New Shots! TV show reveals secrets of puppet museum hidden beneath coastal guest house

Martin Scott Price has one of Blackpool’s best kept secrets - a basement filled with puppets and magicians props of all shapes and sizes.

Martin, who owns the Pelham Lodge guest house, on General Street, has an array of hundreds of puppets - from traditional French marionettes and intricate automatons, to Punch and Judy glove puppets more than a century old.

Martin, 67, began his vast collection when he was just five-years-old, after he was gifted a set of Punch and Judy glove puppets for his birthday. Since then, the professional magician and entertainer has amassed around 1,000 different puppets, from an original Sooty bear to a replica of Pinocchio from the 1940 Disney film.

Take a look inside the Blackpool Puppet Museum in a special episode of Unconventional Brits, which is now available to watch on Shots! TV - the official Freeview channel of this website. In the 15-minute episode, see some of Martin’s weird and wonderful friends in action - including a puppet brass band playing Christmas carols.

During the show, watch amusing demonstrations of Martin’s Punch and Judy act, as he talks enthusiastically about his love for this traditional form of seaside entertainment and how some of the unusual characters came into his care.

Unconventional Brits is a TV series that celebrates the quirkier side of British life, with a new episode aired weekly. Watch the full series on demand, or watch on Freeview channel 262 and Freely channel 565.