355 years of Mr Punch

part of A Brief History of Toys & Games

   In 15^th and 16^th century England, hand puppet shows were given in many towns and villages throughout the country. Before this time however, the puppeteer and his show booth were generally shunned. Only the church used puppets exclusively, to introduce the people to the bible stories within the confines of the church. Both manuscripts and various tapestries certainly confirm this fact. Puppeteers were not really accepted generally until the 15^th and 16^th century.

   It was the Romans who first introduced puppetry into England, but as they left so too, it seems, did their puppets. During the Dark Ages things became quite vague indeed and very little is known at all, this is why I chose to start here in the 15^th and 16^th century.

   All over London puppet pitches began to be established, sometimes they were marked by plaques, one such plaque once was posted in what is now Trafalgar Square. A statue of Charles I now stands on the pitch of an Italian puppeteer named Antonio Devito. A popular puppeteer in his day. These plaques have long since disappeared, but because they had to be registered, where they were and who owned them is still on record today.

   Bartholomew Fair in Smithfield was a popular meeting place for many a puppet booth operator for many years.

   During 1642 all theatres were closed down by Cromwell during the Civil War in England. A statute was passed banning all acting upon a stage by live performers. This statute was probably instrumental in creating public popularity in puppet shows, as no one ever bothered to stop these showmen, so puppet theatre productions flourished, some even took over the empty theatre buildings, and many a lavish puppet plays were produced. So because of the lack of live entertainment, the English people flocked to see these puppet shows. Mini operas written by many famous composers were amongst the most popular puppet shows.

   Puppet booths and wandering troupes of both marionette and hand puppets were suddenly everywhere, many formed by out of work stage actors, who after all had to make a living too.
   Many actors never returned to the regular theatre acting after the Civil War, preferring the puppet theatre anonymity instead. The puppet show character could comment on anything, and with as much satire on cutting remarks as the puppeteer wished, than any human actor could possibly get away with, after all, it was thought that the puppet itself was actually uttering the remarks, and no one ever sent a puppet to the Tower of London did they?  With the growing popularity of all forms of puppet theatre, be it hand, glove or string operated, is it any wonder that when an unknown string puppet, made its first appearance on the scene, on the 9^th May 1662 within the grounds of Covent Garden, London, the puppet was an instant success with the crowds.

   The puppet show performed that fateful day by Pietro Gimonde from Italy, contained a witty, nasty tempered brigand called Pulcinello.

   After a visit to the opera, theatres had began to reopen, Samuel Peppy, the famous diarist, wrote of the Pulcinello show. ’So silly a play I ever saw I think in all my life’. ’My wife and I to the puppet play in Covent Garden went’. Samuel Peppy wrote of many other encounters with various other puppet forms, but this brief extract from his diary of 1662 is very significant to the English puppeteers of the day. This white clad puppet dressed in typical Italian costume and sporting a black mask over the upper half of his face, was none other than the forerunner to the infamous Mr. Punch who we all love today. Pulcinello single handily changed the English puppet theatres instantly. Puppeteers after all were showmen, and always on the lookout for any popular character to add to their repertoire. Pulcinello’s popularity grew, like a whirlwind, however this strange Italian name was proving almost impossible for the English audiences to pronounce properly, and many derivatives of Pulcinello abound. Even Samuel Peppy had his problems, within the pages of his diary one can often find Policinello, pulchinello, Punchinello and even Punch on one page alone.

   Even by October of 1662 when Pietro Gimonde was summoned to perform before Charles II, such was his success that his puppet was being called all manner of variations, Punchinello being the favourite, besides this was the name that the King used whenever he referred to the puppet, so everyone just fell in line and did the same, not wishing to offend the King, heads have rolled for less. Charles bestowed upon Signor Gimonde a solid gold chain and medallion, which was worth the princely sum of 25 pounds, a fortune in the 17^th century.

   During the great Fire of London 1666 many puppets were lost for all time, but the puppeteers lived on, as not many lives were lost in the fire, Samuel Peppy observed many a puppeteers booth abandoned in their flight to safety, only to be engulfed by flames and thanking the almighty that the puppeteers had indeed fled unhurt. After the fires had died down the showmen were on the streets again, at least the ones lucky enough to have escaped with their booths. They began to entertain in the ash filled streets, giving much needed cheer, for no charge. The showman’s tradition of always helping others really paid off for as London began to prosper the people remembered what the showmen had done during the grim times, and audiences gave generously, so the poor showmen began to share this prosperity.

   In 1684, London, the River Themes froze over one day, completely, to such a depth of ice, it was recorded that shows were actually being held on the frozen waters. Puppet shows performed on the solid mass, lit by candles, until the late evening. Punchinello was certainly there along with many of his contempories, many of which were glove type puppets. Punchinello would have to wait another 100 years before he lost his strings though.

