Puppeteer
Robert is a second-generation Punch & Judy man with over 40 years experience maintaining one of the country’s oldest and most popular traditions. Learning the art from his father, John Styles, Robert gained his first experience at the age of sixteen entertaining the crowds at Thorpe Park in Surrey and on the street outside Pollock's Toy Museum in London. Since then he has been invited to children's birthday parties, school fetes, adult parties & wedding anniversaries, trade shows, county fairs and corporate events. He has participated in Christmas promotions at Harrod's, Liberty and Selfridges department stores.
Pollock’s Toy Museum 1981
Pollock’s Toy Museum 2021
Pollock’s Toy Museum 2021
Robert has attended puppet festivals in France (Marseille, Provence), Spain (Segovia, Salamanca), Austria (Vienna, Wels), Germany (Halle, Frankfurt, Mistelbach, Magdeburg, Hohnstein, Lubeck) Poland (Warsaw), Hungary (Eger, Debrocen, Miskolc), Romania (Arad), Slovakia (Bratislava) and Belarus (Minsk). Robert has also been invited to Kuwait, Oman and Japan, performing in Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sakata, Iwata and also the famous PUK Puppet Theatre in Tokyo.
Robert’s clients have included Dreamland, The Vaults, Kent Life, London Farmers' Markets, The Royal Society of St. George, the V&A Museum of Childhood, St. Pancras International, Hyde Park Lido, Chelsea Physic Garden, Glasgow Museum, The Lambeth Show, The Wimbledon Guild, The Soho Society, Hastings Museum, The Arundel Festival, Beverley Puppet Festival, Tunbridge Wells Puppet Festival & the Rochester Dickens Festival.
On television Robert has provided puppetry sequences for The Six O'Clock News, Peter Ackroyd's London, Eastenders, Creeped Out, Prisoners’ Wives, Hetty Wainthrop Investigates, Vanity Fair, Panorama, Seriously Funny - a C4 documentary on the history of comedy, and Crocodile Snap directed by Joe Wright. Derek Jarman asked Robert and Mr. Punch to participate in one of his later films - The Garden, and Tom Hanks directed the pair in an episode of Band of Brothers.
Image captured from YouTube
Robert provided featured voice and animation for the puppet character - Mr Blackteeth - in CBBC’s series ‘Creeped Out’.
Screen & Stage
| EMPIRE OF LIGHT | Sam Mendes | Searchlight Pictures |
| CREEPED OUT | Steve Hughes | CBBC |
| BAND OF BROTHERS | Tom Hanks | HBO |
| CROCODILE SNAP | Joe Wright | BBC 10x10 |
| PRISONERS’ WIVES | Harry Bradbeer | BBC |
| HETTY WAINTHROP | John Glenister | BBC |
| THE GARDEN | Derek Jarman | Basilisk Films |
| THE WOLFMAN | Joe Johnston | Universal |
| SERIOUSLY FUNNY | Howard Jacobson | C4 |
| PETER ACKROYD’S LONDON | Roger Parsons | BBC |
| VANITY FAIR | Diarmuid Lawrence | BBC |
| PANORAMA + THE 6 O’CLOCK NEWS | Nick Robinson | BBC |
| KEN CAMPBELL’S ‘GRIMALDI’ | Christopher Leith | Little Angel Theatre, London |
| STORYBOX | John Blundell | Cannon Hill/MAC, Birmingham |
In 2012, Robert was assistant director of ‘The Big Grin’ - a nationwide Heritage Lottery Fund project to celebrate Mr Punch’s 350th birthday and helped coordinate a regional programme of exhibitions, talks, radio and TV interviews, including performances in schools and museums, on seaside promenades and other locations around the UK.
Robert is especially proud of his association with the Punch & Judy College of Professors and the Punch & Judy Fellowship - of which he became the committee Chair between 2019-23. In that time, Robert was responsible for helping engineer a combined celebration of the Fellowship’s 40th and Punch’s 360th anniversary, including the Covent Garden May Fayre & Puppet Festival Online ‘21, ‘Silent Swazzles’ - a photographic project focussed on the activities of Punch performers during lockdown, and both the Birmingham and Blackpool Jamborees.
