Norwich Puppet Man

David John Perry (born 9 April 1942), commonly known as the Puppet Man, is a street entertainer from Norfolk, United Kingdom. He now resides in Great Yarmouth, his performance consists of dancing with a range of puppets while singing along to pop songs played on a portable karaoke machine. He first started performing as the Norwich Puppet Man in the mid-1990s, but in 1997 was forced to quit when his incapacity benefit was stopped because he was earning money through busking. He returned to busking on Gentleman's Walk in late 2005 by which time internet sites had begun to spread his fame. He does not hold, nor does he require a buskers licence to busk in either Norwich or Great Yarmouth.

He usually performs in pedestrian zones located in the city centre of Norwich and town centre of Great Yarmouth, typically two or three times a week and mainly in the afternoons and on weekends. In Norwich, the Puppet Man can mostly be found on Gentleman's Walk off St Peter Mancroft and the old Haymarket around the bottom of Hay Hill.

Over the years, Perry's eccentric style of "dancing in the city centre behind his ghetto blaster and waving his puppets in time to an eclectic range of music" has made the Puppet Man a cult figure in Norwich and Great Yarmouth. In a competition organised by the Castle Quarter Shopping Centre in June 2007 titled “The faces that sum up why Norwich is such a fine city”, he was named as one of the “25 Faces of Norwich”.

In summer 2008, Perry was hired by a nightclub in Norwich to perform some live action in front of 2,000 people for a student based event. In January 2015, the announcement of Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, Perry was featured as a cult figure in the city on the BBC Newsbeat website.