A-list celebrity heads found in Brighton warehouse

Subversive, satirical, scandalous – Plunge helps bring Spitting Image back to TV.

Remember Spitting Image from the ‘80s and ‘90s? It was Peter Fluck and Roger Law’s wickedly satirical puppetry masterpiece. Millions tuned in every week to watch Maggie, Sting, Paxman, Jagger, Stallone… even the Queen, ripped to shreds. And we lapped it up.

Pinch us, we may be dreaming

Working with Spitting Image is every puppet maker’s dream. So when we got the call, we were punching the air. Roger Law and Avalon Television were bringing the show back and, “would we be interested?” We thought about it for a couple of milliseconds, before biting their hand off.

Just what the world needed

It was 2019. Trump was in power and the world was in even more of a mess than usual. Roger Law decided, quite wisely, to recreate his "public service satire" to give celebs a kick up the backside and everyone else a bit of light relief. So they got the old gang back together and spiced things up with some fresh blood – in the shape of Plunge.

Getting our mitts on Prince Harry

Just when you think this job couldn’t get any more surreal, there you are, face-to-face with Prince Harry and eyeball-to-eyeball with Melania Trump.

We started with brilliant 2D caricatures and a deep dive into the worlds of our four celebs. Getting under the skin (literally and metaphorically) of their little quirks and tics.

Kanye, Hazza, Nancy Pelosi and Melania. Gloriously charismatic personalities to explore (and take the whatsit out of). Like all the Spitting Image gang, they had to look like the people we were parodying. But not. Gross exaggerations of the real deal, with their tiniest flaws turned into whopping great carbuncles.

In a fanboy/fangirl flap

The Plunge workshop was a hot mess of wigs, foam and adrenaline. Spitting Image. I mean, THE Spitting Image. We were working alongside some of the original sculptors from the ‘80s. What a privilege. These were puppet-making legends, and we were breathing the same air.

Deep breath. Serious face. Get on with it.

Once we’d accepted our newfound mega stardom, the enormity of the task got real. A Plunge team of 9 worked their socks off for a total of 750 hours. Sketching, sculpting, moulding, tweaking, painting, grooming. Going doolally over the tiniest technicalities. “Are Harry’s eyes close enough together?” “Is Melania’s mouth mean enough?”

Foam latex gave us the flex and lightness we needed. The faces moved just like the real thing. Every line and dimple told a story. And if you’ve seen the 2020 shows, you’ll know how wonderfully awful (or is that awfully wonderful?) they performed on set. To quote Meghan Markle’s puppet, “Hey, it’s the husband formerly known as Prince”. And to quote Harry, “Give us a kiss, love”.