🎙Puppet Podcast #89-Dik Downey, Clown, Puppeteer, Co-founder Pickled Image + Opposable Thumb Theatre 👉Clown and puppeteer who toured all around Europe. He was the co-director of Pickled Image, now runs Opposable Thumb Theatre based in Bristol, England. Designer and puppet maker for 34 years, he makes commissions and produces his own puppets Dik started his performing life at Glastonbury festival in 1983, painted yellow, playing kazoo whilst someone lay on a bed of broken cornflakes. He then ran away with the hippies, travelling through Europe as a crap juggler, fire-eater, cabaret artiste, escapologist and clown. Dik eventually returned to the UK to train (briefly) at Fool Time Circus School, eventually finding his natural home with renowned anarchic, Dada-esque street theatre company Desperate Men. A few years later, he was lured in from the cold by Green Ginger, performing and making for their shows ‘Slaphead’, ‘P.R.A.T.S’ and ‘Frank Einstein: Rewired’. In 2000, Dik co-founded puppetry & theatre company, Pickled Image. Over the next 19 years, Dik conceived, designed, constructed and performed in most of their highly successful shows. He also makes puppets and masks for other companies and even finds time to teach puppet making at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.