Rainbow Puppeteer Ronnie le Drew Talks About Bringing Zippy to Life Ahead of His Nottingham Show

For anyone too young to remember Rainbow, what was it about and why was it so loved?

Rainbow started way back in 1972 and I think ITV decided that Jim Henson’s Sesame Street, which came over from America in ’69, held too many Americanisms. So, they decided to make their own preschool programme, the Thames version of Sesame Street called Rainbow - little did we know it would air for twenty years.

The premise is, you have father-figure presenter Geoffrey, and three characters, Zippy (a ‘unique’) George (the pink hippo) and Bungle (the bear). We had singers over the years, the most famous being Rod, Jane, and Freddy. They produced three songs a week, which all had different themes. We had funny stories, strong characters, and lots of special guests. Eventually, we had merchandise made with dolls of all the characters. We even won a BAFTA, which was called a Harlequin Award back in those days, we even beat Blue Peter.

What creature do you think resembles Zippy the most?

This is interesting because people used to write in and say, “What is a Zippy?” Roy Skelton, one of the original voice-men, said instead of saying he looks like a frog or a certain animal, call him a ‘unique’. We still manage to get away with it even now. Another question we often get asked is, ‘Oh, Zippy we never see your legs!’, so I’d say in Zippy’s voice – “I choose not to show them.” But I have a little mini-Zippy, who I’ll be bringing up to Nottingham. He was originally on a show called Rumplestiltskin and I saved him, he has little legs, so you’ll see Zippy is quite dumpy really.
 

Puppeteering seems like a real hands-on job, pardon the pun, how did you manage it?

It’s quite the armache holding them up. One hand on the puppet to work the lips and head and the other hand to work his arm. People often complained about why he only had one arm, but we only had two hands! 

Do you have any fond memories of special guests like Judi Dench, Beryl Reid, and Pat Coombs? 

Oh, they were wonderful. Pat Coombs, known as Patty, played an auntie figure on Rainbow and was so adorable and very happy talking to the puppets. Also yes, Judi Dench and she’s adorable, absolutely lovely. She was an absolute joy to work with. The biggest guest we had was Ernie Wise, from Morecambe and Wise. Ernie would come in and give comedy advice and to receive it from such a huge star was amazing. I was in awe of all the guests.

Back in 1991 on TV Offal with Victor Lewis Smith, a certain Rainbow episode was shown with very adult, satirical themes. What are your memories of this?

Well, believe it or not, this was the one episode I wasn't free. I thought Zippy’s operation was a bit different from mine but that’s just me being picky. However, during the years we did do a ‘naughty’ Rainbow, however, you can’t have the puppet’s swearing, but you can have ‘school-boy’ humour, so one started with Zippy going, ‘one-skin, two-skin, three-skin, four-oh’. If kids watched it, they may have thought it was just normal Rainbow, but the wink-wink nudge-nudge to the camera made it cheeky. It’s become an absolute classic and was put on late-night Channel 4. The scripts of this ‘naughty’ Rainbow are found in my book, Zippy and Me. 

 You’re coming to the Theatre Royal in Nottingham this April for the Nottingham Puppet Festival, are you looking forward to it?

Yes, I can’t wait. We used to go out to student unions, even played Nottingham several times, and arrived there around 11pm. We’d set out our booth and it turned into Zippy and George’s disco. We’d have a whole set, it was just extraordinary. We even played Cambridge and Oxford. 

About 8 years ago, I got asked to do an appearance for the first time to do a Comic-Con in Stoke-on-Trent, I thought they wouldn’t want to see me there, but I had a friend who played inside the costume of Jabba the Hutt in the original Star Wars, and he said ‘If you’re going, I’ll go’. It was quite surreal seeing everyone dressed up, even Daleks were going by. There was one guy I remember who passed me and had to do a double take, is that the real Zippy?

I released Zippy and Me in 2019, and I will bring these books with me to my Nottingham show and sell them a little cheaper than they go for in the bookstores. I will be talking about all the jobs I’ve done over the years. 

Are any memorable skits or any new projects coming soon?

We did so many funny skits over the years. Zippy and George have appeared in Children in Need in the last two years. Recently, we were singing a song in Abbey Road Studios, along with other famous puppets like, Hacker and Dodge, Mr Blobby, Muffin the Mule, Zelda from Terrahawks, and Captain Scarlet from Thunderbirds. 

This year, we have a Masterchef episode coming out. We filmed Zippy and George making some chocolate mixture, Basil Brush and Mr Blobby making a mess and we even had one of the Teletubbies come in. I remember one skit I had with Rylan on The Last Leg, back in August 2023, where he was marrying a gimp, so we thought let’s bring Zippy to be his best man, as he had the zips, I popped up and had the rings in my mouth, they loved it.

Was Zippy secretly a ghostwriter on your new book, Zippy and Me?

I had two ghostwriters, Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, and it was their idea for me to write a book, I didn’t even think people would want to read my autobiography. We went to a company called Unbound, and they loved it. In about eighteen months the book was published. I was interested in putting in how I got started as a puppeteer, as I feel that’s important for people to hear about my funny old job. Richard Herring even did the forward of the book, which was really nice. If people are keen to find me, they can see a lot of old photos on my Facebook and find a few stories on my website. 

Join Ronnie le Drew and Zippy for a talk at Theatre Royal on Tuesday 9 April as part of the Nottingham Puppet Festival

@sndodo