Herrman

Herrman was born in London and came to the antipodes many years ago. He’s a bit of a wheeler and dealer and a grifter and a grafter, but he is also a charismatic showman. The oompah band he set up, and which he fronts as the singer whose character interacts with the drunken crowds in often bawdy audience participation, is based on an Englishman’s idea in New Zealand of what a German beerfest should be like. This is because, until recently, he’d never seen a genuine beerfest. So, while people definitely love Uncle Herrman’s Beerfest Band, the costuming is a bit wrong, the music is very wrong, and the toasts are completely wrong. But Herrman is unaware of all of this, and when he went to Octoberfest in Munich recently, he was positively disappointed by costuming that was wrong, with music that is just plain wrong, and very sloppy and badly pronounced toasts that were embarrassingly wrong. He returned with some pride at just how much better we do things in this country, and a whole raft of new and inappropriate ways to make beerfests better.

Herrman is also an articulated ceramic wall puppet and he is modelled by hand in stoneware clay, twice fired, decorated with ceramic glazes, and finished with a cold glaze. He is approximately 32 cm long, and can hang on the wall by nail, hook or tack.