This is one of a set of four 'living' marionettes or neck-puppets that were given to the museum in their original wooden travelling case, complete with the tabletop proscenium and black curtains used for the act. It was purchased by the donor's mother from the owner, a showman who lived in the north of England, and it was believed to have been used for sea-front entertainment.

The act appears to have consisted of the four marionettes, or more accurately rod puppets, that represent a guardsman, a lady and two gentlemen in tweeds - possibly a father, his daughter and her two suitors. Each puppet has tapes attached to its shoulders that tied around the operator's neck so that the operator's head which poked through the black drapes became that of the marionette in front of the drapes. The limbs of the figure are worked by four metal rods, two attached to the elbows of the figure and two to its feet, held by the operator and an assistant wearing black gloves.

Living marionettes appear to have originated in France and were known before the Victorian magician Dr. Lynn (1831-1899), also known as High Washington Simmons and Washington Blythe, made the act popular in the 1870s when he was appearing at the London Aquarium. Dr. Lynn's act is mentioned in Hoffman's Modern Magic, 1880, when he notes: 'On a small stage a real living head, attached to a miniature body, sings, talks and acts; and it is plain to the audience that while the head is really a human one, the body is but a toy.'

An undated chalk drawing by Walter Sickert (1860-1942) entitled Living Marionettes, now in the V&A (E.1949-1926) but exhibited at London's Carfax Gallery in Bury Street in 1911, clearly shows the act on stage, probably at a London music hall, performed by a man and a woman.