been doing this puppeteering, making my own puppets for seven-eight years, now. Most of them I’ve been doing for entertainment and the last few years I’ve spent my time in the UK, traveling around. Basically, I started this as a form of making money, I was traveling around Europe, hitch-hiking in France, Italy, Germany, and I just thought it was something to do. I’ve seen someone doing it, I thought it was amazing, and I loved puppets, and I told myself I should try to create something”, he says.


H started playing cello last year and he aims to play his own songs in a year or two. The technical aspect of the performance are a secret, as a great recipe is not always easy to find out.

“I started with a very simple marionette, which was my brother’s, then I’ve kind of rebuilt it for a violinist and then I started my own puppets. Now I do everything by myself, the clothes, everything. Basically, I bought the same shirt twice and I downsized it, which is a really weird thing to do, it is really not simple”, H explained.

He chose to be a puppet street performer during the Christmas season this year and last year, and there is a reason behind it, he says:

“This is the only time when these people are so much better than in the other days. It’s a Christmas magic. During Christmas everyone’s much happier, they don’t take everything so serious, they have actually time to engage in magic like puppetry and street music.”

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