Wattle & Daub is a UK-based puppetry and visual theatre company.
Tobi Poster-Su is a UK-based theatremaker and scholar who specialises in puppetry and devised, crossdisciplinary work. As artistic director of Wattle and Daub, Tobi has co-created and performed in The Lonesome Death of Eng Bunker (Omnibus Theatre), Chang and Eng and Me (and Me) (Chinese Arts Now Festival), The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak (Wilton’s Music Hall) and Triptych (Mayfest). They have worked as a puppetry director and puppeteer on shows including Tom Morris’s A Christmas Carol (Bristol Old Vic) and Heidi: A Goat’s Tale (the egg) and RSC and Improbable’s My Neighbour Totoro (the Barbican). Tobi leads the MA in Puppetry at Wimbledon College of Arts and is completing an AHRC-funded PhD (Towards a Critical Puppetry: Racialisation and Material Performance in the Twenty-First Century) at Queen Mary University of London.
Laura Gates (previously Laura Purcell-Gates) is Reader in Theatre and Performance at Bath Spa University. As co-founder and former co-artistic director of Wattle and Daub she co-created The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak and Triptych, and co-curated The Smoking Puppet Cabaret. Her Tarrare-based research on using puppetry to enhance empathy and patient-centred approaches for medical and support professionals was recognised by REF2021 for world-leading impact. More information on her projects and publications can be found here.
