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KAEFAN SHAW
 Kaefan
Shaw left the smoky conurbation known as the
West
Midlands
of
England
for better places to practice deep breathing, philosophy and acting.
His 23 year entertainment career includes theatre, TV and film, mime,
Muppets and music hall.
Children have known him to sport a kilt and play the accordion, wear a snake
round his neck, milk goats and play with life-size dolls.
Performing
Old
Time
Music
Hall
aboard showboats
on the River Thames, he was seen wearing a rather large daisy and a bowler hat.
Computer gamers may have spotted Kaefan as 'Professor Windlenot' in the Sierra
mystery game Shivers. Or
perhaps in 'Hoyle Classic Games' they battled wits with him as a talking
chameleon (he also wrote the voice scripts).
Some insomniacs in the Seattle
area glimpsed him as Alfred Crabtree in a pilot for the Tabloid-TV News satire
Hard Line.
British TV viewers who tuned in at pub closing time on a Sunday night during the
eighties and nineties saw Kaefan's hands deftly at work.
During the thirteen year run of the satirical puppet show Spitting
Image, he became
a notorious on-camera puppeteer.
Kaefan's own
rubbery features were concealed behind or under effigies of the rich, the royal,
the famed and the power-hungry of the world.
He manipulated Prince Charles from behind the throne, had a hand up most
of the world's leaders, held Arnold Schwartzenegger above his head, hid beneath
Phil Collins' piano and became known for looking good in tights.
But he threw up after three hours in a hot tub with a latex Greta Scachi
when her paint dissolved into the water.
Kaefan hoped that the Spitting Image team would also benefit from
deep breathing. They didn't.
But they did win a host of awards, including two Emmys, a Golden Rose and
yes, several something-or-others for that Genesis song Land
of
Confusion
with those weird puppets.
Other puppet credits include the
science-education show Panic Station and The Muppets,
where he wiggled the right hands of Kermit
the Frog, Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. He
was the Wolf in the Emmy-winning Peter and The Wolf, a canary-yellow
Yeti known as The Honey Monster, a walking rubber tree called Bark Troll
and a 265 pound bear called Fred in The Country
Bears.
Kaefan
was a member of
Pocket Theatre, Cumbria
and
London Playback Theatre. He also
wrote, directed and performed with two innovative participatory theatre
companies: Professor Dogg's Troupe and Hoxton Hall Theatre.
He has led Co-operative Games sessions for over 20 years, founded a
men’s group, led youth programs, coached actors, was a member of The Actors
Institute in London
and
teaches movement.
But he is most famous in the town of
Ojai,
California
for
being "Finn's Dad".
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