Marcus Clarke (puppeteer)

Marcus Clarke
Marcus Clarke talking with his puppets
Nationality	British
Occupation	Actor
Known for	Puppeteer, voice acting
Website	www.handsuppuppets.com

Marcus Clarke is a puppeteer and voice actor from Nottinghamshire. He is best known as the puppeteer and voice actor behind the BAFTA-winning ITV Kids series Bookaboo and the principal puppeteer of Audrey II in the 1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors. Clarke has worked as a puppeteer in over 60 television series and has created a similar number of puppets. He was also a puppeteer and voice actor in two Muppet feature films and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Marcus Clarke was born in Forest Gate, East London. He spent several years in Canada, Care and in NCH orphanages before being settled in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire where he left West Bridgford School, his local comprehensive school with no qualifications. After a series of jobs behind the scenes in theatres, he became stage manager in a West End production of Little Shop Of Horrors, where he looked after Audrey II – the giant plant. He became interested in the art of puppetry. Clarke went on to audition for Jim Henson's TV Puppeteering Workshop, where he befriended Brian Henson.

Inspired in part by Henson, he and his partner, Helena Smee, formed a puppet creation company, "Hands Up Puppets", in 1986. To date, they have created more than 60 puppets and worked as puppeteers on a similar number of UK television series.

Bookaboo, 2009 BAFTA-award winning kids' TV series has Clarke puppeteering a "rock puppy" who is unable to play the drums before one of his friends has read him a story. Designed to back the 2008 National Year of Reading campaign, Bookaboo's friends are celebrities such as Meat Loaf and David Seaman.