   During the 18^th century, puppet shows began to wane in their popularity, especially marionettes. The large marionette stages were becoming uneconomic to maintain. The large traveling troupe needed to put on marionette shows were finding it more difficult to find enough work to support themselves, like they did in the past. The ever resourceful puppeteers turned to the medieval type traveling show booth, so popular since the 14^th century. These booths were light in construction and allowed for one man to operate the puppets inside. However the marionettes could no longer be used in this type of booth. Many of the marionette characters became glove puppets through necessity. Punchinello had been developed too, his name was completely shortened to Punch now, and he was given the lively red and yellow colours of the traditional English jester. His face became ruby red, his black mask disappeared revealing his large, hypnotic eyes.

   Punch went through this transformation to regain his popularity all over again. Other puppet characters never really made the change successfully, and so as their showmen died, so did their puppet forms too, many actual puppets were buried with the dead puppeteer, this is the reason for there being very few old puppets in museums today. Mr. Punch as he became to be known needed a whole new style of play, and during this time he became very bawdy, with many rude overtones and innuendoes, and he acquired a lady of the streets as a girlfriend. This was all due to the influence of the French farce, which was beginning to appear in the normal theatres.
   The farce was becoming popular, so as ever the puppeteer introduced it more and more within his plays too. Mr. Punch took up the challenge, and again allowed the French ways to influence his character, after all it had been the French who had given Punch’s great granddad ‘Pulcinello’ his hump in the first place, because they thought that deformities were a source of amusement, remember ‘the Hunchback of Notre Dame’. The French had also originally given Pulcinello a cat called Toby, and as cats were not particularly popular in England during the 18^th century then Toby was changed into a dog. To add to the satire Toby often pinched a string of sausages and ran amongst the audience causing havoc, but also creating great amusement, especially amongst the children.
Also during the 18^th century a master puppeteer called Martin Powell from London, who was a hunchbacked little character himself, introduced another puppet to some of his plays, he had already developed some 30 plays in his short career from 1710 to 1713. Mr. Powell’s character was reputed to be a nagging wife called Joan, a female Punch in fact, the combination was electric and soon Mr. Punch had a regular sidekick, Joan. The shows were again attracting the crowds again.

Punch began to carry his own version of a marotte.

   A marotte was traditionally used by a jester in medieval England, and was basically a stuffed puppet head on a stick, used to bash victims on the head and bottoms with etc. Mr. Punch’s marotte form was a stuffed miniature Punch’s head on a stick, which he used to bash Joan with. Mr. Punch was now a wife beater and she usually died within the first act.
   Late in the 18^th century the Twazzle device was invented, made from a reed, it was a resonator that the puppeteers could put in his mouth to change the tonal values of his voice and distorting the sound. Both Punch’s and Joan’s voices were transformed with the twazzle into the voices we recognize instantly today.
   However the introduction of the much loved twazzle brought with it some problems, audiences mistook the word Joanie when Punch called “Joanie, Joanie, Joanie”, it sounded like “Judy, Judy, Judy”. This new name stuck and ever since Punch’s wife was called Judy, and from this time on actual puppet shows carried a dual name tag, they were called Punch and Judy shows, and it never got changed to this day.
   Again late in the 18^th century Punch and Judy shows took a fall in popularity, not a lot, but enough to put many a showman out of business. This decline was yet another hiccup for the showmen to overcome, and puppet shows have always had these ups and downs. Back in the 14^th century medieval puppeteers would be marched out of towns and villages, and sometimes stoned and their booths burned, puppets, puppeteers and all, but these were more civilized times?
   By the end of the 18^th century and the beginning of the 19^th, the public found a new and exciting pastime…going to the coast for holidays. The seaside holiday resort business was beginning to make its mark on society.

   With this new outlet to explore, the puppeteers moved their Punch and Judy shows to the seaside towns to perform them on beaches.

   The marotte itself was changed to the clapper sticks, so that more slapstick comedy could be introduced into the shows. Other puppet forms and characters also tried to invade the beaches, but the Punch and Judy booth was now in its element and had quickly established a willing market there.

   The scripts, which were never really written down were changed, to entertain a broader audience, children were particularly receptive to the new shows, in the past these shows were always aimed at adults, using political satire and farce to entertain, but with this new, younger audience, the comedy was changed to a more visual one. Other new characters were quickly developed to take advantage of the young audience, crocodile, snake, butcher, the hangman, policeman and judge were just a few figures to appear in these re-vamped shows, and of course the baby.

   Mr. Punch continued to defy authority, but in a more comic way, he continued to kill his wife Judy in the first act, and he battered the baby, hung the hangman, and defied justice, and the youngsters loved it.

   On 17^th July 1841 Mr. Mark Lemmon, looking for a name for his new magazine, which was intended to pick fun at both politics, and political figures alike took Mr Punch’s character to heart and produced his magazine, he called it ‘PUNCH’, its still being published, and it still uses political satire that the original Mr. Punch became famous for.

The Victorians began a revival in all forms of puppet theatre, but Punch stayed firmly rooted at the seaside.

