Yonderland
Trailer
Synopsis
Debbie Maddox is a bored 33-year-old stay-at-home mother in Birmingham who has just dropped her twins off for their first day of school. Her empty days are upended when an enthusiastic Elf bursts out of her kitchen cupboard and drags her through a portal into Yonderland, a chaotic fantasy realm under threat from the sinister Negatus. The Elders declare her the prophesied 'Chosen One' meant to save their world, even though they've lost the scroll explaining what that actually involves. Reluctantly, and always racing to make it home for the school run, Debbie takes on one absurd quest after another, encountering inept knights, monks bound to honesty, and a host of other misfits across three series.
Context & Trivia
Yonderland's puppet characters were designed and built by a team of longtime Jim Henson collaborators, including Fiona Cazaly (a Henson's Creature Shop veteran who also supervised puppet production on the show), the studio Baker Coogan, and prosthetics/animatronics house Lifecast. For the third series, Cazaly headed an expanded puppet-making team that included Darryl Worbey Studio, Chris Barlow, Andy Heath, Iestin Evans and Natalie Ellnor, with puppet costumes by David Brown. On-set puppeteering was handled by a very small crew: puppeteer Steven Kynman, who operated Elf, Mojo and the demon Neil among others, described the work as physically demanding, since the sets sat at floor level rather than on the raised stage typical of puppet productions, forcing puppeteers to work seated on wheeled stools nicknamed 'donuts' while watching small monitors to keep the puppet in frame; Elf's free-moving hands required a second puppeteer just to operate them. Creator Laurence Rickard has said the production deliberately limited CGI so the puppets would feel tangible rather than photo-realistic. The studio Talk to the Hand Puppets also contributed guest puppet characters and on-set puppeteering across the series.
Did you know?
- The project was born from the Horrible Histories cast (Baynton, Farnaby, Howe-Douglas, Howick, Rickard and Willbond) wanting to keep working together after that show ended in 2012.
- Stephen Fry joined the regular cast in season 3 (2016) as the enigmatic old man Cuddly Dick.
- Radio Times ranked Yonderland #28 on its list of the 40 best shows of 2013, and Total Film placed it #25 on its own top 25 of the year.
- The series was cancelled in February 2017, shortly after season 3 and an extended Christmas special aired.
Puppeteers
Marcus Clarke, Rob Tygner, Fiona Dwyer, William Todd-Jones, Steven Kynman, Lynn Robertson Bruce, Wim Oppenheimer
Puppet design
Fiona Cazaly
Puppet companies
Baker Coogan · Lifecast · Darryl Worbey Studio · Talk to the Hand Puppets
Puppet building
Campbell Puppet Design · Chris Barlow · Andy Heath · Iestin Evans · Natalie Ellnor · David Brown
Created by
Mathew Baynton, Martha Howe-Douglas, Simon Farnaby, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond
Direction
Steve Connelly, David Sant
Writing
Mathew Baynton, Martha Howe-Douglas, Simon Farnaby, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Toby Davies, Jason Hazeley, Joel Morris
Cast
Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Dan Renton Skinner, Clare Thomson, Stephen Fry
Do you know more about this work?
Are you credited on this page and want your name corrected or removed? Request it here — no justification needed. For copyright claims or factual errors, use the same form.
