Eugene Lambert - Travelling Puppeteer
Eugene Lambert (1928 – 22 February 2010) was an Irish puppeteer and actor from County Sligo. He was owner of the Lambert Puppet Theatre in Monkstown, Dublin. He was noted for co-starring as O'Brien in the RTÉ television series Wanderly Wagon and for the Murphy agus a Cháirde ("Murphy and Friends") puppet television programme in the 1960s. He died in 2010 at the age of 82. Eugene Lambert was born and raised in County Sligo. His father was the county librarian and died at the age of 35. His mother took on his father's old job and Lambert was raised in a bookish home. He made his first puppet when he was 8 years old and was a proficient ventriloquist by the time he reached his early teens.
Lambert was long a stalwart of the Irish vaudeville scene, particularly in Dublin, although he also toured the country frequently with his wife Mai. His most common acts were with Finnegan, a mischievous storyteller, and Judge, a pensive dog. With the rise of television in the 1960s, the Lambert puppet theatre became a fixture in Irish broadcasting. In the early 1960s, Lambert devised a puppet series for children entitled Murphy agus a Chairde ("Murphy and His Friends"). Murphy was a giant who lived in a magical kingdom. Its king, "An Rí", only had one problem - constant mischief from two witches, Feemy and Babóg. RTÉ was the only station most people in Ireland could then access and Murphy's adventures were soon an important part of most children's viewing. Murphy himself appeared as the in-vision continuity announcer all through one of RTÉ's Christmas Day broadcasts.
In November 1963, Lambert drew international attention after he successfully acquired a driver's license for his puppet Finnegan. Lambert reported that he did so simply to show how easy it was for anybody in Ireland to obtain a license. He later co-starred in the children's television series Wanderly Wagon as the mischievous and greedy O'Brien, known for his childlike curiosity and cowardice in the face of magical events. Lambert and his family provided many regular (puppet) characters — Judge the dog, Mr Crow (who lived in a cuckoo clock), the mysterious Foxy Loxy, and the untrustworthy Sneaky Snake. The series also featured Irish actor Frank Kelly who played the villainous Dr Astro.
Another series created by Eugene Lambert was adapted from a children's book by Patricia Lynch, Brógeen Follows The Magic Tune. Brógeen was a leprechaun who teamed up with a fiddler who had heard a piece of music created by the fairies - and they wanted it back. The series was a great success and won several awards internationally. Some years later, when Lambert enquired about the 2" master video tapes, RTÉ admitted to having re-used them. Brogeen (and most of Wanderly Wagon) was gone forever, although a dubbed version of Brogeen still exists in the archives of NRK.
Lambert and his wife Mai visited The Harlequin Puppet Theatre in Colwyn Bay, Wales and an International Puppet Festival in Prague. Inspired, they decided to open a puppet theatre of their own, The Lambert Puppet Theatre. The Lambert Puppet Theatre was established in 1972. In the early years with Finnegan, Eugene toured UK and Ireland extensively and in later years he promoted Ireland for Irish Tourist Board, touring USA, Japan and Australia. Lambert's Puppet Theatre was responsible for producing the popular 1980s children's television character Bosco who was an ever-present fixture on the Irish national station, with Lambert's daughters, Miriam and then Paula voicing and operating Bosco.
Lambert and his wife, Mai had ten children, two of whom predeceased him. In the 1950s, Lambert supplemented his day job as a refrigeration engineer with evenings appearing with his vent actat Gala concerts and dinners. The Lambert family participated in Jury's Irish Cabaret for seven years bringing topical puppet acts to the American audience.
Lambert died at his home in Monkstown, Dublin on Monday 22 February 2010, aged 82. His funeral on 26 February 2010 was attended by entertainers and politicians, with Liam Ó Maonlaí and Sinéad O'Connor singing at his Mass and a miniature Wanderly Wagon featuring in the ceremony.
After the death of Eugene Lambert in 2010, the theatre was run by his son, Liam. On 28 August 2015 the building was badly damaged in an arson attack, which caused damage with a cost in excess of €150,000.
On 13 November 2015, the theatre re-opened to the public with re-built puppets, for the Christmas performance of Aladdin, however this re-opening was not to last, and it closed permanently in 2018.
Irish puppeteer. Eugene Lambert by the early 1960s had already a certain reputation as a ventriloquist and was performing in clubs and Variety theatres in Ireland and the UK (see Variety and Music Hall, Ventriloquism). He remained an outstanding ventriloquist throughout his life, but also, without any specific background or training, turned towards puppets. He and his wife built up their family company in which each of their ten children participated as soon as they were old enough.
In 1965, the Lamberts were engaged by Ireland’s first and only television channel and for a few years presented a children’s marionette programme in Irish every week called Murphy agus a chairdhe (Murphy and His Friends). Between 1968 and 1982, they had a hugely successful series called Wanderley Wagon, which combined puppets and actors (including Eugene Lambert himself) and was the programme in which chromakey was first used in Ireland. This show allowed Lambert the possibility of amassing enough capital to realize his great dream of opening his own puppet theatre.
In 1970, he bought a large house in Monkstown, a Dublin suburb, and established a puppet theatre in the mews at the rear. At the same time over some twenty years the company set off almost every day in a van to give shows in the four corners of Ireland, often presenting two or three shows in the course of the day. The Lamberts have always played mainly for children with a repertoire ranging from Oscar Wilde stories to Aladdin, Cinderella, Sinbad, Hansel and Gretel and the Three Little Pigs. They have developed very high skills of puppet making and great attention is given to lighting, music and the scenic aspects of the show, which still remains firmly within the domain of popular puppetry and ensures the active role of the audience.
