‘A totally irresponsible art’

Nina Conti appears convinced that her puppets are real. Freddy Gray investigates

Isn’t Nina Conti too good-looking to be a ventriloquist? One thinks of blokes in working-men’s clubs with frazzled hair, not Nina with her smiling face and big brown eyes. It’s hard not to look at her, which must be a professional disadvantage: isn’t the audience meant to watch the puppet?

I want to put this technical question to Nina, but worry that it might sound creepy. Instead, feebly, I ask if she believes reports that ventriloquism is making a comeback. ‘I’m not sure I really buy into that,’ she says, with a kind and apologetic shrug. But the art of talking through a puppet does seem to be enjoying a renaissance. There are hugely successful American acts, such as Jeff Dunham and David Strassman, and Nina herself is a rising star. I’ve even read about it on the BBC website, I insist. ‘I suppose a revival is due,’ she says. ‘The thing about ventriloquism is that people associate it with the Eighties.’ I think of Keith Harris in a leather jacket with Orville the Duck. ‘But people have always liked puppets — they think that puppets are cool.’

Puppets don’t come much cooler than Monkey, Nina’s main sidekick, a cynical primate who sounds like Sean Connery. But more of him later. How did Nina Conti, who admits to having been ‘a shy, slightly spoilt only child’ — she’s the daughter of the actor Tom Conti — end up as a ventriloquist? The man responsible was the late Ken Campbell, a playwright and acting specialist. He had developed an interest in ventriloquism while writing a play about the history of comedy. He gave Nina, then an aspiring 25-year-old actress, a teach-yourself-ventriloquism kit as a present. ‘It came with this awful wooden mannequin that looked quite scary,’ she recalls.