Sophie Beaumont
Sophie’s interest in puppetry began with enjoying the many fantastic British puppets on TV as well as the Jim Henson films and TV shows she was fortunate enough to see when she was a child. She was given a puppet from one of her family members as a child and has loved puppets ever since. Having adored pandas and adored puppets it was only natural that Sophie would choose panda puppets as her main puppets. Sophie allowed her panda friends to take over her Instagram account where they have consistently added a short video of their activities on a daily basis for a good few years.
Sophie rarely breaks character and never appears in videos with her characters on Instagram because she always says it is all about beautiful puppets, not her. The pandas don’t always succeed at what they try to do but they do their best and carry on with a positive attitude. In 2020 Sophie became a member of the British Puppet Guild, joining everyone for the online social events so far and the online training event too, she is hoping to join some future in-person events. Since joining the Guild, Sophie has gained a lot more confidence in puppetry.
She has started building her own puppets and has added to her puppet family with additions such as Pokomi, a gorgeous monster puppet that Sophie bought, giving her an upbeat but often muddled persona to a cute green monster, who has a weekly spot and sometimes more often if she collaborates with her panda friends on the pandas Instagram account. Sophie also opened a separate Instagram account for a cat puppet too. Puppets made by Sophie herself include occasional Chibiko, an adorable pink monster that she built.
Sophie also created Naarak, an endearing (is she or isn’t she) a mermaid, who also guests on the pandas Instagram with some occasional additions to Sophie's YouTube account . There are some additional characters in the making or planning stages that occupy Sophie's time too Sophie is quite happy adding to her puppet family, doing the occasional collaboration with an Instagram friend who adores Pokomi almost as much as she does.
Just learning new puppetry skills and gaining in confidence as a puppeteer, learning from the many wonderful puppeteers she follows on Instagram and knows through the puppet guild. That is Sophie’s current goal - to keep going with an open mind for wherever her puppetry adventure takes her but for now she is more than happy being her panda pal's pet Hooman, something she enjoys because she can find many opportunities to learn how to do many tasks to make her bossy curious panda friends and the growing puppet family, very happy.
