12 hours ago
Puppeteer creates a spider character with a Suffolk twang
A familiar twang has caught the attention of some viewers on a new children's television Towers has launched on CBeebies and features a character named Tincy, a spider with a Suffolk was created by artist Laura Bacon, from Haverhill, Suffolk, whose work has included performing stage puppetry for Coldplay during the band's world tour."I stopped hearing [a Suffolk accent] when my grandparents passed away. It wasn't until then that I realised I really missed it," she said.
"I also moved out of Haverhill. I now live in London and I missed it a lot, so I sort of relax into the accent a lot more than I did when I actually lived there."People who aren't from Suffolk don't really know how it sounds because they just assume it's kind of 'oh ah, tractor'."It's definitely difficult to learn because it's a dialect as well and it's the way you say things, not just the accent."
Ms Bacon rose to prominence in the industry after reaching the semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent in later worked on the television shows Sesame Street and Spitting Image and on stage as Piglet during the UK tour of a Winnie the Pooh musical.
Another of Ms Bacon's characters, Mavis, also speaks with a strong Suffolk accent and the puppeteer said she was pleased to be doing the same with Tincy on Playtime Towers."Tincy isn't as old as Mavis, she's a bit more like an excitable, hyperactive little Mavis. Lots of her scenes are with songs, sort of based on original nursery rhymes but with a modern twist."Tincy has her own language, she says things like 'terrifically wonderlicious' and 'splendiddly' - so it's quite nice because I got to switch around certain words."There's a certain way that Suffolk people talk, like instead of saying 'she does', saying 'she do'."So one of the episodes is called Towel and instead of Tincy saying 'look there's a towel', I changed it to 'there's a towel, look'."
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