MEET the Totnes meerkat man who helped give us the furry advertising icon — with a lot of strings attached.

Puppeteer John Roberts was the helping hands behind Comparethemarket.com's phenomenally successful advertising campaign involving Alexander Orlov and his comparethemeerkat.com rival website.

Mr Roberts, who runs his Puppet- Craft business from his home at Tigley just outside Totnes, was involved in the insurance comparison company's meerkat puppet show advert shown earlier this year.

He made the puppets himself and operated them for the TV ad men.

But John is even prouder of his dancing Thunderbirds character Brains, which he made for Britvic's Drench as part of a £5.5million advertising campaign.

"It took five days with six of us working in a studio to film the puppet dancing. I made the puppet and then I collected a group of six puppeteers who are all freelance and went to London to film it," he explained.

John, aged 58 years, has been working on his puppet business from a shed in his back garden for the past 20 years and has been a professional puppeteer for 30 years.

Originally from South Africa, he trained as an architect but became obsessed with puppets and ended up entranced by a puppet theatre in Islington, London, while travelling on a gap year.

He ended up staying there as a director for ten years.

He now has a collection of more than 1,500 puppets which he has made for his shows and takes touring from one end of the country to the other.

"PuppetCraft has got a reputation all over the country for providing magical family shows," he said.

"People just phone me up and say they are doing a festival in Yorkshire next weekend or they're doing shows in Manchester of Cambridge."

Mr Robert's next show is a lot closer to home as he is staging his version of Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant at the Barn Theatre in Dartington on Saturday, June 5.

Mr Roberts lives with his wife Robyn and the couple have two children Fred, 28, and Kate, 25.

When he launches a new puppet performance these days he calls upon a whole range of experts to get the show on the road.

"When I am making a new show there is often up to 12 people involved, writing scripts, composing music, making the stage and the puppets," he explained.