   Shadow puppets and simple marionettes were gradually being performed within the home, this was in vogue then to have your own private puppet show. Children were for the first time encouraged to make their own puppets and to entertain the family with them, everything was being orientated around the family unit, to which Queen Victoria became very fond.

   Puppet theatres as a permanent fixture were being set up. Since the early 1700s a ‘Punch’s Theatre’ had been established in London. This now became a permanent showplace for regular puppet shows. Magic lantern shows often depicted Punch and Judy too. Suddenly Punch and Judy became merchandised…The Victorian entrepreneur spirit soon took the Punch and Judy image and put it on everything, mugs, plates, photo sets, money boxes, automatons, mobiles just to name a few. J. John Masters and Company Ltd of London established the PUNCH matchbox label early in the 20^th century, and are still being manufactured there today. For some reason Punch and Judy became marketable characters, and if you go to John Styles shop in Brighton you’ll see a fine collection of Punch memorabilia. John is the chairman of the Professors Union Puppeteers, and is famous within his own right as an adult Punch and Judy entertainer. Within John’s collection are many old Punch and Judy puppets, obtained from all over the world at prestigious auctions.

   Another living Punch professor is Fred Tickner, probably the oldest working craftsman, who still carves puppets for fellow puppeteers, Fred also made the first pilot productions for television nearly fifty years ago using one of his Punch puppets. Fred still travels the shows, but more and more nowadays he’s probably giving one of his lectures somewhere in the world, for puppetry has given Mr. Tickner world wide fame, for he’s a leading authority on Punch and Judy.

   Many songs have been written about Mr. Punch by such diverse people as Gracie Fields, Sir Cliff Richards, The Stranglers and of course the cockney pair Chas and Dave.

   Mr. Punch has recently celebrated his 325^th birthday in May of 1987. The festival took place where he was first seen back in 1662, in Covent Garden, London. There were Punch and Judy’s everywhere, as well as booths, tumbling acts, and many of his distant cousins came from all over the world for this grand occasion.
Lazlo Vitez, the Hungarian version, carries and uses a frying pan instead of the usual marotte.
Petrushka, the Russian version, is a squeaky voiced female, but every bit like her cousin Punch.
Lanswurst, from Germany was there, although at one time he was banned in Germany he now has a steady following.
Kaspen, came from Saxony and France.
Kaspel, the rascal from Munich, probably one of Punch’s most famous cousins.
Vasilache, from Romania came too. 
Even Guignol, from France came, who really isn’t related, but many may argue otherwise, all came together and put on shows.

Why all these variations I might hear you ask, surely there’s only one Mr. Punch, well remember Pulcinello, he came from Italy originally, he was once a marionette within the plays of a traveling theatre and puppet troupe called the Commedia Del Arte. Now this traveling nomadic group performed all over Europe, through France, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Spain, taking Pulcinello with them, thus leaving their influences everywhere they went, this is why these cousins developed, each country developed their own Punch type character from the Pulcinello marionette form.

These influences were certainly evident in 1987s anniversary performances, a truly magnificent event.

   During 1987 I managed to meet a prominent local Punch and Judy man at the Mansfield Carnival, his name is Clown Cuthbert, I never did get to know his real name, “Everyone calls me Cuthbert nowadays” he said. Now this lovable old entertainer comes from a long line of traveling showmen, and puppeteers, his farther made puppets for ventriloquists too, as he was a master carver renowned within his profession. We stopped talking for a while, a photograph of him with his Punch would be great, I’d actually remembered to take along my camera, with a film in it, usually I just forget, Showmen love to talk, and Cuthbert was no exception to this rule. Much of this information was originally given to me by him and I have included it into my history earlier on. It seems like hours of talking came to an end, it was 3:45pm and time for the next show to start. The show began “Hooray” went the crowd as Clown Cuthbert entertained them with a mixture of magic and puppetry skills, everyone enjoyed the show, adults and children alike. Cuthbert performs all over Nottinghamshire doing lots of charity work too, and also travels the length and breadth of the country to entertain both young and old.

Punch and Judy will never die out, Punch has lasted over 355 years now and is still as popular today 2006 as he ever was back in 1662 in the days when he was a marionette with the funny Italian name that no one could pronounce, and the days he first came to England.

FOOTNOTE
Because the original manuscript for this piece was written in 1987 for my college courses as part of my Toy Making and Design Certificate, the living puppet masters mentioned above may now not be alive, so I therefore dedicate this piece to their fond memories for all that knew them and were entertained by them over the many years of plying their age old traditional shows.

By
John
(aka Oaky Wood)Ó2005/06

Oaky Wood was a qualified professional toy maker / designer running his own craft workshops for over 10 years in the UK, and is currently retired through ill health. His main business now is designing and running his own websites The Oakwood Grafix Group http://oakwoodgrafix.co.uk/ and is currently developing “The Corner 4 Women” an eZine for every woman, http://thecorner4women.com and is the resident Agony Uncle, article writer and poet

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