Steve Lee
Puppeteer who co-founded the Puppeteers’ Company, which toured the world from 1980 to 2012
A lifelong champion of puppetry, Steve Lee – charismatic front man of the Puppeteers’ Company, which he founded in 1980 with Peter Franklin – was admired at home and abroad for his mastery of the art.
The prolific pair wrote, designed and directed small-scale productions for regional venues and schools, their growing profile taking them across Europe, to the Caribbean and East Asia, and on to television.
They had met while working with the DaSilva Puppet Company in 1971 and quickly formed a partnership that lasted until the Puppeteers’ Company’s closure in 2012. Their breakthrough production was an adaptation of Peter and the Wolf, created in collaboration with Ray DaSilva and designer Ron Brown, that was to become a mainstay of their own company.
Born in Southampton, Lee was an enthusiastic theatregoer, although on leaving school, his first job was designing forms for Southern Gas and United Glass.
A visit to the International Puppet Festival in Colwyn Bay in 1968 changed the direction of his life and career.
In its earliest years, the Puppeteers’ Company spent much of its time at sea performing marionette cabaret shows for luxury cruise lines. Returning home, its focus broadened to include national tours of schools as well as international festivals.
In a letter to The Stage in 2007, Lee estimated that the company, without ever receiving any subsidy, had by then performed to an audience in excess of 1.5 million since its founding, and played to schools and other audiences of 80,000 across more than 300 performances each year.
Continues...
Simon Spencer, for whose 2022 production of Are You As Nervous As I Am? at the Greenwich Theatre Lee designed a logo, remembers him as “a natural storyteller who would introduce the show, captivating children while entertaining teachers with witty remarks flying over the heads of the pupils”.
Highlights included the rod-puppet ballet Coppélia (1984) and Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, employing tabletop-, rod- and shadow-puppets (1986). St George and the Dragon (originally created for DaSilva and revived in 1992) and Cinderella pastiche The Crystal Slipper (1997), both involved rod puppets on a three-sided revolving set.
Notable in between were two musical revues that featured puppetry – Medley for Strings (1983) and Top Hats and Tales (1993).
Lee’s television appearances included Richard Stilgoe’s Stilgoe’s On (1986) and the Paul Daniels Magic Christmas Show (1988).
Attracting the attention of the mighty Disney corporation, in 1996 Lee was commissioned to write scripts for two primetime Disney Time specials broadcast in the UK and across Europe.
After folding in 2012, Lee and Franklin produced a pictorial history of The Puppeteer’s Company, with Lee also writing an as-yet-unpublished novel for young adults.
In a tribute to Lee, Spencer noted: “Steve liked his own version of the old joke that he always started the day by reading the obituaries in The Stage. If not listed, he would get up. He has told that joke for the last time.”
Stephen ‘Steve’ Lee was born on February 15, 1951 and died on August 8, aged 73. He is survived by his partner Griff Mellhuish, sister Barbara and niece Ceri.
Latest Obituaries
Most Read
Across The Stage this weekYour subscription helps ensure our journalism can continue
Invest in The Stage today with a subscription starting at just £7.99
© Copyright The Stage Media Company Limited 2025
