{"id":265901,"date":"2025-11-02T00:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T00:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/265901\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T00:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T00:11:07","slug":"paddington-the-musical-reveals-puppet-playing-bear-on-stage-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/265901\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Paddington the Musical&#8217; Reveals Puppet Playing Bear on Stage: Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tMeet <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/paddington\/\" id=\"auto-tag_paddington\" data-tag=\"paddington\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paddington<\/a> the Bear, the West End\u2019s newest star.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAs previews begin in London, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/paddington-the-musical\/\" id=\"auto-tag_paddington-the-musical\" data-tag=\"paddington-the-musical\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paddington the Musical<\/a>\u201d has revealed a short teaser and first-look images showing a glimpse at how the iconic bear will come to life on stage. The life-like puppet is played by two people: James Hameed, who is an off-stage remote puppeteer, and Arti Shah, an on-stage performer. To know exactly how the bear works, \u201cPaddington\u201d fans will have to go to the show and see it for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Paddington_JayBrooksPrimary.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"1000\" width=\"667\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJay Brooks<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe team behind the bear includes Tahra Zafar, Paddington Bear designer; Audrey Brisson, bear physicality associate director; Phill Woodfine, remote puppetry coach; and Annabelle Davis, Paddington Bear casting director. Alternate Paddington on-stage performers are Abbie Purvis and Ali Sarebani.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cAfter many years of exploration and development, we are thrilled, alongside Studiocanal, to finally bring Paddington to life on stage,\u201d producers Sonia Friedman and Eliza Lumley said in a statement. \u201cIt takes an extraordinary team to share this very special bear with the world \u2014 our amazing performers James and Arti, our brilliant alternates Abbie and Ali, and the incredible group of artists led by designer Tahra, alongside Audrey, Phill and Annabelle. Their collective creativity and vision are at the heart of our production, and it has been a true collaboration, helmed by Luke Sheppard, our creative, associate, stage management, production and development teams involved in supporting us in bringing Paddington to life in a truly beautiful and unique way. What we as producers always hoped to achieve was, quite simply, Paddington on stage \u2014 and thanks to the immensely talented artists, both on and off stage, we believe we\u2019ve realized that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cPaddington the Musical\u201d is now in previews and opens on Nov. 30. Its run has already been extended to Oct. 25, 2026. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWatch the teaser for \u201cPaddington the Musical\u201d below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meet Paddington the Bear, the West End\u2019s newest star. As previews begin in London, \u201cPaddington the Musical\u201d has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,142791,142792],"class_list":{"0":"post-265901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-paddington","10":"tag-paddington-the-musical"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}