Richard Bradshaw

Richard Bradshaw is an Australian puppeteer who is well known for his shadow puppets and also writes for them. He made a guest appearance on an episode of The Muppet Show performing skits involving three different animals on objects. Richard also starred on an episode of a series by Jim Henson called The World of Puppetry where he interacted with Henson. Bradshaw also used his shadow puppets for animations and stories on an Australian educational show called Play School for most of the run. He is one of the two guest puppeteers on The Muppet Show along with Bruce Schwartz. He must have felt so awestruck when Jim Henson made an episode about him back in the 1980s and he got to show off some clips of his performances. I read that in 2005, Richard Bradshaw was commissioned to write a theatre show called The Storyteller's Shadow: a Celebration of Hans Christian Andersen which toured around the world. In later years, he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to puppetry and the performing arts, according to a source on Wikipedia. I wonder if he ever had difficulties performing all of the shadow puppets by himself for some of his performances. Richard is probably still doing shadow puppets today, though he's probably staying in Australia since travel is becoming expensive. Bradshaw should consider using his puppets for television appearances since he did so on The Muppet Show back when it did its first season. Other puppeteers who performed shadow puppets include Jim Napolitano, Jon Ludwig, Rachel Leonard, and Annie Peterle, among others. I hope he'll influence other puppeteers who do shadow puppets themselves since it's a little tricky performing them hidden. Richard Bradshaw, you've done wonderful entertaining people with your shadow puppets. And not just in Australia but also around the world such as Europe and Asia. Keep up the great work and never forget the time you spent with Jim Henson himself in the 1980s. Excellent shadow techniques Richard. Peace Bradshaw!