"I first saw Ted Milton supporting Ian Dury and The Blockheads in 1978. He did this awful punk performance art Punch and Judy puppet show, puerile stuff like one of the puppets drinking snot from the others nose!"
(Kevin Hewick)
Mr. Pugh's Blue Show and Mr. Pugh's Velvet Glove Show were Ted Miltons guises as a puppeteer. Traveling Europe and Britain he would present plays like "Pere Ubu" by pre-dadaist playwright Alfred Jarry, as well as his own creations like "Operation Wordsworth". As such he also did support slots for Eric Clapton, Ian Dury and The Blockheads and Split Enz, often to the dismay of the rock audiences.
Tony Wilson, however was impressed enough to invite him to his TV-show "So It Goes" in 1976, and later, as Factory Records founder, he remembered Ted well enough to offer Blurt a deal.
Film director Terry Gilliam invited Ted to perform the role of the puppeteer in his movie "Jabberwocky".
An account of somebody who did love what he saw can be found on this excellent blog.
Mr. Pugh's Puppet Theatre and The Blue Show not only shocked the primary schools and women's guilds to which Ted Milton took it, but also the theatres and cultural centers.
So what was it about the Blue Show that caused such a furore?
"It was about oral nasality in the police force," says Ted, with off-hand relish. "It involved scenes of unparalleled nasal carnage. there were episodes where policemen actually farted their legs off, a la Douglas Bader. And aeroplanes fell out of the sky. they ate prisoners in the Andes. The Black Manias had crashed and the Normals had escaped from the identikit and Lo! they had multiplied. It was a very horrible routine."
And here is some super-8 footage of Mr. Pugh!!!!