Puppet Man becomes online star

David Perry’s own peculiar brand of entertainment is a great favourite with many shoppers in Gentleman’s Walk and Haymarket.

16 February 2007 09:33

A Norwich busker known citywide as “puppet man” is gaining a cult following on a video-sharing website.

David Perry's own peculiar brand of entertainment is a great favourite with many shoppers in Gentleman's Walk and Haymarket.

But now his dancing antics while manipulating his various puppets can be enjoyed 24/7 as fans have been posting videos on the popular website YouTube. The site enables people to post home videos and share them with an international viewing audience, making home-grown celebrities courtesy of the new “viral video” medium.

Puppet man now features in a collection of videos on the site, which show him dancing in the city centre behind his ghetto blaster and waving his puppets in time to an eclectic range of music.

Fans logging on to watch the footage have been posting messages which describe him as a “legend” and “an inspiration”.

One said: “If I didn't already live there I would make a weekly trip to Norwich just to see him.”

However, not everyone is a fan of the street performer. In the past he has caused controversy in the letters pages of Evening News. While Paul Corbett, of Thorpe Marriot, wrote in to say it was “heart-warming to see him performing”, Michael Terry found him to be “a noisy obstruction totally bereft of any skill or creativity”.

With his popularity growing, puppet man could follow in the footsteps of some of medium's most famous clips - a cheerleader apparently being flipped through a basketball hoop, Paris Hilton's sex tape, Janet Jackson's famous wardrobe malfunction, a 19-year-old New Jersey man over-enthusiastically lip synching to a Romanian pop song and “Star Wars” kid - the chubby youngster waving a stick like a light sabre.

What do you think of puppet man? Write to Evening News Letters, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich, NR1 1RE; e-mail eveningnewsletters@archant. co.uk; or visit www.eveningnews24. co.uk/forums

Have you got a video you want to get online? Send it to news@en24.co.uk or by mobile phone to 07907 902190.

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